Precautionary Regulation in Europe and the United States: A Quantitative Comparison

Much attention has been addressed to the question of whether Europe or the United States adopts a more precautionary stance to the regulation of potential environmental, health, and safety risks. Some commentators suggest that Europe is more risk-averse and precautionary, whereas the US is seen as more risk-taking and optimistic about the prospects for new technology. Others suggest that the US is more precautionary because its regulatory process is more legalistic and adversarial, while Europe is more lax and corporatist in its regulations. The flip-flop hypothesis claims that the US was more precautionary than Europe in the 1970s and early 1980s, and that Europe has become more precautionary since then. We examine the levels and trends in regulation of environmental, health, and safety risks since 1970. Unlike previous research, which has studied only a small set of prominent cases selected non-randomly, we develop a comprehensive list of almost 3,000 risks and code the relative stringency of regulation in Europe and the US for each of 100 risks randomly selected from that list for each year from 1970 through 2004. Our results suggest that: (a) averaging over risks, there is no significant difference in relative precaution over the period, (b) weakly consistent with the flip-flop hypothesis, there is some evidence of a modest shift toward greater relative precaution of European regulation since about 1990, although (c) there is a diversity of trends across risks, of which the most common is no change in relative precaution (including cases where Europe and the US are equally precautionary and where Europe or the US has been consistently more precautionary). The overall finding is of a mixed and diverse pattern of relative transatlantic precaution over the period

Critical behavior of weakly-disordered anisotropic systems in two dimensions

The critical behavior of two-dimensional (2D) anisotropic systems with weak quenched disorder described by the so-called generalized Ashkin-Teller model (GATM) is studied. In the critical region this model is shown to be described by a multifermion field theory similar to the Gross-Neveu model with a few independent quartic coupling constants. Renormalization group calculations are used to obtain the temperature dependence near the critical point of some thermodynamic quantities and the large distance behavior of the two-spin correlation function. The equation of state at criticality is also obtained in this framework. We find that random models described by the GATM belong to the same universality class as that of the two-dimensional Ising model. The critical exponent $\nu$ of the correlation length for the 3- and 4-state random-bond Potts models is also calculated in a 3-loop approximation. We show that this exponent is given by an apparently convergent series in $\epsilon=c-\frac{1}{2}$ (with $c$ the central charge of the Potts model) and that the numerical values of $\nu$ are very close to that of the 2D Ising model. This work therefore supports the conjecture (valid only approximately for the 3- and 4-state Potts models) of a superuniversality for the 2D disordered models with discrete symmetries.Comment: REVTeX, 24 pages, to appear in Phys.Rev.

Reassuring and managing patients with concerns about swine flu: Qualitative interviews with callers to NHS Direct

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>During the early stages of the 2009 swine flu (influenza H1N1) outbreak, the large majority of patients who contacted the health services about the illness did not have it. In the UK, the NHS Direct telephone service was used by many of these patients. We used qualitative interviews to identify the main reasons why people approached NHS Direct with concerns about swine flu and to identify aspects of their contact which were reassuring, using a framework approach.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>33 patients participated in semi-structured interviews. All patients had telephoned NHS Direct between 11 and 14 May with concerns about swine flu and had been assessed as being unlikely to have the illness.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Reasons for seeking advice about swine flu included: the presence of unexpectedly severe flu-like symptoms; uncertainties about how one can catch swine flu; concern about giving it to others; pressure from friends or employers; and seeking 'peace of mind.' Most participants found speaking to NHS Direct reassuring or useful. Helpful aspects included: having swine flu ruled out; receiving an alternative explanation for symptoms; clarification on how swine flu is transmitted; and the perceived credibility of NHS Direct. No-one reported anything that had increased their anxiety and only one participant subsequently sought additional advice about swine flu from elsewhere.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Future major incidents involving other forms of chemical, biological or radiological hazards may also cause large numbers of unexposed people to seek health advice. Our data suggest that providing telephone triage and information is helpful in such instances, particularly where advice can be given via a trusted, pre-existing service.</p