Phantom Risk
Scientific Inference and the Law
MIT Press
Published on 4. June 1993
Book
Hardback
472 pages
978-0-262-06156-8 (ISBN)
Description
Phantom risks are risks whose very existence is unproven and perhaps unprovable, yet they raise real problems at the interface of science and the law. Phantom Risk surveys a dozen scientific issues that have led to public controversy and litigation - among them, miscarriage from the use of video display terminals, birth defects in children whose mothers used the drug Bendectin, and cancer from low-intensity magnetic fields, and from airborne asbestos. It presents the scientific evidence behind these and other issues and summarizes the resulting litigation. Focusing on the great disparity between the scientific evidence that is sufficient to arouse public fears and that needed to establish a hazard or its absence, these original contributions probe the problem of scientific ambiguity in risk assessment, and the mayhem this creates in the courtroom. Although the authors are clearly optimistic about the use of science to detect and evaluate risks, they recognize the difficulty of inferring cause-and-effect relationships from epidemiological (observational) evidence and of inferring risks to humans from high-dose animal experiments, the two major sources of evidence. The final chapter reviews the exceptionally difficult problem of how the legal impact of disputes about phantom risks can be reduced.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge, Mass.
United States
Publishing group
MIT Press Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
US School Grade: From College Freshman to College Graduate Student
Product notice
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 34 mm
Weight
839 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-262-06156-8 (9780262061568)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Kenneth R. Foster | David E. Bernstein | Peter W. Huber
Phantom Risk
Scientific Inference and the Law
Book
01/1999
MIT Press
€38.38
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Persons
Editor
ProfessorUniversity of Pennsylvania
Kellogg, Huber, Hansen, Todd, & Evans, PLLC