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bowleyjoo
- Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts
- Posts: 51
- Joined: Tue Jun 17, 2008 3:41 am
- Location: Thailand
“Government should establish regulations to reduce or eliminate any suspected health hazards in the environment, even when the scientific studies of these health hazards are incomplete or contradictory.”
Nowadays, the environmental danger on people’s health is one of the world’s most critical issues. Many people believe that the best solution of this problem is the government’s strict regulations, even though no scientific studies do prove the deleterious effects of certain health hazards. From my point of view, however, any regulations to control over health hazards ought to be issued together with the sufficient scientific guarantee because of several reasons.
Firstly and foremost, the immediate enforcement of regulations without explicit evidences would be considered the excessive use of power. For instance, the government prohibits the chemical industry from producing a certain type of plastic by just stating that the smog from the plant seems to be dangerous. Yet, no study does to government use to support this enforcement. The chemical industry would believe that the government intends to benefit other business competitors’ at the expense of the chemical industry. Apparently, the government would not be credulous anymore. No matter what the actual intention of the officer is, this may cause dissatisfaction to specific groups of people, and may expand to the mass resistance. Possibly, the tiny concern could become the country’s major crisis.
Secondly, although healthy concern should be the priority, arbitrarily rapid action would bring about more harm than good, especially if the scientific studies later prove that the suspected hazards are not perilous as the government presumes. The regulations to limit the health hazards could extremely ruin some industries. For example, a beverage business loses profitability and reputation because the enforced rule claims that its ingredient can cause some diseases to consumers. The business may have to close. If government’s claim is not true, the government could hardly compensate the loss of the beverage business.
Lastly, there are still other solutions which do not have negative impact on any parties. Actually, the root cause of the current issue is that the whole citizens are still not equally informed about the health hazards. Therefore, the government’s role should be just to support the communication system of the country. Then, the whole citizens can equally access to the last updated information about health concerns. Moreover, each person has his own right to determine whether he would like to not believe the warning or he would like avoid the danger. The citizens would evaluate the information and choose their own path themselves. Hence, the government does not necessarily have to establish any regulations, but still can protect people who are wary on health. Also, no party is treated unfairly, and thus it leads to all party win-win scenarios.
In summary, the establishment of regulations on health hazards prior to complete scientific evidences is disadvantageous. Since such practice is unfair to some groups of people, is possible to destroy government’s credibility, the government should adopt other alternatives to improve people’s health, such as the one mentioned above.
Nowadays, the environmental danger on people’s health is one of the world’s most critical issues. Many people believe that the best solution of this problem is the government’s strict regulations, even though no scientific studies do prove the deleterious effects of certain health hazards. From my point of view, however, any regulations to control over health hazards ought to be issued together with the sufficient scientific guarantee because of several reasons.
Firstly and foremost, the immediate enforcement of regulations without explicit evidences would be considered the excessive use of power. For instance, the government prohibits the chemical industry from producing a certain type of plastic by just stating that the smog from the plant seems to be dangerous. Yet, no study does to government use to support this enforcement. The chemical industry would believe that the government intends to benefit other business competitors’ at the expense of the chemical industry. Apparently, the government would not be credulous anymore. No matter what the actual intention of the officer is, this may cause dissatisfaction to specific groups of people, and may expand to the mass resistance. Possibly, the tiny concern could become the country’s major crisis.
Secondly, although healthy concern should be the priority, arbitrarily rapid action would bring about more harm than good, especially if the scientific studies later prove that the suspected hazards are not perilous as the government presumes. The regulations to limit the health hazards could extremely ruin some industries. For example, a beverage business loses profitability and reputation because the enforced rule claims that its ingredient can cause some diseases to consumers. The business may have to close. If government’s claim is not true, the government could hardly compensate the loss of the beverage business.
Lastly, there are still other solutions which do not have negative impact on any parties. Actually, the root cause of the current issue is that the whole citizens are still not equally informed about the health hazards. Therefore, the government’s role should be just to support the communication system of the country. Then, the whole citizens can equally access to the last updated information about health concerns. Moreover, each person has his own right to determine whether he would like to not believe the warning or he would like avoid the danger. The citizens would evaluate the information and choose their own path themselves. Hence, the government does not necessarily have to establish any regulations, but still can protect people who are wary on health. Also, no party is treated unfairly, and thus it leads to all party win-win scenarios.
In summary, the establishment of regulations on health hazards prior to complete scientific evidences is disadvantageous. Since such practice is unfair to some groups of people, is possible to destroy government’s credibility, the government should adopt other alternatives to improve people’s health, such as the one mentioned above.
