Breaking the Vicious Circle

[lightreads]

Breaking the Vicious Circle: Toward Effective Risk Regulation by Stephen Breyer


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I'm snowed in and I have galloping bronchitis, so naturally I read Justice Breyer on risk regulation. Like you do.

A tiny, non-technical, non-legal book about improving the spotty and inconsistent U.S. record on risk regulation, particularly toxins and carcinogens. Breyer is lucid and readable as he sketches out the common problems at a basic level – dueling regulatory regimes, the last mile problem, etc. – and how to fix them – a new system more scientific and centralized than what OIRA does now. Relevant and accurate even after fifteen years, and worth reading, because this is stuff a lot of people don't know about. But if you're like me and you've read all the more technical, more legalistic stuff – Graham, Sunstein, Calabresi, etc. – this adds nothing new and actually passes very lightly over issues like why spending money to save lives often costs lives in other arenas.

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Comments

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

It sounds interesting to me, since I don't know much about risk regulation outside of the safety protocols of my own field.

Would you say it's a good introduction for a lay reader, then/

[lightreads.livejournal.com]

Definitely.