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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sam Citron who wrote (122892)	1/7/2004 5:07:54 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

<eating a burger is less risky than driving a car> I just thought it was an interesting parable, about risk assessment, and irrational resource allocation. I draw few conclusions from it, and change no behavior. Balancing risks is never an all-or-none decision. A cost-benefit calculation tells you where to most profitably spend the marginal dollar. So, regulating and educating on both car safety and beef production is rational. The question is: how much effort to each, is the right balance? Britain and other nations, have spent billions (and now, will spend more billions), disposing of millions of cows who might (just might) be infected, and testing, and enforcing other regulations. The question is: could those billions have saved more lives, if spent for other things? In Britain, almost 200,000 infected cows have been found, yet only about 100 people have died. In the U.S., one infected cow has been found (and, I think, almost all its meat recovered). What is the risk, for Americans, of getting v-CJD? You can do the ratio. The risk is effectively zero. It is so low, that any change in behavior by consumers must be considered an emotional and irrational response. Changing your behavior because of mad cows, is like changing your behavior because an asteroid might hit your home. With that said, I must admit that my response to reading about "downer cows" and "meat-extraction machines" was as silly as your toxicologist's. I thought: "Uggh. I'm going to become a vegetarian. Or only buy hamburger at the groovy-food grocery, certified range-fed zero-hormone, healthy happy cows who walked to their deaths with a spring in their step, while Bach played in the background (loud enough to cover the sound of knives cutting through bone)." I am a human, not a risk-benefit calculation machine. But I think our governments could do a better job being more rational, allocating resources where they do the most good for the most people. For instance, I'd suggest that most of the additional money being spent to prevent v-CJD, could be better spent on public education advocating (in no particular order): 1. wearing seat belts 2. not drinking while driving 3. not using a cellphone while driving 4. condom use 5. sex only within marriage. 6. no tobacco use 7. the sanctity of all life, or at least all human life