For instance, because of untreated pulp mill discharges in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there were embayments on the west coast of North America where nothing lived, dead fish washed up daily, and there was no need to remove barnacles from the bottom of boats – there were no barnacles (Dexter et al., 1985). But nowadays municipal and industrial

effluent discharges, at least in North America and other developed countries, do not result in “dead areas”. The concern is for potential chronic rather than acute effects, and concerns are sometimes based on perceptions http://www.selleckchem.com/products/bgj398-nvp-bgj398.html rather than facts. Treatment is expensive in monetary terms (and, as noted above, can also be expensive in environmental terms). There are cases where treatment is necessary, but there are also cases where treatment may not be necessary and the monies used for treatment could be put to better use to improve human health (e.g., applying those monies to the health care system) and the environment (e.g., attempting to deal with arguably our greatest-ever environmental challenge: global warming). The third response is a variation on the second, invoking the Precautionary Principle (PP). Unfortunately the PP is too often misunderstood

or misrepresented; it is too often invoked to further human political or activist agendas, with Wnt inhibitor no understanding of its original meaning. The PP was originally developed in the 1970s as a concept within environmental science in Germany, a general rule of public policy-making

(EEA 2001). Specifically, the original and, I believe, most relevant PP stated that where there are potentially serious or irreversible threats to human health or the environment (or both) there is a need to reduce potential risks before there is strong proof of harm, taking account of the likely costs and benefits of action and inaction. Two subsequent different and, I believe, deficient definitions of the PP bear mention (for more details on these and other definitions, see EEA (2001) and SNIFFER (2005)). The United Nations Environment Program 1992 Rio Declaration 15 definition of Branched chain aminotransferase the PP failed to mention the cost-benefits of action and inaction: “Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation”. The Wingspread Declaration (named after the Wingspread Conference Center, Racine, WI, USA) of January 1998, with 32 authors, focused on endocrine disrupting chemicals and stated: “Where an activity raises threats of harm to the environment or human health, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically.” This definition omitted not only the cost-benefits of action and inaction but also the important term ‘serious or irreversible damage’. A threat of harm may or may not materialize (i.e.