ANSWER: How do we as a society define acceptable risk? Is this/should this be a cost issue? What is the cost value of a human life? Interesting philosophical, but also practical questions.
What are your thoughts about these issues – the value of human life and our (the government’s) obligation to protect and prolong life? What is government’s obligation? When does it stop? Does it stop?
By the way, as you ponder this, take a look at this article in Time Magazine Europe about the impact on life expectancies and premature deaths in Europe.
http://time.com/3729637/europe-air-pollution-deaths-eu-environment/
Go deeper into how to quantify the potential public health effects of air pollutants, what researchers are doing, and their approach. This lecture examines how scientists estimate the portion of a population that may come down with a given illness resulting in shortened lifespans given their exposure levels to certain air pollutants. As we discussed earlier, there certainly is a relationship between length and degree of exposure with the health effect. Again, I know some – perhaps many – of you have practical public health experience, so certainly share with the class your comments about this lecture and “war stories” from your experience.
This deeper understanding and rough quantification of risk begs the question of how we respond to the risk of disease and shortened lives as a society? How important are the human and economic costs of shortened lives, more and more complex medical care for those who suffer, the loss in productivity for our economy? See the New York Times article – albeit a little old now – on the value of a human life and how governmental agencies wrestle with this question.
Do we spend whatever it takes – maybe hundreds of billions of dollars per year – to reduce toxic emissions stringently to reduce exposure at ground level such that the public health risk of all air pollutants to virtually zero? Isn’t this the obligation we have to protect the public? And, if so, who should pay? The polluters? Maybe, but that may raise the price of what you buy at the store tremendously or entice companies to move their operations to other countries that have more lax (or no) air pollution laws or don’t care about the value of human life. And this could cause us to lose jobs, resulting in other public health impacts (greater domestic violence, alcoholism, opiods, etc.). The taxpayers? People don’t like to pay more taxes, especially for things that are not palpable or measurable like reduced mortality (how do I know it’s my life being prolonged?). A combination? And who has that much money? On the other hand, if we spend/invest little to regulate air emissions, we “save” money by not spending so much upfront, but we could also have hundreds of thousands or millions of Americans with diminished lifetimes annually due to pollutant-caused diseases. How would we as a society feel about this both morally and in terms of the high costs (loss in productivity, increased medical costs and hospitalizations)? Could we adopt a middle course? What would that be? What might be the number of “allowable” deaths we should accept as a society? Who makes this decision?
ANSWER: How do we as a society define acceptable risk? Is this/should this be a cost issue? What is the cost value of a human life? Interesting philosophical, but also practical questions.
What are your thoughts about these issues – the value of human life and our (the government’s) obligation to protect and prolong life? What is government’s obligation? When does it stop? Does it stop?
By the way, as you ponder this, take a look at this article in Time Magazine Europe about the impact on life expectancies and premature deaths in Europe.
http://time.com/3729637/europe-air-pollution-deaths-eu-environment/
May 6th, 2020 
