Presidents Cancer Report supports the Precautionary Principle

The Precautionary Principle, is an approach to chemical pesticides which is characterized by minimizing or eliminating potential hazards to human health, or the environment, at the onset of an activity rather than accepting a level of harm.
To support the Precautionary Principle being adopted, here are excerpts from the 2010 President’s Cancer Panel report (the entire report is available from the US National Cancer Institute’s Web site at: http://deainfo.nci.nih.gov/advisory/pcp/pcp.htm
As you know this document examines the impact of environmental factor on cancer and is sub-titled:
REDUCING ENVIRONMENTAL CANCER RISK . What We Can Do Now.
To support the Precautionary Principle here are very important direct quotes from the Presidents Cancer Report and pretty much describes why we need the Precautionary Principle on a local basis.
Regulation of Environmental Contaminants
“The prevailing regulatory approach in the United States is reactionary rather than precautionary.
That is,instead of taking preventive action when uncertainty exists about the potential harm a chemical or other environmental contaminant may cause, a hazard must be incontrovertibly demonstrated before action to ameliorate it is initiated.
Moreover, instead of requiring industry or other proponents of specific chemicals, devices, or activities to prove their safety, the public bears the burden of proving that a given environmental exposure is harmful.”
Regulation of environmental contaminants is rendered ineffective by five major problems:
(1) inadequate funding and insufficient staffing,
(2) fragmented and overlapping authorities coupled with uneven and decentralized enforcement,
(3) excessive regulatory complexity,
(4) weak laws and regulations, and
(5) undue industry influence.
Too often, these factors, either singly or in combination, result in agency dysfunction and a lack of will to identify and remove hazards.