Editing Precautionary principle (section)

==Criticisms==
Critics of the principle use arguments similar to those against other formulations of technological conservatism.

===Internal inconsistency: applying strong PP risks causing harm===
Strong formulations of the precautionary principle, without regard to its most basic provisions (i.e., that it is to be applied only where risks are potentially catastrophic ''and'' not easily calculable), when applied to the principle itself as a policy decision, beats its own purpose of reducing risk.<ref name="Beyond Laws of Fear"/>{{rp|26ff}} The reason suggested is that preventing innovation from coming to market means that only current technology may be used, and current technology itself may cause harm or leave needs unmet; there is a risk of causing harm by blocking innovation.<ref name = Guardian>Brown, Tracey (9 July 2013)[https://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2013/jul/09/precautionary-principle-blunt-instrument The precautionary principle is a blunt instrument] ''[[The Guardian]]'', Retrieved 9 August 2013</ref><ref>Sherry Seethaler.  [https://archive.org/details/liesdamnedliessc0000seet Lies, Damned Lies, and Science: How to Sort through the Noise around Global Warming, the Latest Health Claims, and Other Scientific Controversies] FT Press, 2009</ref> As [[Michael Crichton]] wrote in his novel ''[[State of Fear]]'': "The 'precautionary principle', properly applied, forbids the precautionary principle."<ref name=CAST52>Merchant, G et al. [http://www.cast-science.org/download.cfm?PublicationID=276208&File=1030ac6763c4d6f3918b92e5a1345c4b8024TR Impact of the Precautionary Principle on Feeding Current and Future Generations] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131114011005/http://www.cast-science.org/download.cfm?PublicationID=276208&File=1030ac6763c4d6f3918b92e5a1345c4b8024TR |date=14 November 2013 }} CAST Issue Paper 52, June 2013</ref>

For example, forbidding [[nuclear power]] plants based on concerns about low-probability high-impact risks means continuing to rely on power plants that burn fossil fuels, which continue to release [[greenhouse gas]]es and thousands of certain deaths from [[air pollution]].<ref name="Beyond Laws of Fear" />{{rp|27}}

In 2021 in response to early reports about rare blood clots seen in 25 patients out of 20 million vaccinated by [[Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine|Astra-Zeneca COVID-19 vaccine]]<ref>{{cite web |last1=Miller |first1=Adam |title=Canada monitoring guidance on AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine amid potential link to blood clots |url=https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/astrazeneca-blood-clot-risk-canada-1.5957462 |website=CBC |date=20 March 2021}}</ref> a number of European Union member states suspended the use of the vaccine, quoting the "precautionary principle". This was criticized by other EU states who refused to suspend the vaccination program, declaring that the "precautionary" decisions are focusing on the wrong risk, as delay in a vaccination program results in a larger number of certain deaths than any yet unconfirmed complications.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Waterfield|first=Bruno|title=The EU's risk aversion cost thousands of lives|newspaper=[[The Times]]|language=en|url=https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/the-eus-risk-aversion-cost-thousands-of-lives-pzfdb9j8r|access-date=2021-03-25|issn=0140-0460}}</ref>

{{Main|European Commission–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine dispute}}

In another example, the Hazardous Air Pollutant provisions in the [[Clean Air Act (1990)|1990 amendments to the US Clean Air Act]] are an example of the Precautionary Principle where the onus is now on showing a listed compound is harmless. Under this rule no distinction is made between those air pollutants that provide a higher or lower risk, so operators tend to choose less-examined agents that are not on the existing list.<ref>{{cite journal |vauthors=Goldstein BD, Carruth RS |title=Implications of the Precautionary Principle: is it a threat to science? |journal= International Journal of Occupational Medicine and Environmental Health|volume=17 |issue=1 |pages=153–61 |year=2004 |pmid=15212219 }}</ref>

{{Blockquote|text=The very basis of the Precautionary Principle is to imagine the worst without supporting evidence... those with the darkest imaginations become the most influential.|author=[[Adam Curtis]]|source=[[The Power of Nightmares]]}}

===Blocking innovation and progress generally===
{{See also|Fear, uncertainty and doubt}}
Because applications of strong formulations of the precautionary principle can be used to block innovation, a technology which brings advantages may be banned by precautionary principle because of its potential for negative impacts, leaving the positive benefits unrealised.<ref name="Sunstein">Sunstein, Cass R. [http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv25n4/v25n4-9.pdf The Paralyzing Principle: Does the Precautionary Principle Point us in any Helpful Direction?] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070215223946/https://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv25n4/v25n4-9.pdf |date=15 February 2007 }} Regulation, Winter 2002–2003, The Cato Institute.</ref><ref>[[David Deutsch]],
[https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Beginning_of_Infinity.html?id=WFZl7YvsiuIC The Beginning of Infinity] Penguin Books (UK), Viking Press (US), 2011. {{ISBN|978-0-7139-9274-8}}</ref>{{rp|201}}<ref>{{Cite journal|vauthors=Morris SH, Spillane C|year=2008|title=GM directive deficiencies in the European Union|journal=EMBO Reports|volume=9|issue=6|pages=500–504|doi=10.1038/embor.2008.94|pmid=18516083|pmc=2427373}}</ref>

The precautionary principle has been ethically questioned on the basis that its application could block progress in developing countries.<ref>{{cite book|last=Jimenez-Arias|first=Luis G.|title=Biothics and the Environment|year=2008|publisher=Libros en Red|page=73|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YLjDG6sUaRkC&q=luis+g+jimenez+arias+biothics&pg=PA8|isbn=9781597543804}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Beware the Precautionary Principle|url=http://www.sirc.org/articles/beware.html|access-date=2021-03-16|website=www.sirc.org|archive-date=15 March 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210315065004/http://sirc.org/articles/beware.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>

{{Blockquote|text=The precautionary principle presents a serious hazard to our health which extends way beyond the generation of unnecessary neuroses. The biggest correlate of our health and well being is our standard of living, as measured in conventional economic and physical terms. People in technologically advanced societies suffer fewer diseases and live longer than those in less developed nations. The biggest killer in the world is not genetically modified soya, pesticide residues or even tobacco. It is something which is given the code Z59.5 in the International Classification of Disease Handbook and accounts for more deaths world-wide than any other single factor. It is defined as 'Extreme Poverty'.|source=Social Issues Research Centre}}

===Vagueness and plausibility===
The precautionary principle calls for action in the face of scientific uncertainty, but some formulations do not specify the minimal threshold of plausibility of risk that acts as a "triggering" condition, so that any indication that a proposed product or activity might harm health or the environment is sufficient to invoke the principle.<ref name="vandenBelt">{{cite journal |doi=10.1104/pp.103.023531 |author=van den Belt H |title=Debating the Precautionary Principle: "Guilty until Proven Innocent" or "Innocent until Proven Guilty"? |journal=Plant Physiol. |volume=132 |issue=3 |pages=1122–6 |date=July 2003 |pmid=12857792 |pmc=526264 }}</ref><ref>Bailey, Ronald. [http://www.reason.com/news/show/30977.html Precautionary Tale] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080313211959/https://www.reason.com/news/show/30977.html |date=13 March 2008 }}. Reason. April 1999</ref> In ''Sancho vs. [[United States Department of Energy|DOE]]'', Helen Gillmor, Senior District Judge, wrote in a dismissal of Wagner's lawsuit which included a popular<ref>{{cite web |author=Highfield |first=Roger |date=5 September 2008 |title=Scientists get death threats over Large Hadron Collider |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3351119/Scientists-get-death-threats-over-Large-Hadron-Collider.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090801125522/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3351119/Scientists-get-death-threats-over-Large-Hadron-Collider.html |archive-date=1 August 2009 |access-date=29 October 2014 |work=Telegraph.co.uk}}</ref> worry that the [[Large Hadron Collider|LHC]] could cause "destruction of the earth" by a [[black hole]]:

{{Blockquote|Injury in fact requires some "credible threat of harm." ''Cent. Delta Water Agency v. United States'', 306 F.3d 938, 950 (9th Cir. 2002). At most, Wagner has alleged that experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (the "Collider") have "potential adverse consequences." Speculative fear of future harm does not constitute an injury in fact sufficient to confer [[Standing (law)#United States|standing]]. ''Mayfield'', 599 F.3d at 970.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://networkedblogs.com/7erBW|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100830183119/http://networkedblogs.com/7erBW|url-status=usurped|archive-date=30 August 2010|title=LHC lawsuit dismissed by US court|work=symmetry magazine|access-date=29 October 2014}}</ref>}}

=== The precautionary dilemma ===
The most commonly pressed objection to the precautionary principle ties together two of the above objections into the form of a dilemma.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|last=Steel|first=Daniel|date=2013|title=The Precautionary Principle and the Dilemma Objection|journal=Ethics, Policy and Environment: A Journal of Philosophy and Geography|volume=16|issue=3|pages=321–340|doi=10.1080/21550085.2013.844570|s2cid=56089605}}</ref><ref name="Sunstein" /><ref name=":2">{{Cite journal|last=Sunstein|first=Cass|date=2005|title=The Precautionary Principle as a Basis for Decision Making|journal=The Economists' Voice|volume=2|issue=2|page=8|doi=10.2202/1553-3832.1079|s2cid=52241337|url=https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/1/29998410/1/PrecautionaryPrinciple.pdf}}</ref> This maintains that, of the two available interpretations of the principle, neither are plausible: weak formulations (which hold that precaution in the face of uncertain harms is permissible) are trivial, while strong formulations (which hold that precaution in the face of uncertain harms is ''required'') are incoherent.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" /><ref name="Sunstein" /> On the first horn of the dilemma [[Cass Sunstein]] states:{{blockquote|The weak versions of the Precautionary Principle state a truism—uncontroversial in principle and necessary in practice only to combat public confusion or the self-interested claims of private groups demanding unambiguous evidence of harm, which no rational society requires.<ref name=":3">{{Cite book|title=Laws of fear|last=Sunstein|first=Cass|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2005|location=Cambridge}}</ref>{{rp|24}}}} If all that the (weak) principle states is that it is permissible to act in a precautionary manner where there is a possible risk of harm, then it constitutes a trivial truism and thus fails to be useful.

If we formulate the principle in the stronger sense however, it looks like it rules out ''all'' courses of action, including the precautionary measures it is intended to advocate. This is because, if we stipulate that precaution is ''required'' in the face of uncertain harms, and precautionary measures also carry a risk of harm, the precautionary principle can both demand and prohibit action at the same time. The risk of a policy resulting in catastrophic harm is always ''possible''. For example: prohibiting [[genetically modified crops]] risks significantly reduced food production; placing a moratorium on nuclear power risks an over-reliance on coal that could lead to more air pollution; implementing extreme measures to slow global warming risks impoverishment and bad health outcomes for some people.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":3" /><ref name=":2" /> The strong version of the precautionary principle, in that "[i]t bans the very steps that it requires",<ref name=":3" />{{rp|26}} thus fails to be coherent. As Sunstein states, it is not protective, it is "paralyzing".<ref name=":3" />{{rp|34}}