Why isn’t the same standard of proof required in law to convict someone what we expect from the public bodies that are designed to protect the public from corporate greed.
Relying on the chemical industry to ‘prove’ that the products they bring to market are safe from the toxic side effects has proven time and again to be an incorrect way of protecting public health. This is why we vote in democracies. There is an implicit trust and by default implied responsibility that the governments we elect to govern and protect us will discharge that duty across all aspects of the public domain. That includes safety.
There is a large weight of anecdotal and scientific evidence that industry will rush a product to market without a full ‘safety’ study. A total independent scientific proof that the product has no harmful side effects and, more importantly, that all side effects and synergistic interactions are known and understood.
Scientists are clever and we would like to think that they have the best of intentions but industry is about profits and the marketing type has a completely different moral code. Time and again products have been pushed onto a trusting public only to find out within five, ten or longer years that the side effects of that product are severely damaging. Think of DDT, our view of safe levels of lead, asbestos, thalidomide to name a few.
The governments we elect have a moral duty to protect the people they represent. That means public bodies like the FDA and EPA must have the powers to impose independent test protocols (which industry pay for – they are ones that stand to profit after all) that prove, like in other aspects of the law, “beyond all reasonable doubt” that a product is safe before it is allowed to be used on the public in any way, shape or form.
