The Wussy-Principle

If it even HINTS of being harmful...the Euro's don't want any part of it...


As globalization fosters economic growth around the world, Americans should be vigilant of an unintended consequence: the imposition on U.S. businesses and consumers of the non-science-based, environmentalist-promoted, European Union-embraced standard known as the "precautionary principle."

The precautionary principle is the subject of a new Washington Legal Foundation report entitled "Exporting Precaution: How Europe's Risk-Free Regulatory Agenda Threatens American Free Enterprise." Authored by Lawrence Kogan of the Institute for Trade Standards and Sustainable Development, the report describes how "international bureaucrats and influential activist groups use the precautionary principle as a vehicle to diminish America's competitive position in the global economy and advance special interest agendas hostile to free enterprise and technology."

Kogan aptly calls the precautionary principle "regulation without representation."

The precautionary principle is a scheme for establishing environmental, health and safety regulations that are based on irrational fears rather than empirical science.

Under the precautionary principle, activities, products and substances may be banned or restricted if it is merely possible that they or the processes used for their manufacture, formulation or assembly might cause health or environmental harm under some unknown and unspecified future circumstances. In other words: It focuses on purely hypothetical risks rather than actual hazards."

Read the whole thing if you've a mind to. Basically, the mere threat of a hazard receives more weight then the scientific knowledge available, and that's what keeping certain of our foodstuffs from being sold in Europe. Maybe, could be, might be, then they shurg and say who-knows. Well, some folks DO know, but they're called intelligent and informed adults...obviously a rarity across the pond.