A risky business

Abstract

Risk assessment is a complex and exacting activity, and the US National Academies of Science have played a globally acknowledged role over many years in providing guidance on how it should be done. The academy has said that a draft risk-assessment bulletin of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the White House Office of Management and Budget was fundamentally flawed and ought to be completely withdrawn, but many believe that the Academy is wrong in attempting to impose a one-size-fits-all approach to risk assessment overseen by so political an office as the OMB.