Dr. Steven Novella

Yeah, so risk and hazard is, this is a classic thing that comes up with the public misunderstanding, this kind of stuff.

So I didn't come up with this, but I love it, so I borrow it because it really shines a light on it very well.

Hazard is like a shark, right?

A shark is clearly hazardous.

They can kill you, like a great white shark.

It's a very hazardous being.

I would say so.

But if you're at an aquarium and the shark is in a tank and you're not in the tank, the risk is quite low.

So big hazard, very tiny risk.

You get in the tank with the shark, that's a very high risk, right?

So you could say, well, this chemical is hazardous.

Therefore, the public should not be exposed to it.

It's like, yeah, but at the doses that it's getting in the environment, in the food or whatever, the risk is insignificant.

There's no measurable risk.

So do we care more about the hazard or do we care more about the risk?

I think we should care about risk because that tells you what the actual probability is of harm.

And the United States, the regulatory agencies regulate things based upon risk, except for California, which regulates by hazard.

The European Union also regulates by hazard.

RFK loves the hazard approach because everything's a hazard, right?

I don't know specifically because that, I think, happened behind the scenes.