Public Policies Guided by the Precautionary Principle

This paper is part of a series of essays developed for the National Collaborating Centre for Healthy Public Policy by researchers associated with the Centre de recherche en éthique de l'Université de Montréal (Université de Montréal Research Centre in Ethics). Developed by Valérie Beloin, it addresses the use of the precautionary principle in public health. The precautionary principle was most explicitly developed by and through the development of environmental risk management policies, and has been used for a number of years in this public policy domain. As its increasingly frequent use by public health actors shows, it can also be useful when public policy decisions need to be made in situations where, based on available scientific knowledge, the very existence of health risks to the population is uncertain. One reason that the use of the principle is the subject of vigorous ethical debate is because it is in tension with the ever-increasing call for emphasis on evidence-based public policies.

In her essay, the author deals with the principle itself in order to examine its relevance to public health. It is in this spirit that she goes beyond its particular embodiments in concrete situations to focus on clearly explaining the foundations of the principle, primarily through an examination of four elements that form its general structure. Then, the author proceeds to examine three of the main criticisms that have been formulated against the use of the principle, while presenting directions in which effective responses may be developed.