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The European Journal of Public Health Advance Access originally published online on September 23, 2006
The European Journal of Public Health 2006 16(6):576-577; doi:10.1093/eurpub/ckl230
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Public Health Association. All rights reserved.

Commentary

The principle of precaution-based prevention: a Popperian paradox?

G. Rezza

Epidemiology Unit, Department of Infectious Diseases, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Italy

Correspondence: Dr Giovanni Rezza, Epidemiology Unit, Department of Infectious Diseases, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Viale Regina Elena, 299, 00161 Roma, Italy, e-mail: g.rezza@iss.it

Received July 14, 2006, accepted August 25, 2006

The first 10% of the full text of this article appears below.

One may suppose that prevention, as well as treatment, should be based on scientific evidence. However, no decision regarding public-health policy depends solely on epidemiological or toxicological data. To this regard, Rothman affirms that ‘the optimists among us hope that the fruit of scientific labour will enlighten the political process that ultimately decides the policy, but let us not be deluded into thinking that policies are or should be chosen solely by the evaluation of data’.1 In . . . [Full Text of this Article]


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