Pollution has become a major issue over the years because it contaminates the Earth’s environment and affects human health. While some environmental pollution is a result of natural causes such as volcanic eruptions, most is caused by human activities. The increase of various types of pollution has made cancer pollutant more prevalent among the people, raising the risk of getting cancer. After being exposed to theses pollutants, the effects may be immediate or delayed. Some of the delayed effects, due to the exposure, can go unnoticed for many years. Another major issue that pollution creates is the tremendous cost for preventing and cleaning it up.
However, we can not regulate the pollutants to the extent where there are no more possible threats. The most we can do is to minimize the effects of the potential risks, which we may encounter as a society. We can approach this matter by conducting different types of test from animal studies and epidemiological studies. To regulate pollution, we first have to have an idea of what type of effects it will have on the general population and then determine the acceptable amount of exposure level. Since the specific risk here is that the individual will get cancer, after being exposed to a pollutant, possibly leading to their death, we have to consider a few factors such as age, sex, and their health status. Depending on how old the person is, if they are relatively young then he or she may not be affected by the pollutant because their immune system can probably fight off the pathogens.
Gender can also make a difference, since males and females have different biological anatomies, thus the pollutant may be resistant to females but not the males or vice versa. Finally, the health status of a person also has to be considered. If a person is healthy and fit then maybe age might not matter and it will decrease their potential threat from the pollutant. After all of these factors are taken into account we have to regulate the carcinogenic pollutant and determine an acceptable level of risk. To determine what the effects are after an individual has been exposed to this pollutant and gets cancer, we can perform animals or epidemiological studies. Even though the animal studies will not be deterministic since we are not using human subjects to collect the data, it will give us an idea on how another living organism is affected.
Another study we can conduct is the epidemiological analysis. This is the study of short and long term effects of a pollutant in a particular population. One possible way to control the carcinogenic pollutant is to get a bill passed by Congress, which makes it mandatory for industrial places to reduce the amount of pollution they create. By reducing the amount of pollution production, the exposure level of the carcinogenic pollutant will decrease. This law enforces the industrial companies to establish new methods and strategies to create their products with less pollution distribution in the end. As another preventive measure, there are products available to the population that contains carcinogenic elements that can be taken off the market until they are redesigned and approved by the government.
One last effort to regulate the cancer pollutant is to increase the funds for research so that we can have a better understanding of cancer and how to cure it. Consequently, we can create better drugs available to the population, which can decrease the chances of people, with cancer, from dying. Now that we have the regulations into effect, the next thing to do is determine appropriate levels of exposure and the risk level. However, this raises the question of how do determine what a human life is worth.
There is no conclusive answer to this question, so we have to take risks. If we take the total number of deaths that occur every year in the world or a particular country and divide that by the number deaths per year caused by cancer, we calculate the risks of death from cancer per year. It is from this percentage value that we can conclude whether or not the risk level is properly set or not. In my opinion, the risk level should be no more that ten to fifteen percent, keeping in mind the moral issues. The reason I chose this range is because I believe that it is the closet we can probably get in reducing the risk level in this technological world that we live in today.
The invention of any new technology limits or disencumbers our problems, but at the same time creates new ones. Therefore we can not have the risk level completely zero because it is only an idealistic situation and can not occur in a real society. No matter who adjusts these values there will be some level of subjectivity and bias, but we have to accept that and the risks that come along with it. Another factor that influenced my decision is the cost. We have to take into an account how much money we are willing to spend to clean up or reduce the amount of pollution.
The process to limit the pollution level, carcinogenic elements in particular, is very expensive. Individuals can determine how much money to spend behind this cleansing process by determining an acceptable exposure level; again this can not be done without some degree of subjectivity. As a result, I believe that an appropriate exposure level to cancer, due to this pollutant, should be one in a million. This is acceptable because every one person out of a million that is affected by this pollutant can get treated and cared for. By setting it at this level I think that there it would eliminate the shortage problems at hospital or at any care centers when providing treatments to the infected people. Thus, everyone who gets cancer from this pollutant will have the opportunity to take care of themselves and not have to worry about the lack of resources.
Everyone takes risk in particularly in everything they do. The best thing to do is minimize the effects of the risks as much as possible. The cancer causing pollutant in this case can be regulated by using some type of preventive measures. Without being oblivious about the moral issues, we have to set certain risks and exposure level of the pollutant. I set my risks and exposure level after determining several issues and came to conclusion after what I thought was the most optimal conditions.