Health committee  Those kinds of decisions can't be left up to the consumer. If there is a real risk, then that has to be made at a level of scientific inquiry. It's toxicologists, developmental biologists, chemists, and physicians who should be making that decision. If the decision is that the in

Health committee  Cyanide.

Health committee  These issues, as I said, are so complex--

Health committee  --but this has to be done as a regulation by people who know what it is they're doing and what it is they're regulating. Personal responsibility comes down to things like deciding whether you are going to eat French fries every day, okay? Yes, that's a personal kind of decision.

Health committee  Yes.

Health committee  Of course you have to have a precaution, as long as you have the scientific evidence of what you're cautioning against.

Health committee  No. It's not cut and dried like that. We have to look at a specific issue. If you can tell me a specific chemical, then we can talk about it.

Health committee  One can make equivalent products--

Health committee  No, I think it's up to government to ban any product that isn't safe for consumers to purchase. I think the evaluation process has to be done, not by the consumer--

Health committee  To ban bisphenol A is totally unrealistic. You can ban certain uses of bisphenol A. You can ban certain contexts of bisphenol A. If we bring up the baby bottle issue, which is a very appropriate one, I think that was a good decision, since there the precautionary principle can be

Health committee  I have absolutely no objection to that.

Health committee  We come back to the issue that labelling has to be truthful and meaningful. If you put that C or that “carcinogen” on there, it implies that product is known by someone in some condition to be cancer-causing. If that is not the case, why would you be putting the C on it?

Health committee  Exactly.

Health committee  Yes. Cancer is an age-related disease, without a doubt. Average life expectancy is going up, so the absolute number of cancer cases is of course increasing. What one has to look at is the age-adjusted cancer rate, and the age-adjusted cancer rate is pretty well stable. Some can

Health committee  I'm glad you asked that question. It allows me to elaborate on a topic that I've just brought up, and that's the importance of education. It really is the crux of the matter. I think we can all agree that our education in science, especially at the elementary school level and th