De Rosa C T, Hicks H E, Cibulas W, Jones D E
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, Atlanta, Georgia 30333, USA.
Neurotoxicology. 2000 Dec;21(6):979-87.
It has been suggested that the most critical missing link between science and policy is causality; that is, the establishment of a definite cause-effect relationship between exposure and adverse health effects. As has been clearly demonstrated by the decades-long tobacco debate, causality is extremely difficult to establish with absolute certainty, particularly in the minds of scientists. Because of this, it has been suggested that a "weight of evidence" approach based on biologic plausibility should be used as a surrogate for causality when translating science into policy and public health practice. In the case of neurodevelopmental effects, the case for biologic plausibility is supported by scientific findings from three broad areas consisting of wildlife biology, toxicology, and epidemiology. A striking example of this is provided by research findings from the Great Lakes Basin, an area which has been the focus of significant scientific research for the last thirty years in these three broad areas. In this paper, we examine relevant findings from the Great Lakes Basin and elsewhere as they relate to establishing and supporting the biologic plausibility of neurodevelopmental effects associated with environmental exposures to persistent toxic substances.
有人认为，科学与政策之间最关键的缺失环节是因果关系；也就是说，要确定暴露与不良健康影响之间明确的因果关系。正如长达数十年的烟草辩论所清楚表明的那样，因果关系极难绝对确定地建立起来，尤其是在科学家们看来。因此，有人建议，在将科学转化为政策和公共卫生实践时，应采用基于生物学合理性的“证据权重”方法作为因果关系的替代。就神经发育影响而言，野生动物生物学、毒理学和流行病学这三个广泛领域的科学发现支持了生物学合理性的观点。这方面一个显著的例子是大湖盆地的研究结果，在过去三十年里，该地区一直是这三个广泛领域重大科学研究的重点。在本文中，我们研究了大湖盆地及其他地区的相关发现，这些发现与确定和支持与环境接触持久性有毒物质相关的神经发育影响的生物学合理性有关。
