Saracci Rodolfo
International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon, France.
Environ Health. 2017 Aug 9;16(1):85. doi: 10.1186/s12940-017-0296-3.
Hazard identification is a major scientific challenge, notably for environmental epidemiology, and is often surrounded, as the recent case of glyphosate shows, by debate arising in the first place by the inherently problematic nature of many components of the identification process. Particularly relevant in this respect are components less amenable to logical or mathematical formalization and essentially dependent on scientists' judgment. Four such potentially hazardous components that are capable of distorting the correct process of hazard identification are reviewed and discussed from an epidemiologist perspective: (1) lexical mix-up of hazard and risk (2) scientific questions as distinct from testable hypotheses, and implications for the hierarchy of strength of evidence obtainable from different types of study designs (3) assumptions in prior beliefs and model choices and (4) conflicts of interest. Four suggestions are put forward to strengthen a process that remains in several aspects judgmental, but not arbitrary, in nature.
危害识别是一项重大的科学挑战，尤其是对于环境流行病学而言，而且正如最近草甘膦的案例所示，它常常被围绕识别过程许多组成部分固有的问题性质所引发的争论所包围。在这方面特别相关的是那些不太适合逻辑或数学形式化且本质上依赖科学家判断的组成部分。从流行病学家的角度对四个可能扭曲正确危害识别过程的潜在危险组成部分进行了审查和讨论：（1）危害和风险的词汇混淆；（2）与可检验假设不同的科学问题，以及对从不同类型研究设计中可获得的证据强度等级的影响；（3）先验信念和模型选择中的假设；（4）利益冲突。提出了四条建议，以加强一个在本质上在几个方面仍然是基于判断但并非任意的过程。
