In the past there have been several major cases involving environmental health and public safety, including asbestos in schools, arsenic in the water system and Alar and PCBs in food. In such cases some quarters sounded the alarm, others said the public was safe, and both had science on their side. The questions then arise: whom are we to trust and how are we to know? Amid this chaos of questions and conflicting information, this text provides a factual look at how the rival claims of environmentalists and industrialists work, what they mean and where to start sorting them out. Working with his students at a risk analysis centre, Wildavsky examined all the evidence behind the charges and countercharges in several controversial cases involving environmental health and public safety. This text lays out these cases in a comprehensible fashion, weighs the merits of the claims of various parties and offers reasoned judgements on the government's response. Covering incidents and topics including Love Canal, Times Beach, DDT, Agent Orange, acid rain, global warming, saccharin, asbestos, nuclear waste and radon, Wildavsky shows how it is possible to achieve an informed understanding of the contentious environmental issues that confront the public daily. The book supports the conclusion Wildavsky reached himself, both as a citizen committed to the welfare of the earth and its inhabitants and as a social scientist concerned with how public policy is made: though it is bad to be harmed, it is worse to be harmed in the name of health.