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Unit 10
Risks
After-Class Reading
PASSAGE I Health Risks
New Words
AIDS
n. 艾滋病，即获得性免疫缺损综合症
bare *
adj. plain, with no additional explanation or information 不掩饰的，直率的
e.g. Did someone tell you the bare outline (概要) of our story?
catastrophic *
adj. 灾难性的
costly *
adj. 代价高的
e.g. The general's decision to invade was a costly mistake.
deficit *
n. 不足额
differ *
v. be different 有区别
e.g. Your taste in music differs from hers.
disproportionately
adv. 不成比例地
immediacy
n. 即时性
incidence *
n. 发生率
incubation
n. (疾病的) 潜伏期
insignificant *
adj. not important or thought to be valuable, especially because of smallness 无足轻重的
e.g. The problem was insignificant compared to others she faced.
lesser
adj. 次要的，较小的
loom *
v. 赫然出现
e.g. An expression of horror crossed their faces as I loomed into view.
nonetheless *
adv. in spite of that; nevertheless 尽管如此
e.g. There was no news; nonetheless, she went on hoping.
notable *
adj. deserving to be noticed or mentioned 值得注意的
e.g. The novelist's first book was a notable achievement.
payable *
adj. to be paid 应付的
e.g. The bill is payable within ninety days.
piper *
n. 管乐器吹奏者
preoccupation
n. state of constantly thinking or worrying about 关注
principally *
adv. mainly 主要地
e.g. The advertising campaign is aimed principally at women.
radiation *
n. 辐射
reassessment *
n. 重新评估
replace *
v. take the place of 代替；取代
e.g. Can anything replace a mother's love and care?
seriousness *
n. 严重性
e.g. the seriousness of an illness
terror *
n. extreme fear 恐怖
e.g. I've never felt so much terror in all my life.
toll *
n. the number of people killed or injured in a particular accident, by a particular illness, etc. (事故等的)伤亡人数
Health Risks
Opinion polls repeatedly tell us that the only thing Americans worry about more than the environment is their health. This is entirely understandable, for health is obviously preferable to illness. What makes today's preoccupation with health slightly surprising is that Americans are far healthier now than they have ever been. Many diseases that once struck terror into hearts have either been completely eliminated or brought under control. Although AIDS is a notable exception, few new mass killers[1] have come along to replace the ones that have been eliminated.
Nonetheless, health—and the various threats to it—remains everyone's permanent concern. After all, more than half of us (57 percent) will die from either heart disease or cancer, if current trends continue.
One major problem with any comparison of health risks—especially life-threatening ones—is that they differ enormously in their immediacy. For instance, AIDS—if you get it—will probably be fatal after a number of years. Cancer induced by smoking or exposure to radiation, on the other hand, may take 20 to 30 years before its catastrophic effects show up. In making choices about health risks, therefore, it is important to bear in mind the likely time lag between taking a risk and suffering its consequences.[2]
Those with a mind to "live for today"[3] are apt to be indifferent to health risks that have a very long incubation period. Although this is short-sighted, it does make sense to discount long-term risks more than short-term ones. After all, when virtually any of us is confronted with the choice of doing something likely to kill us today versus doing something likely to kill us in two decades, the choice is going to be the lesser of the two evils[4].
One commonly used measure to deal with such problems is a concept called years of potential life lost YPLLS. The idea is that for a 25-year-old, doing something that will kill him in 5 years is much more "costly" than doing something that will kill him in 40 years. Both may involve the same element of risk—the same probability of eventually dying from that activity—but a risk that may cause immediate damage is much more costly than one for which the piper needn't be paid for a long time[5]. In the first case, he will have his normal life span cut short by about 45 years; in the latter case, the deficit is about 5 years[6]. Thinking about matters in this light inevitably causes a reassessment of many of the threats to health. For instance, heart disease is the single largest killer of Americans, way[7] in front of cancer or strokes. However, heart disease tends to strike[8] the elderly in much greater proportions than younger people. Cancer, by contrast, kills fewer people but tends to strike somewhat earlier than heart disease. Hence, more(YPLL)are lost to cancer than to heart disease—despite the greater incidence of fatal heart cases. Specifically, cancers claim[9] about 25 percent more (YPLL)than heart disease (if we define the YPLL as a year of life lost before age 65).
The concept of YPLLs has an important, if controversial, influence on issues in health care economics. It is frequently argued that money devoted to medical research on curing diseases should be divided up on the basis of the number of lives lost to each disease. Thus, some critics of the massive levels of funding devoted to AIDS research claim that—compared to killers such as heart disease and cancer—AIDS receives a disproportionately high support. That criticism fails to consider the fact that AIDS, by virtue of striking people principally in their 20s and 30s, generates far more YPLLs than the bare figure of 20,000 deaths per year, bad as that is, might suggest.[10] Put differently, finding a cure for AIDS would be likely to add about 25 to 30 years to the life of each potential victim. Finding a cure for heart disease, although it might save far more lives, would probably add only another 5 to 10 years to the life of its average victim.
The assessment of the seriousness of a risk changes, depending upon whether we ask how many lives it claims or how many YPLLs it involves. Some of the differences are quite striking. For instance, accidental deaths appear relatively insignificant compared to cancer and heart disease when we just count the deaths caused. But once we look at the number of lost years, accidents loom into first place among the killers of Americans. These data show that we need to ask not only how large a risk is but also when it becomes payable. Other things being equal, the sooner a risk causes damage or death, the more that risk is to be avoided.
Phrases and Expressions
bear in mind
remember to consider 记在心里；记住
e.g. We have no vacancies now, but we'll certainly bear your application in mind.
bring something under control
make something work properly, especially after being in a dangerous or confused state 控制住
e.g. He struggled to bring his boat under control in the first race.
by virtue of
on account of or because of 由于
e.g. He got the job by virtue of being the only one to apply.
in this light
in this particular way
e.g. Viewed in this light, the problem seemed less important.
make sense
be sensible 是明智的；是合情合理的
e.g. It would make sense to leave early.
show up
be easily and clearly seen 显露出来
e.g. The dust on the shelf shows up in the sunlight.
strike terror or fear into people's, hearts
cause sudden, strong feelings of fear or terror
e.g. The word "cancer" still strikes terror into many hearts.
PASSAGE II Risks from Nature and Technology
Proper Names
the Clean Air Act
the US government regulations regarding permissible levels of emissions from cars and factories
New Words
announcement *
n. a statement in spoken or written form that makes something known 宣布，宣告
e.g. She made an important announcement to her parents about her engagement.
artificial *
adj. not real or natural 假的；人工的
e.g. They were busy making artificial flowers.
benign
adj. kind; favorable; harmless 仁慈的；有利的；无害的
byproduct
n. 副产品
carcinogen
n. 致癌物
carcinogenic
adj. 致癌的
concentration *
n. 1) 集中，聚精会神
e.g. The successful solution of the problem required patience and concentration.
2) 浓度
e.g. The acid solution (酸溶液) is of weak concentration.
contrive *
v. 想出；发明
e.g. contrive a new method
crust *
n. hard surface 外壳
e.g. the earth's crust 地壳
decay *
n. & v. 衰变，腐败，衰退
e.g. I ) This industry has been in decay for some time.
II ) They claimed that the plastics would not decay if they were buried.
dependable *
adj. that may be depended on 可靠的
e.g. This newspaper is dependable; it always tells the truth.
destruction
n. 破坏，毁灭
e.g. The destruction by the earthquake was serious.
dioxide
n. 二氧化物
dose *
n. 剂量
doublespeak
n. (故意说得) 夸张而含糊的话
dubious *
adj. 值得怀疑的
e.g. She spends too much time with dubious friends.
emission *
n. 1) a thing that is sent out or given off 发出物，散发物
e.g. The increased use of natural gas will not help reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
2) the production or release of something 发出，散发
e.g. The government has to impose strict regulations and legal limits on the emission of harmful gases.
evolve *
v. develop or make something develop by gradually changing 逐步形成
e.g. He evolved a new system for running the factory.
extraordinarily *
adv. unusually 特别地
e.g. He spoke in a low voice and was extraordinarily polite.
hurricane *
n. 飓风
iceberg
n. 冰山
inflict *
v. make someone suffer something unpleasant 使遭受(损伤、痛苦等)
e.g. The army inflicted heavy losses on the enemy.
meaningless *
adj. without meaning 毫无意义的
e.g. His words seemed to be meaningless.
nitrogen *
n. 氮
oxide *
n. 氧化物
pesticide
n. 杀虫剂
poisonous *
adj. containing poison 有毒的
e.g. Not all snakes are poisonous.
pollutant
n. 污染物质
predator
n. 食肉动物
radioactive *
adj. 放射性的
radon
n. 氡
routinely *
adv. usually 通常
e.g. Health and safety rules are routinely ignored on the building site.
statistics *
n. 统计数字，统计资料
sulfur *
n. 硫
tornado
n. 龙卷风
unacceptable *
adj. that cannot be accepted 不能接受的
e.g. Such behavior is totally unacceptable.
volcano *
n. 火山
wring
v. (wrung或wringed) (使劲) 握，捏
Risks from Nature and Technology
We live in an age when natural has come to mean "benign"and anything made by humans seems both artificial and suspect[1]. But actually the natural and the benign are not necessarily the same thing. Nature does a lot of nasty things to us. Floods, storms, earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanoes, and tornadoes are just the tip of the iceberg. [2] Most diseases are natural. Many naturally occurring substances are poisonous. The single largest source of cancer-producing radiation is radon gas, a byproduct of the decay of radioactive elements in the earth's crust. Other sources of cancer-causing radiation are cosmic rays and ordinary sunlight. Indeed, death itself is natural. If we have been able to prolong life beyond its traditional span of seventy years, that is because we have been clever enough to contrive ways of delaying the decay, disease, and destruction that is inflicted on us by nature.
Think about it another way. All plants, including those we eat, contain many naturally occurring pesticides. They have evolved these toxic—in many cases, carcinogenic—defenses against insects and other predators over millions of years. It has been estimated that we consume 10,000 times as many natural pesticides as artificial ones. In other words, nature is not benign. Other numbers prove this even more convincingly. It is a widely used rule of thumb[3] among risk specialists that, in any given year, about 30 times as many people will die in natural disasters as in man-made ones.
In addition to natural catastrophes, there are still plenty of ways in which our technological society poses[4] major threats to our lives and health, especially through damage to the environment in which we live. The unhappy fact is that we have some grounds[5] for thinking that many air and water pollutants may be risky, but we have as yet no dependable data on the size of the risk they pose. In other words, although we have a pretty good idea of the amount of the principal pollutants released into the air and water in the United States, there are very few studies on the health effects of specific concentrations of particular pollutants. Such studies are difficult to perform because there are too many variables outside our control. Is a certain oxide of nitrogen dangerous in a particular amount? Usually the answer is that we do not know.
Because everything is risky, it is meaningless to be told that this or that pollutant poses a "potential" risk—until we know what the risk level is. Unless we know whether a certain pollutant in certain concentrations kills 5,000 people a year or 1 person every decade, we cannot decide whether it poses an unacceptable risk. Scientists have generally not yet been able to identify the size of many of the risks posed by most of the pollutants in the environment.
In fact, such studies as there are raise doubts about the commonly assumed risks of some pollutants. In New York City, for instance, levels of sulfur dioxide fell more than 90 percent between 1969 and 1976 in response to the Clean Air Act of 1970. Despite this major shift in one of the most common air pollutants, daily mortality rates in New York did not change at all. No doubt New York City smells better, but it is unclear whether any lives were saved by the reduction in sulfur emissions.
The problem of assessing environmental risks is made worse by the official doublespeak on the subject. Consider but one example. From time to time, a federal agency will announce that it has identified a certain substance (natural or artificial) as a "possible human carcinogen". Such announcements are generally greeted with much wringing of hands from the general public, who suppose that one more item must be taken off their menus.[6] The facts, however, are quite otherwise. To qualify as a possible human carcinogen, there must be evidence that the substance in question produces cancer in rats when they receive doses of the substance that are often a million times stronger than a human being receives, even allowing for differences in body weight.[7] Even if we suppose that the likelihood of cancer varies directly with the level of exposure and that whatever is carcinogenic to rats is dangerous to humans (and both assumptions are dubious), these figures mean that the likelihood of a human being getting cancer from normal exposures to the substance is about a million times smaller than the rat's chances.[8] If you reflect on the other risk statistics, it will become clear that such a risk is extraordinarily low—in fact, it is about as close to "safe" as we normally get in this life. Accordingly, the discovery that something is a possible human carcinogen is the discovery that it may be less harmful than many of the things we routinely do.[9]
Phrases and Expressions
allow for
把......考虑进去
e.g. It will take you half an hour to get to the station, allowing for traffic delays.
as yet
until now 到现在为止
e.g. As yet little is known of the causes of the disease.
greet something with something
react to something in a particular way 对某事做出某种反应
e.g. The proposal was greeted with bursts of laughter.
have a good idea of
(非常)了解
e.g. I have a pretty good idea of what you want.
in response to
as a reaction to something that has happened or been said 响应，作为反应
e.g. The law was passed in response to public pressure.
no doubt
very probably 肯定地，想必
e.g. No doubt he means to help, but in fact he just gets in the way.
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