Risky Business
	Science can pinpoint potential dangers from GM foods, mobile phones and household chemicals — but can't tell us if those risks are real. What's a consumer to do?
	By JAMES GEARY

Posted Sunday, July 20, 2003; 16.11BST
Linda was ecstatic last summer when she learned that she was pregnant again. But the 39-year-old mother of two was also worried, since the chances of giving birth to a baby with Down's syndrome increase dramatically with age. So at 12 weeks, Linda, who lives in London, decided to have the full battery of tests that determine the risk of Down's.

An ultrasound scan measured the fluid within the neck of the fetus — the more fluid, the higher the risk — while a blood test tracked hormone levels crucial to fetal development. All the results came back normal except one. As a result, Linda was told, the chance that her baby had the syndrome was one in 130 — a high enough risk to warrant more tests. If she wanted to know for sure, her gynecologist suggested amniocentesis, a procedure that involves drawing fluid from the amniotic sac around the fetus. But about one in 100 times, amnio triggers a spontaneous abortion. Should Linda take that risk in order to settle the Down's question? It was her call: the doctor would only present the alternatives, not give advice. "I wanted these tests because I thought they would be reassuring," Linda says now. "But the choices they confronted me with only increased my uncertainty."

There can never be a guarantee that anything is harmless ... but unless there is evidence of harm, we shouldn't worry — HELENE GULDBERG, developmental psychologist at the Open University

Linda eventually decided to skip the amnio, and she gave birth to a healthy baby girl. But her dilemma is becoming increasingly common as modern science pinpoints ever finer gradations of risk, but is unable to tell us whether those risks are real — and if so, whether they're worth taking. We can measure just about everything: the number of defective genes on a chromosome; the levels of radiation coming from our mobile phones; the amount of microbes in our drinking water. And when something's out of kilter, we demand a fix. But all too often there is no fix. Science can't eliminate the risks it's so skilled at identifying.

Over the past months and years we've endured the SARS crisis, the BSE scandal and the foot-and-mouth epidemic. We've been warned of deep-vein thrombosis from air travel, brain cancer from mobile-phone radiation, and mutations from genetically modified organisms. We've been told that climate change threatens our coastlines, antibiotic-resistant viruses threaten our children, and wayward asteroids threaten our planet. Sometimes just getting out of bed in the morning seems too risky — especially when we consider that it could take decades before we know if these potential dangers are real.

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	Are First World Fears Causing the Third World to go Hungry? [July 10, 2001] People in the U.S. and Western Europe have qualms about genetically modified foods. But does that mean we should deny those foods to developing nations? Read Any Good Fruit? [Nov. 24, 2002] The E.U. approves tough new labeling for GM food, pleasing activists and complicating trade relations To Greener Pastures [Mar. 12, 2001] Germany's new farming minister is up to her ears in food scares and dead cows. Her answer: Go organic When Pigs Go Bad [Feb. 27, 2001] British farming, in its worst slump since the 1930s, is hit by a new plague: foot-and-mouth disease Slaughterhouse [March 12, 2001] Cattle burn, farmers despair and consumers worry as a new food-related catastrophe hits Europe Search all issues of TIME Magazine