I will state the obvious: there is nothing that one does (including doing nothing) that does not involve risk. The key is to manage the risk, balancing the desired benefit of an activity versus the risks involved. When the risk is clearly above the bar of reasonableness or the law, a safety person can ban that activity. Any risk significantly below that bar can only be evaluated by the individual involved. It is our job to make sure that people can make an informed decision. I am an extreme believer in doing whatever can be reasonably done to lower risk/exposure. I have remote air respirators at home for when I do various tasks around the house. But risks also need to be put into perspective. In my experience, we lose all credibility with the people we are trying to protect when we take risk mitigation too far. The hard part is determining what is way too far. Personally, I often compare risks relative to the risk of driving to work and exposures to the exposure on!
e gets filling their car with gasoline. I would want any routine behavior I do to be significantly below those risks but I also realize I often violate that guideline in the course of life.
Ken
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