How safe is safe enough?

"Every time an airplane crashes, a gas line explodes, a bridge collapses, or a contaminant escapes the public questions whether the benefits that technology brings are worth its risks. Written in laymen's language, How Safe Is Safe Enough? explores the realities of the risks that technology presents and the public's perceptions of them. E. E. Lewis examines how these perceptions are reconciled with economic interests and risk assessors' analyses in messy and often contentious political processes that determine acceptable levels of safety--levels that often depend more on the perceived nature of the risks than on the number of deaths or injuries that they cause"--