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There is an ongoing debate about how to regulate per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). The purpose of the special session regarding PFAS regulation at the 36th Annual Meeting of the Society for Risk Analysis Japan (SRAJ) was to create a forum by providing an opportunity for panelists to discuss the state of regulation from various angles of risk research, while introducing topics such as the unique characteristics of PFAS and similarities with past discussions on the regulation of chemical substances. First, two of authors introduced the recent trends of scientific findings and standards, as well as a case study on risk assessment and management methods for soil and groundwater contamination in Okinawa Prefecture. The authors then discussed the state of PFAS regulation. The discussion included measures that take into account contributions from drinking water and foods, formation of PFAS from precursors in the environment, setting of endpoints that people value, economic impacts associated with regulations, and consideration of the precautionary principle and the proportionality principle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this review, we selected Klinke and Renn (2002), entitled “A new approach to risk evaluation and management: risk-based, precaution-based, and discourse-based strategies,” published in Risk Analysis, as the most influential article from a regulatory science perspective. In this review paper, we first summarize what the Klinke and Renn (2002) paper claimed, and then classify the topics by structural topic modeling in order to analyze in what fields the Klinke and Renn (2002) paper was cited. Representative references were extracted from each classified topic to further investigate in what context Klinke and Renn (2002) paper were cited. In addition, we also organized the citation status in literature other than journal papers. Through the analyses, we found the Klinke and Renn (2002) paper was cited in a wide variety of topics, including uncertainty and decision making, regulation, systems and decision making, communication, climate change, management, systems and evaluation, and infrastructure. The citations could be divided into four main categories: characteristics of risk, criteria for assessing risk, proposed risk classes, and risk governance frames. In particular, the discussion of risk governance frames proved to have a broad impact on cross disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the session of the 35th Annual Meeting of the Society for Risk Analysis Japan, the authors shared the significance of the Compendium of Reference Materials on the Grounds for the Establishment of the Environmental Quality Standards (EQSs), practical difficulties in publishing the compendium and measures to solve them, as well as the nature and role of EQSs. Commentators and participants of the session noted the points including 1） there is a need for information dissemination so that the general public can easily understand the meaning of exceeding the threshold such as a standard value, 2） different standards other than EQSs are expected to be included in the contents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Majority of attendees of the Society for Risk Analysis Japan (SRAJ) annual meeting seems to academic researchers or researchers of governmental institute. On the other hand, researchers of private company seem to be rather minority. Many factors may have been influencing on the decision making of participation to the annual meeting, we may have any firm analysis on these factors so far. As a preliminary study, we investigated two subjects: a) interest in research paper of SRAJ, and b) possible determinant of participation to the annual meeting by using e-mail questionnaire and/or interview to selected subpopulation of private company. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]