Erik Rifkin, PhD
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Erik Rifkin, PhD Writer, Researcher, Patient, and Citizen Advocate Jennifer Chang School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York, USA
health risks from exposure to environmental pollutants did not accurately reflect the true nature of these risks. After conducting a review of the literature, he also noted that the communication of medical health risks and benefits suffered from the same problem. In light of this situation, he set out to devise a novel method to convey health-risk information associated with common medical interventions.
Erik Rifkin, PhD, is the president of Rifkin and Associates, an environmental consulting firm in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Erik holds a PhD in Zoology, and began his career as a research scientist characterizing pathogens in molluscs.[1] As a consultant, he provided advice and guidance on human health and ecological risk assessment to federal and state environmental regulatory agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Maryland Department of the Environment. His work focused on assessing toxicity from exposure to environmental contaminants in soil, water, and air, to humans and aquatic organisms. He has written numerous articles on dioxin toxicity[2-4] and risks from exposure to chromium. Over the years, it became apparent to Erik that the characterization and communication of human
Rifkin and co-author Edward Bouwer, PhD, a Professor of Environmental Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, have written a book, The Illusion of Certainty: Health Benefits and Risks,[5] a guide for both patients and practitioners on evaluating health risks and benefits associated with medical procedures, with an emphasis on the degree of uncertainty attributed to many of the decisions made in the medical profession. Together, they have devised a graphic image or tool for relaying risk and benefit information associated with common medical procedures such as mammography, prostate cancer screening, and cholesterol-lowering medications, to the general public. They tried to come up with a familiar and easily understood image that would illustrate health risks and benefits – the selected graphic was called the ‘risk characterization theater,’ which situates a patient in a hypothetical theater of risk for any given clinical outcome. It is a technique that has the potential to accurately display risk information in terms of
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absolute, rather than relative, risk measurements, based on available scientific data. 1. A Parent’s Dilemma Although Erik’s professional work has largely focused on devising assessment methods for determining toxicity, and communicating environmental risk information, his work in healthcare also derives from his personal experiences as a father. In 1980, a lump was discovered on the calf of Jason Rifkin, his 7-year-old son. Erik and his wife, Elaine, were referred to an orthopedic surgeon for immediate care. While waiting anx
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