Hormesis: implications for policy making and risk communication: a reply

The four comments on my paper on hormesis and risk communication add valuable insights to the understanding of the issues and address a couple of issues that were raised in my paper and that, in the view of the reviewers, need further refinement and specification. I am very grateful to Bruna De Marchi, Ragnar Lofstedt, James Flynn and Donald MacGregor, as well as to Mark Poumadere, for their thoughtful and constructive comments. Most of what they have expressed in their statements do not challenge or even contradict any of the major points that I made in my paper. They expand on several issues, such as the role of science in the hormesis debate (De Marchi, Flynn and MacGregor), the role of trust in the respective regulatory regime (Lofstedt), the implications for policy making (Poumadere, Flynn and MacGregor), and the framing of the issue as a public health or industrial policy problem (Poumadere). With most of what the reviewers have raised and added to my analysis, I have no objections. On the contrary, I welcome these comments since they give me more intellectual food to digest. Their remarks fuel my motivation to invest more time and effort investigating the context and the mechanisms that govern the risk communication process when it comes to a new scientific challenge such as hormesis. I would like, however, to select a few aspects that were raised in the comments and take them as an opportunity to clarify some of my own propositions in this field.