Richard

Bruns

,

PhD

Richard is a Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, working on economic modeling and cost-benefit analysis of a variety of public health topics. Particular research interests are using cost-benefit analysis to make the world’s preparations for pandemics and emerging biological risks as effective as possible; and expanding the use of QALYs to better measure a variety of life states and social conditions, so that cost-benefit analysis can include and properly account for all expected side effects of public policies.

Previously, Richard was a Senior Economist at the Food and Drug Administration, doing cost-benefit modeling of many FDA regulations and actions, including the Intentional Adulteration rule designed to harden food production facilities against terrorist attacks, the PHO GRAS determination aka ‘trans fat ban’, and a variety of other rules relating to food and medical devices. Richard also did preliminary modeling on FDA’s upcoming Nicotine Product Standard, a de facto ban on cigarettes that would cause many significant effects on public health and safety, as well as research to quantify and monetize the marginal per-unit effects of a variety of food contaminants, such as mycological toxins and arsenic in rice.