Re: Power Plant Pollution Linked to 30,000 Premature Deaths

["Patricia Milligan" <PXM@nrc.gov>]

my comments were not to make light of the problems of air pollution, but if you are going to quote risk numbers, you need to explain what they mean... and how they are derived and how they are framed in context of society today.. if you take the numbers from EPA at face value, or accept them as real,  then the bodies would be piling up at a record rate.. and life span would be decreasing,not increasing..
>>> blc+@pitt.edu 10/19 11:32 AM >>>


On Thu, 19 Oct 2000, Patricia Milligan wrote:

> the numbers that are quoted are risk estimates based on very
 conservative models and assumptions.  if all of these numbers
 were true, we'd be tripping over bodies on our way to the
 grocery store!

	--People who die from air pollution do not die while shopping for
groceries. Respiratory, cardiovascular, and other systems in our bodies
are weakened by years of exposure to air pollution, causing death to
elderly people a few years prematurely. If you want to know where the dead
bodies are, conside the 6000 people who die every day in the U.S.--
several percent of these die prematurely because of air polltion.


Bernard L. Cohen
Physics Dept.
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA 15260
Tel: (412)624-9245
Fax: (412)624-9163
e-mail: blc+@pitt.edu 


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Patricia A Milligan, CHP
pxm@nrc.gov
301-415-2223

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