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

["Otto G. Raabe" <ograabe@ucdavis.edu>]

>Power Plant Pollution Linked to 30,000 Premature Deaths Each Year
>
>The figures are contained in a groundbreaking new report unveiled
>today by a coalition of environmental and public health groups. 
>
>The report, which puts forth a damning indictment of U.S. regulatory
>policies, is titled, "Death, Disease and Dirty Power: Mortality and
>Health Damage Due to Air Pollution from Power Plants.
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October 19, 2000
Davis, CA

Although it is undoubtedly true that air pollution is injurious and can
lead to premature deaths, the methods used in this report and by EPA depend
heavily on a Linear No-Threshold (LNT) Model of airborne fine particle
induced acute mortality [2% increase in mortality for every 50 micrograms
per cubic meter increase in particulate air pollution].  This LNT model
does not involve any mechanistic analysis of cause-effect but is the result
of selective ecological studies. It makes for easy back-of-the-envelope
over-estimates of presumed deaths associated with particulate air
pollution, but it is not reliable. 

Professor Cohen will want to note that the EPA uses an LNT model of acute
mortality from fine particles in the air that is based on limited
ecological studies. The death data are in one data base and the outdoor air
pollution data are in another. There is no way of knowing whether any
person who dies was breathing the polluted air that was measured since most
of the deaths are among the infirm who are probably breathing indoor air. 

Otto 

**********************************************
Prof. Otto G. Raabe, Ph.D., CHP
Institute of Toxicology & Environmental Health
(Street Address: Bldg. 3792, Old Davis Road) 
University of California, Davis, CA 95616
E-Mail: ograabe@ucdavis.edu
Phone: (530) 752-7754   FAX: (530) 758-6140
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