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

[Bernard L Cohen <blc+@pitt.edu>]

On Thu, 19 Oct 2000, Otto G. Raabe wrote:

> 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. 

	--I have not seen the EPA Report; I don't know how to get it. I 
didn't know that it used linear-no threshold theory (LNT). There
clearly can be no justification for doing that, since cancer is not the 
issue. Please do not interpret anything I have said as supporting such
a procedure or its results. The DOE study, including the Harvard summary
I was referring to, did *not* use LNT. By some coincidence, the results
seem to be similar.


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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