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

["ruth_weiner" <ruth_weiner@email.msn.com>]

At what age is a death considered "premature" and why?

Moreover, this strikes me as (a) another application of a linear
extrapolation (I don't care who they were, they didn't observe 18,000
deaths) and (b) an example of a sort of backwards epidemiology.
Epidemiology is usually (historically) first, observation of a health effect
in a group of people; then, correlation of that effect with some common
factor, and finally, it is to be hoped, learning the cause by studying the
comon factor.  The elucidation of the HIV virus is a good example: a
collection of severe symptoms was observed in certain groups of people, the
common factor was exposure to blood and other bodily fluids, and ultimately
the HIV viral infection was identified.

What we do with ionizing radiation and now apparently with air pollutants is
just the reverse.  We identify a pollutant (the putative causative factor),
note a population that is exposed, and then look for or even prediict a
health effect.

Yeah, well, just my humble opinion.

Ruth Weiner
ruth_weiner@msn.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Bernard L Cohen <blc+@pitt.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
Date: Thursday, October 26, 2000 10:31 AM
Subject: Re: Power Plant Pollution Linked to 30,000 Premature Deaths


> I have two comments I would like to offer on this thread,
>explaining why the estimates are reasonable and not surprising.
>
> 1. There is a great deal of science behind these estimates,
>including many dozens, if not hundreds, of scientific studies. Some of
>these are summarized in the book by R. Wilson and J. Spengler, "Particles
>in our Air: Concentrations and Health Effects", Harvard University Press;
>1996, and in EPA Documents.
>
> 2. What causes people to die prematurely, i.e. at a younger age
>than when body organs wear out in an insult-free environment? Surely, a
>large fraction of people do die prematurely in this sense. What sort of
>insults can be involved here? The only obvious ones are things we take in
>with food and drink, things we take in by inhalation, and external attacks
>like auto accidents, falls, etc. What fraction of these would you think
>are due to inhalation? Surely it must be at least a few percent -- if not,
>how can you justify very much larger effects from the other two sources?
> The Harvard group estimates that 3 to 9 percent of all deaths
>are due to air pollution - this is based on the numerous scientific
>studies mentioned above. Since there are about 2 million deaths per year
>in U.S., this means that 60,000 to 180,000 deaths are due to air
>pollution. When one considers the sources of air pollution, it is quite
>reasonable to deduce that something like 30,000 of these are due to
>fossil fuel burning power plants..
>
>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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