Re: Deaths from fossil fuel burning air pollution

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

Could you please repeat the citation for the Pope paper?  Does anyone out
there have a copy that they can fax to me, please (505-856-5564)?  Thanks in
advance.

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: Monday, November 20, 2000 9:33 AM
Subject: Re: Deaths from fossil fuel burning air pollution


>
>On Mon, 20 Nov 2000, ruth_weiner wrote:
>
>> I have another thought about this sort of "prospective epidemiology" (if
I
>> may coin a term).  Isn't epidemiology really (1) observing a health
effect
>> in a population (e.g., polio), (2) THEN looking for a correlation (e.g.,
>> cases where there has been activity in crowded venues often involving
water
>> (public drinking fountains, public swimming pools), and (3) FINALLY
looking
>> for a cause (in this case, the polio virus)?  In these studies of
"deaths"
>> from air pollutants and for that matter from small amounts of ionizing
>> radiation, isn't epidemiology being done backwards?  Don't we (1)
identify
>> something that might have a health effect and (2) then look for a
population
>> in which that health effect might occur, whether it is actually observed
or
>> not?
>
> --I don't see the problem here. We could say that (1) It has been
>observed that some Metropolitan areas have higher cardiopulmonary
>mortality rates than others; (2) We find that the differences correlate
>strongly with air pollution levels; (3) In looking for a mechanism we can
>cite many dozens of studies that show increased disease symptoms from air
>pollution.
>
>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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