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Re: Deaths from fossil fuel burning air pollution
Jerry makes some very good points. We continue to refer to the product of
population radiation dose (rem) and the conversion factor 5E-4 (or
person-Sv*5E-6) as "latent cancer fatalities" meaning, I suppose, that that
many cancers, which might prove to be fatal, would occur in the exposed
population. I don't like LCF particularly, but it is certainly better than
"deaths." Years of life (potentially) lost is a much better measure and is
moreover comparable to other risks that shorten life. Everyone dies, after
all. The probability of dying is=1. "Premature" deaths is vague because
life expectancy is so variable.
This type of conversion factor is now being applied to inhaled air
pollutants (and this is in fact an application of the LNT theory), which is
quite a stretch, and which I myself do not agree with.
An air pollutant is defined in a number of laws and regulations as a
substance other than nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, water vapor, ozone,
and argon, or a significant quantities of a substance like CO and some
terpenes that may in very small quantities be constituents of clean air.
Particulate matter is a pollutant whether it comes from a stack, is crustal
dust, or comes from a volcanoic eruption.
Ruth Weiner
ruth_weiner@msn.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Jerry Cohen <jjcohen@prodigy.net>
To: Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
Date: Tuesday, November 28, 2000 12:26 PM
Subject: Re: Deaths from fossil fuel burning air pollution
>Terms such as (deaths/person-Sv), or (deaths/ ton of "pollution") have
>always bothered me!
> Deaths, as opposed to what? Eternal life?
>Sooner or later everybody dies, whether they they were exposed to
>"pollution" or not. Wouldn't it be more rational to expess the potential
>effect of harmful exposures in terms of reduction in life-expectancy.
>Semantics is important! For example, 100 additional deaths/yr nationally
can
>be translated into an average reduction of just a few seconds from an
>anticipated 70 yr lifespan. I guess the terms one chooses to apply depend
>on the degree of apprehernsion one wishes to cause.
>While I am ranting, just what do we mean by "pollution". I define pollution
>as "anything you release to the environment that I don't like". Anybody
got
>a problem with that? jjcohen@prodigy.net
>
>
>at http://www.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/radsafe.html
>
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