Re: Deaths from fossil fuel burning air pollution

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

Re: definition of air pollution: I was responding to the question of how air
pollution is defined, and I responded with a rather standard legislative and
textbook definition, namely (briefly) that a pollutant is something not
found in "clean air," or not found in high concentrations therein.  It makes
no sense for each of us to make up our own definition.  There are certainly
sources of air pollutants in addition to fossil fuel burning power plants
(and indeed, natural gas plants emit fewer and different pollutants than
coal plants -- no particulates, for example).  Automobile and truck exhaust,
all kinds of smelters, coke ovens, agricultural and road dust, crop
spraying, chemical plants are just a few. One source used by Pope, et al,
is, I believe, a steel plant and not a power plant.

Re reference to the LNT: a linear conversion factor implies a linear
dose-response relationship, does it not?  The objections to applying a
linear conversion factor in the case of radiation health effects are, in
part, that it involves an extrapolation outside of the data, but data on
health effects from large doses of ionizing radiation certainly exist (e.g.,
the radium dial painters study).  The citation of  the large number of
"deaths" or "premature deaths"  postulated in the air pollution case also
involves extrapolation and a linear conversion factor.

Finally, to reiterate: years of life lost would appear to be a much better
metric than death, or even premature death.  Controlling the confounding
factors in putative deaths from inhaling air pollutants is extraordinarily
difficult, if not impossible.

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: Wednesday, November 29, 2000 8:26 AM
Subject: Re: Deaths from fossil fuel burning air pollution


>
>On Tue, 28 Nov 2000, ruth_weiner wrote:
>>
>> 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.
>
> --Here I define air pollution as things emitted from fossil fuel
>burning, with very fine particulate (<1.5 miicron) serving as a surrogate.
>How do you explain the fact that there is a statistically robust tendency
>for areas with high air pollution to have higher mortality rates than
>areas with low air pollution, after considering other factors that may be
>relevant? No linear-no threshold assumption is involved; these are
>straightforward data. Also, how do you explain the fact that in a given
>city, mortality rates are higher when pollution is higher? Dozens of
>studies have corroborated these findings.
>
>
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