Re: Deaths from fossil fuel burning air pollution

["Jerry Cohen" <jjcohen@prodigy.net>]

If you look at the data related to episodes of high air pollution such as at
Donora, PA,  London, UK, etc. there is indeed a significant mortality
increase during and shortly following these episodes. However, afterward,
there is an observed decrease in mortality rate for a similar time period. I
believe this observation tells us that those in seriously poor health may be
"pushed over the brink" a little sooner than might otherwise occurred. Given
that pollution may cause death among those already terminally ill , the
level of population with a propensity for near-term death is necessarily
depleted thereby accounting for the decreased mortality rate afterward.
I don't know how you would judge the significance of all this, but I would
question whether "pollution" has any significant effect on a healthy
population.




-----Original Message-----
From: Bernard L Cohen <blc+@pitt.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
Date: Wednesday, November 29, 2000 7:46 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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