Re: Deaths from fossil fuel burning air pollution

["Thomas J Savin " <tjsav@lycos.com>]

It could be the stress level in the cities that make for the higher death rate - numerous studies have been performed in the area too.  What do you think?
---
Tom Savin

On Wed, 29 Nov 2000 09:34:26  
 Bernard L Cohen wrote:
>
>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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