I apparently “deeply offended” the Marxist-environmentalist complex with my “Show us the bodies, EPA” column.
Lynn Goldman former Clinton EPA apparatchik and “a pediatrician, epidemiologist, an adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Dean of the School of Public Health and Health Services at George Washington University ” — wrote in “Attention Steve Milloy: I’ve seen the bodies” (MomsCleanAirForce.org) that:
Steven Milloy, a commentator for Fox News, recently published a piece in the Washington Times, attacking the bedrock clean air laws that protect Americans from pollution. In his editorial, “Doubting the health benefits of cleaner air,” Mr. Milloy claimed that the EPA “fabricated” statistics that mercury and other air toxics harm people. He demanded: “Show me the bodies.”
I was deeply offended. I know that so many husbands, wives and children can show him the bodies–those of their loved ones who dropped dead from a heart attack after breathing too much polluted air on a code orange or code red day. I could only think of the many children admitted to the hospital for asthma attacks on days when smog levels are sky-high, children who miss so many days of school that they can’t keep up with their classmates, children who must be on medication every day to lead anything close to a normal life.
As a research scientist, I know that volumes of medical science document the harm that air pollution does to the human body. The scientific community has concluded that air pollution causes disease and death. I know that people living in areas with high air pollution concentrations have excessive heart and lung disease, emergency room visits, hospitalizations and premature death.
As a pediatrician, I have attended to the children suffering from asthma attacks. They are too young to stand up to Mr. Milloy and his industry sponsors, but their developing lungs count on the protections the nation’s clean air laws provide.
Lynn Goldman and her enviro activist comrades are happy to claim that EPA air regs are saving hundreds of thousands of lives and preventing millions of cases of asthma and respiratory problems, but they refuse to offer any proof that these claims are in any way legitimate.
While Goldman offers words, words, words. We want bodies, bodies, bodies — or more specifically medical records, medical records, medical records. Who are or were these people sickened and killed by ambient air? Where are there medical records? Make them available for public review. It’s time to put up or shut up.
So Lynn Goldman, choose your air pollution victims and produce their medical records and/or make them available for medical examination. They really exist, right?
Sam,
I am not surprised to find you giving up. When a person can’t be bothered to look into the use and misuse of statistical information and how science should be done it is obvious that they have only one thing on their mind, advocating their personal opinions come hell or high water. Come back if you ever find some properly done studies that support your contentions.
kuhnkat — I’m going to have to be brief here as I have a day full of meetings and a lot of other work going on.
Clearly there is nothing I can post that will get you to look at this any differently. And, frankly, I have seen nothing from you or anyone else on this site that gives me any sense that you have spent any time dealing with the actual science as opposed to weaving your threads of skepticism into your preexisting narrative.
I still have not seen one link to one actual scientific study that undercuts the basic premise that current air pollution levels cut short the lives of tens of thousands of Americans every year. Folks on here have expressed doubt about trusting EPA and other government sources for information, and yet instead of posting a link to an actual peer-reviewed study, you link to the St. Louis Regional Clean Air Partnership — a public-private partnership that seems to be associated with American Lung Association, which folks on here have condemned as a biased advocacy group.
You also link to Debunkosaurus, which appears to be filled with anti-government, right wing think tanks that also don’t appear capable of dealing with the actual science.
And you link to a Washington Post article that is totally off topic. And you link to a study, which I haven’t had time to read through, which seems to support the link between air pollution and mortality.
You don’t believe the science. Fine. Good for you. I guess that’s all I can say.
Sam,
Your first study you mention an increased POSSIBILITY of mortality of .87%. What was the original mortality?? Was it .01% 1% 10%?? Obviously this is important. If the original mortality isn’t 10% or better the numbers are too small to be meaningful. you have no error bars so probably do not realize that it could mean that NO deaths occurring as is a real possibility.
You then mention levels of NOX. The actual levels of NOX in the atmosphere is so small that it is not an issue. Only in Urban environments with an inversion keeping the pollutants close to the ground will it be an issue. In other words NOX being created 50 miles away is not an issue. NOX being spit out in your face is not an issue. Only having it in the area long enough to actually increase the ozone in the local area is an issue. In case you were unaware ozone is very unstable and will break down quickly otherwise cities would be unliveable.
Here is a page from the St. Louis Air Resources who talk about regularly exceeding their ozone levels:
http://www.cleanair-stlouis.com/local-air-quality.html
They state that they exceed their level of .075 ppm regularly.
Here is their front page with a chart to show how ozone affects people:
http://www.cleanair-stlouis.com/health-effects-ozone.html
Their cute chart shows that .08 ppm and greater breathed over a 6 hour period causes some loss in lung efficiency. So, they MIGHT actually have ozone levels that cause a decrease in lung efficiency for adults which I will be nice and ASSUME could increase the POSSIBLE mortality of children if they have a disease that makes them sensitive.
Now also notice that they exceeded the 8 hour rule on 8 days for 19 instances in 2008. Sorry, that is not very much for one of the worst examples in the nation. Anyone who has serious problems with levels that low should probably be in a tent or at least not in a large metropolitan area or close to a smokestack. Notice also that they appear to be reducing their levels rather than getting worse.
So, you have a study that shows there MAY be some infinetesimal chance of more deaths due to a small increase in ozone due to a small increase in NOX which is already being reduced due to previous rules. Again, your problem is that you see a bunch of children when you read those numbers and I see there may not have been even ONE child that died in the last few years in St. Louis due to Ozone pollution caused by NOX.
Your next statistics I won’t even try to interpret. Some power plants somewhere put out some pollution that they thought MIGHT cause an increase in deaths. Do we know the pollution from those plants actually was transported to areas that could increase the risk of death? Do we know that anyone died due to those emissions? NO. Pure garbage. No autopsies, no monitoring of the air quality around the people, nothing but ASSumptions.
As for the last one on mercury I believe Steve has posted studies and information at another site that deals with the garbage about mercury.
http://www.debunkosaurus.com/debunkosaurus/index.php/Mercury
Basically the amount of mercury we put into the environment is dwarfed by the mercury already there and the scare put out about not eating fish is probably hurting more than it is helping.
Here is a typical study:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC183288/
Reading through it there are all kinds of cool numbers and intelligent sounding rhetoric. In fact, in this study they actually have air monitoring for the areas. Tell me, what is missing??
The same thing missing out of most of your studies. No autopsies and little monitoring of the health of the person while alive. In other words there is absolutely no way of telling if their numbers have any meaning at all. What connects the air samples to the disease in the bodies. Is there any? WE DON’T KNOW!!! Therefore Steve tells you, SHOW ME THE BODIES!!!!
Why do I get the feeling that I am repeating, probably not nearly as well, what Steve has already told you??
Let me give you another example. During the Iraq war there was plenty of histrionics about all the civilians being killed by the US. There was a reasonably well done study of the people killed. I can’t remember the figures exactly. What was seen in the statistics being used to slander our military was a pattern of men and so-called boys of military age who had died in excessive numbers. That is, more per month than the rate before the war. Now, you may not be that familiar with Iraq, but, the combatants did NOT wear uniforms after the initial invasion and were typically dropped off at hospitals without their weapons at which time combatants became civilians. The insurgents also tried to take weapons with them and leave the bodies which again became civilian casualties. The numbers of women and children were substantially smaller and were more inline with the terrorist deaths than random or off target bombing and shooting although there would have been deaths due to our military activity when the insurgents fight from house to house in populated areas and occasional mistaken targeting.
Another study done recently is here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR2006101001442.html
Please read the article and the description and try to think of what might be a problem with this manner of gathering statistics.
They use a small sample and extrapolate to the full country. We have no idea whether the areas they surveyed had heavier, lighter, or about the same amounts of fighting. The extremes are that they surveyed areas with little fighting in which case their numbers are very low. The more likely case is that they surveyed people in towns which experienced heavy fighting and terrorist activity in which case the number is highly inflated.
As with the other studies, you can not trust statistics unless you know every detail of how the information is gathered, all issues that can affect the data, and especially with drugs, disease and health, SOLID empirical connections between the data and the actual human reaction. Generalizing studies on limited populations with inadequate data to the whole country is guaranteed to give meaningless numbers due to the many variations of environments and contributing issues.
“I’m just not sure what more I can do to focus the conversation around the science and perhaps I should stop trying.”
What you don’t understand ia that those studies are NOT science, they are junk like so much else coming our of our institutions and laboratories.
Sam, your time would be better spent trying to advocate for nuclear pebble bed reactors fueled with thorium. Chance of an accident even as minor as 3 Mile Island, vanishingly small. Plenty of power, fuel available for centuries. Would put virtually all the other power types out of business getting rid of most of that pollution you are so worried about. Price about the same as regular reactors so cheaper energy than all but coal. Talk the coal operators into doing the reactors and shutting down their plants. Retrain coal workers for the nuclear industry.
kuhnkat — I posted this in another thread and am pasting it here verbatim to save time:
We’re locked in a circular debate and seem to be speaking past each other. I’m obviously not changing any minds here.
But, I stick to the fundamental point that began this back and forth. The overwhelming body of science — as far as I know the ENTIRE body of science — demonstrates a clear link between current air pollution levels and mortality. The science goes further to point to specific sources of that pollution and the effects the air emissions from industrial activity has on our air.
To take just one study, there appears to be a 0.87% increase in mortality with every 10ppb increase in ozone. Data suggest that power plants emit nearly 2 million tons of NOx into our atmosphere every year, roughly 25% of the anthropogenic NOx emissions, which interacts with surrounding volatile organic compounds and sunlight to form dangerous levels of ozone. NOx emissions from power plants have already decreased something like 50%, which has led to about a 9-16% decrease on ozone in the eastern U.S.
Another study shows a 1.21% increase in mortality with every 10 microg/m(3) increase in previous day’s PM2.5. Data suggest that 425 power plants emit 600,000 tons of PM2.5 every year and that these emissions are associated with between 19,000 and 20,000 premature deaths per year.
Another study estimates that industrial activities account for 70% of the mercury that is emitted into the earth’s atmosphere and that “Anthropogenic releases of Hg have substantially increased the entry of Hg into the environment; by some estimates by a factor of 3 to 5 times since pre-industrial times, and by another analysis, a 10-fold increase.”
This is where the science is. The bodies are in the data. You have asked for evidence and the evidence is right in front of you.
All I have asked of Steve Milloy and the rest of you is to provide specific evidence refuting these findings. Instead, we go round and round with “EPA-minions” and “EPA oppressors” and “EDF’s ad is fake” and “show me the death certificates” and “how many people are dying from clean air standards” and on and on and on.
I’m just not sure what more I can do to focus the conversation around the science and perhaps I should stop trying.
Sam,
I do not know waht you have posted for Steve in the past, but, nothing you have posted on this series proves anything. How do I say this so your BIAS will allow you to hear it.
CORRELATION IS NOT CAUSATION!!!!!!!
Please post some studies that actually show a link to the levels of current pollution and not poor statistics. I am really tired of trying to educate people like you that the crap statistics used in drug trials, climate science, government financial and labor reports… are just that. CRAP. They prove nothing except we are a society that is happy to go with our biases and do not look closely at what is pushed as proof when we want to believe it!!!
kuhnkat — Steve Milloy says that none of the studies link air quality with mortality and demands to see the data sources. In fact, all of the studies I have provided over the last week on this site do indeed report a link between air quality and mortality. Milloy is denying that up is up and down is down. And then he says that the data sources have not been made publicly available. Wrong again. They are, as the link I provided demonstrates.
Am I qualified to look at the original source data and recreate the studies myself? No, I am not. Neither am I qualified to review Galileo’s original data and recreate his observations. Based on your logic, I should not accept as a scientific fact that the earth revolves around the sun.
How do you know who your Daddy is? Because your Mommy told you. If you want more proof, how would you know that the DNA was a match? Because your doctor told you.
All I have asked — literally all I have asked — is for someone on here to provide a source to a study or to show in a specific way how the hundreds of studies showing a clear link between air pollution and mortality are flawed. How are they flawed? What specific source material do you have to dispute these studies other than your gut feeling that oh gee I don’t believe scientists and therefore don’t believe in any of their findings?
Steve Milloy asks, “Show us the bodies.” Well I ask “Show us your evidence.” I’ve shown you mine. You show me yours.
Sam,
thanks for showing that you are an apologist and not looking for any facts. You refuse to admit that thos hundreds of studies do NOT show what you WANT them to show even when the appropriate verbiage is copied and presented to you. Your case is empty because the studies are garbage or do NOT show what you WANT. When scientists become advocates, as has happened with the Goreball Warming scam their work should come under greater scrutiny, NOT be accepted as gospel proving their point no matter what the research actually shows.
Get over it. The research does NOT support the leftards continuos whines that everything man does is bad and everything that nature does is good. Ever hear of a particular lake in Africa where whole villages with animals were suffocated by CO2 being NATURALLY released by geological ativity under the lake? Ever hear that NATURAL chlorine compounds have always exceeded the manmade CFC’s blamed for the ozone hole, which itself is natural, ever look at the transcripts of the investigations into DDT to see that virtually all the real studies did NOT find DDT was an issue…??
Caring for those that are helpless is an honourable thing. Attacking people and things that have nothing to do with the problem just become some other advocate with unknown motives tells you to is quite dishonourable and must STOP if our society is to survive.
Steve — I am not a scientist nor have I attempted to look at the original source data for the hundreds of studies that show a clear link between air pollution and mortality.
However, it appears that The National Morbidity, Mortality, and Air Pollution Study Database is available to the public. Not that I know how to interpret any of this, but here is a link that provides some detail on how to use the database. And there is a contact email in the report if you have any questions:
http://www.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1044&context=jhubiostat
I’m sure you’ll find problems with this as well, but it does appear that at least some of the data used to analyze the link between air pollution and mortality is available to anyone who cares to look for it.
kuhnkat — In a round about way, you’re making my point. I confess I am not an expert when it comes to the health benefits of eating tomatoes. However, if there were a study out there claiming that eating tomatoes was bad for you, scientists around the world would review the research, look for flaws, and publish their work either challenging or confirming the findings of the original research.
That’s all I am asking. Steve Milloy is standing against hundreds of studies over the last 40+ years from around the world that do show a link between air pollution and mortality. Surely, if he has a problem with these studies, before going around saying that they are all wrong, he would provide some evidence supporting his skepticism.
All I am asking is that he provide the evidence. Does he have a study available that has looked at all these other studies and shows how they are all wrong? Does he have any specific problems with the methodology of the vast body of existing science? Has he published his work? Can he document in any way how these studies are all wrong? Does he have anything more than just his personal doubt? Because if it is just his personal doubt, that’s his right, but it certainly isn’t science.
Sam,
did you actually read what you linked??? Neither study found that the device improved breathing in asthmatics.
“This study of normal and asthmatic subjects reveals that breathing Heliox (30% O2-70% He mixture) during high frequency chest wall compression (HFCWC) increased oscillatory airway flow (Vosc) measured at the mouth over that achieved when the subjects breathed room air during HFCWC.”
“A study of the effects of conventional chest physiotherapy as delivered by HFCC on 13 subjects with mild to moderate asthma reveals no significant differences in the amount of bronchospasm observed between control (no HFCC) and treatment with HFCC.”
None of the studies link air quality with mortality. None contain any exposure data. No death has been medically linked with air quality. We’ve been asking for the data underlying these claims since 1996 — EPA has refused to turn over the data for independent review.
No one would treat an asthma attack with that sort of physical therapy. The ad is a fake, You have failed and will continue to fail to show that the girl was experiencing an air quality-induced asthma attack.
Show us her records. You exploited a child and now you want to hide her.
Sam Parry,
Have you ever seen a study to prove that tomatoes do not cause mortality?
Have you ever seen a study that breathing does not cause mortality?
That mercury does NOT cause mortality??
You apparently are rather vague on how studies work. You can not prove a negative. In fact it can be darned difficult to prove that correlation is anything but an accident or due to alternative reasons unless you can discover and understand the underlying mechanisms in detail. This is the real issue wiht many of todays studies. People have fallen in love with statistics and do not look for, or cannot find, the actual mechanism (see AIDS.)
If pollution does cause problems there should be evidence in the many studies done showing it MAY make other conditions worse. If a person has no condition there is often no reason to include them in the statistics. Studies of people with conditions and people who have no conditions, that is CONTROL people, are not common as they are much more expensive due to the increased numbers needed. As Mr. Malloy asked, show the studies that have evidence that pollution CAUSES conditions as opposed to exacerbating other conditions, especially with the pollution levels that CURRENTLY EXIST as opposed to what I and millions of others lived through with only discomfort to show. He hasn’t seen them. I haven’t seen them. If you think there is a problem with our lack of knowledge on this subject it would behoove YOU to use YOUR TIME to find these apparently well hidden research results.
The thing you need to do in respect to Mr. Malloy is to step back and decide what he actually claimed and decide what YOU are accusing him of. So far his claims appear to fit the evidence I posted. That is the vests are for conditions where the lungs have liquid buildup and the body is unable to cough the liquid out by natural means. (hanging people by their heels or knees and shaking them is frowned upon) At least two of the links warned against the devices use with asthmatics as it would most likely excacerbate the condition. While it may have been an exageration to claim it was medical malpractice to use the vest on the girl in the picture, it certainly is NOT obvious that the vest is for treating asthma and the only vertain thing is that the girl seems bewildered and somewhat scared. We also do not know what condition(s) the girl has, and personally, after seeing how often advocates lie and make up evidence to carry their argument, I am not willing to accept an ADVERTISEMENT which drives a revenue stream for a group at face value anymore.
Before you start calling people liars find out the FACTS!! So far you have presented no facts and loads of ad hom and empty rhetoric. Bring some facts to the discussion.
kuhnkat — Thanks for providing these links. That’s all I asked Steve Milloy to do, and he has failed to follow through.
However, couple of points. You link to “The Vest” website. On that website, they link to two studies on the use of their product with asthma patients: http://www.thevest.com/research/bibliography.asp#asthma
Certainly seems that if Aetna permits the treatment and The Vest markets their product as at least an option for the treatment of asthma patients, there may be something to it.
Full disclosure — I have no direct personal contact with the family of the girl in our ad. So, I don’t know what her exact medical history is. All I do know for sure is that she is a real patient with a real respiratory illness.
But, that is beside the point. Steve Milloy first called our ad fake and described the device as a chest compressor. He was wrong on both counts. Instead of saying, “Gee, you know, I screwed that up. Sorry about that,” Steve Milloy dug in his heals and fought back. Yet, he still has not cited any evidence to support his basic claim that air pollution is not linked to mortality.
That is the much larger point here.
Steve Milloy — There you go again. Changing the subject. I have asked you point blank to cite one single study supporting your claim that there are no clear links between air pollution and mortality. You seem utterly incapable of doing so. I have also asked for some specific flaw that you have found in the hundreds of studies that do show such a link. Again, you have failed to do so. I have asked for your source backing up your claim that a chest percussion device is not used to treat asthma patients. You have failed to do so.
You were completely wrong about our ad — including the fact that you misidentified the medical device as a chest compressor. And, having been caught in your sloppy journalism (if you can call it that) instead of apologizing or issuing any kind of correction, you would rather dig into the personal medical records of a young girl.
Steve Milloy, I was raised to look for some good in everyone, some redeeming value, some spark of humanity that connects us all at some basic level of common human decency. I am struggling to find what that might be with you.
You weren’t too worried about her identity when you used the video in a TV ad.
Though the mother has already compromised her identity, you can nonetheless redact it from her medical records. Let’s see them.
Hi Steve Milloy — The girl is real. The mother sent us the video because she is so concerned about air pollution and her daughter’s health.
Of course, given the way you operate and your track record of smears and lies, I think you might understand why we would want to protect the family from you and your ilk. But, I assure you the girl is real, the hospital is real, the treatment is real, and the link between air pollution and mortality is real.
As for the use of the chest percussion vest, I would be very curious to know what medical source you have for your claim that it is not used to treat patients with asthma. You’ve made a lot of claims about this issue and the general issue of air pollution and its negative effects on human health. Yet, you still have not shared either your sources or your specific analysis showing how all these health studies are flawed.
Once again, your comments belie your credibility — or complete lack thereof.
Sorry, Sam. A simple asthma attack is not treated with chest percussion. It may be appropriate when there is something else occurring to the patient, like some sort of mucous accumulation in the lungs — but not simple airway constriction. The nebulizer (in the ad) would be treating the girl’s asthma. By the way, who was that girl? EDF should know. Let’s see her medical records. Prove that girl was having an air pollution-induced asthma attack.
Steve Milloy — I suppose you’ll want to tell that to Aetna: http://www.aetna.com/cpb/medical/data/1_99/0067.html. I’m sure you not only know more than all the hundreds of public health experts, medical doctors, and scientists. But you no doubt know more than the health insurance industry, too.
Chest physical therapy won’t help with asthma, which is an inflammation of the airways. A chest compression device may be used by enviro groups doing phony TV ads but otherwise…
It would be helpful if the bleeding hearts would actually do some research before attacking a man who is HONESTLY trying to help reduce the propaganda and Junk Science that is inundating our society!!!
http://www.bcbst.com/MPManual/Percussion_Devices_for_the_Treatment_of_Respiratory_Conditions.htm
Asthma is NOT mentioned.
http://www.aetna.com/cpb/medical/data/1_99/0067.html
“to assist in mobilizing respiratory tract secretions for members with the conditions that are indicated below: ” Conditions listed include asthma.
Asthma itself does not typically cause a build up of fluids. If there is another condition causing a buildup asthma COULD interfere with the patients normal coughing and spitting and would then need help clearing the lungs. In other words this is NOT a treatment for asthma. It is a treatment for some other condition that asthma can make worse.
http://forsah.net/medical/en/article/Chest-Percussion-Therapy
” Postural drainage and percussion should not be administered to patients who:
*have just eaten or are vomiting
*have acute asthma or tuberculosis
…”
http://www.thevest.com/products/
Explains how the device works.
http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/4079733/description.html
More information on the device.
Steve Milloy — do you do any research at all? Are you denying that a chest percussion device is sometimes used to help clear the lungs of kids with respiratory illnesses, including those with asthma?
Are all these facts unnerving you?
Thanks. You just confirmed EDF’s fakery as asthma is not lung congestion. Keep talking, child. I love it.
It wasn’t a chest compressor. Steve Milloy is not a real journalist. He’s a scam artist. He didn’t even do the research to correctly identify the device, which is a chest percussion vest, used regularly to help clear congestion in your lungs. You can watch the ad yourself right here:
Folks, you need to understand that the point of Steve Milloy is not to divulge facts or information. It’s to carry the water for the polluting industry. Facts, science, truth — these things just aren’t his game.
Lynn Goldman’s reply is disingenuous. Having survived the ’60’s I know that air pollution was significant and harmful in many cities. My parents lived in Pittsburg in the ’40’s and the smoke and smog was a family legend. Automobiles were a serious source of smog-causing emissions. BUT, the clean air acts, up through ’80’s cleaned up all the major illness causing air pollution. Now, even on an ozone action day, which ain’t necessarily caused by emissions from cars, trucks and power plants, I can go for mile run with no problems.
The EPA’s push for ever lower pollutant emissions and the blatantly unscientific endangerment finding that carbon dioxide is a pollutant are what we have to worry about now. These new regs will be very costly and have zero benefits. Not surprising since they are a political move in a political agenda- more government control for its own sake.
The interesting point here is that it would seem we do not KNOW what causes asthma and any number of other respiratory issues. Granted, high levels of pollution will cause problems, but, as has been mentioned, none of our cities have those levels.
Would Dominique or anyone else please post the studies where the actual basic cause of these ailments has been identified? It would greatly help the drug manufacturers and doctors in figuring out solutions.
Jack, Gary said Republicans have terrorists as a made up scare. I presented FACTS to show it is not a made up scare or Junk Science. Sorry you did not grasp this issue any better than the guy who tried to use it.
Lynn Goldman has been at the center of controversial statements for someone who feels she is a professional “scientist”, after all that is what Doctors are supposed to be.
It was Goldman who declared that the study from Tulane University on endocrine disruption was the cleanest science she had seen. In realty it hadn’t even been peer reviewed yet….and when it was peer reviewed fraud was uncovered. Yet because of her efforts, and the efforts of then director of EPA Carol Browner this piece of junk science was used as the basis for legislative language in the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA). Lisa Jackson was part and parcel of that package also.
I wouldn’t believe Lynn Goldman if she told me that day was light and night was dark. I would have to go out and look for myself.
As for the figures EPA throws around; during the Clinton years they wanted to make the standards more difficult with claims about how many lives would be saved. When confronted by members of Congress as the where and how they arrived at those numbers the EPA refused to divulge that information. They just changed the numbers downward…..but they had no basis they were willing to share as to how they arrived at those numbers either. They make this stuff up.
In point of fact asthma is increasing….but where? We know that cockroaches are a major cause of asthma in children and population with large cockroach numbers is where most of that increase it taking place. So what does EPA do? They promote junk science laws like FQPA to eliminate pesticides that kill cockroaches and bed bugs.
I’m sorry Dominique, but you don’t treat asthma with a chest compressor. If that child was really only suffering from asthma, then what was being done to her was immoral if not criminal.
None of the “countless” studies of current air quality versus illness show any statistically significant correlations. Sure you can find studies that show high levels of pollutants can cause all kinds of respiratory ailments, however not even our “dirtiest” cities have levels of those contaminants even close to those levels.
So do some actual work and study up on these topics before shooting off a comment. This website has plenty of links for you to follow and educate yourself; take advantage of them. Or you can remain ignorant and spout the activist lies if it makes you feel better.
As long as the young and the elderly (some of them even tragically poort) die anywhere at any time from possible causes of any kind that we can claim in theory to marginally affect , we have the right to sieze control of your activities and make a living out of it. Until all people stop dying of possible causes that we cannot possibly think of a way to rationalize an ineffective non-solution for.
Does that about cover it, Ms. Goldman?
Should be easy to post an epidemiological study which positively correlates heart attacks with high air pollution days if hat the good doctors says is true. So, why doesn’t she post one?
EDF ad showing a child suffering from a serious asthma attack, and being treated with a chest compressor to help her breathe, was NOT faked.
Numbers of children, and adults, sickened by coal pollution, are NOT faked.
If you want reality, you can read the countless medical and scientific studies proving these facts.
But you don’t want reality. You simply want attention. But your rants, lies, and disinformation are doing an enormous disservice to this country.
I understand Gary but what is kuhnkatkuhnkat talking about. Typical liberal who can’t join in the argument and debate with facts but diverts and clouds the subject with a different topic resulting in confusion. Keep the pressure on Steve. They need to be responsible for their actions and not just spout propaganda.
Gary M, you don’t think the guy who rampaged through the Center in Seattle shooting Jews for Allah was a terrorist? You don’t think the guy who shot up the El Al counter in LAX for Allah was a terrorist? You don’t think the DC Sniper who was shooting people for Allah was a terrorist? You don’t think the Officer who shot the Soldiers in Ft. Hood for Allah was a terrorist?…
I won’t even try and list the attacks in other countries or the rest of those in the US. Here: http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/index.html you can find enough attacks and dead bodies to easily support out right wing whacktard claim that there are continuous terrorist attacks world wide. Sorry you are so ignorant.
She has a real way with words, my heart bleeds for the hypothetical children. I notice both sides have a somewhat fantasy villain. Republicans have ‘terrorists’, Liberals have ‘carbon emissions.’ Both rediculously characterized to be happening everywhere and all the time… and nothing like a fresh cup of marshall law to quench the alarmist thirst. Most of these American (CON)gressmen and women are clowns with different colours under the same top, performing the same show, for the same puppet masters. I never trusted mainsteam media, but I’m starting to filter all forms of news now… like Fox, never gave a shit about fox’ news programs untill recently.