Yesterday there was a pretty good comment war on this article I posted yesterday, concerning the vaccine-autism misinformation out there. I got a few comments concerned that I don't consider the mercury/vaccine/mitochondrial disorder/antivax flavor of the day to autism connection serious. In fact I do, and fully support continued funding on vaccine research and their singular and cumulative effect on multiple subpopulations of the world. But mercury is gone and every study has either shown inconclusive or negative causation results so I don't like people spreading unnecessary fear about a highly complicated and extremely important public health pillar.
But here's what gets me, the same people telling me that vaccines cause autism and that the government should more highly scrutinize vaccines aren't up in arms over Bush's CO2 and ozone policies. Here's a real fact, in a study of 13 Italian cities (200,000 inhabitants) 0.6% of total mortality (over 500 deaths, equivalent to about 6,000 years) was attributed to ozone levels over 70μg/m3 (micrograms/meter cubed). Using a little math we can put that in a number we use over here in the US at 58.13ppm (for you science nerds who wanna check my math I used the density of dry air at 20C and 101.325kPa). I hope I didn't lose everyone with the science and math cause here comes the important information.
At 58ppm over 500 deaths were attributed Ozone in 13 Italian cities.
This is live data for the ozone levels in Texas in ppm as of 3 pm. 12 out of the 20 monitoring stations reported measurements as high as those that caused 6,000 years of loss in Italian cities, and this is over a much larger population. Now here's the scary part of that important information.
Due to formatting problems (link to full map with legend) I couldn't get the legend up but the green area represents "Good" quality air. That's not what the previous map told me though, it told me that Italians living at that level were dying specifically from the exposure. How can levels of this sort be considered safe, and not only safe but good? There is some sort of hypocrisy going on here because a substance that has been proven (I just used one study of real world data for an example) to harm humans is allowed to persist at these levels. Anybody care to take a guess why?
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Yesterday the health and science community was up in arms over the EPA's newer, more stringent (barely) regulations for ozone (blogged here). Well its come out today that the new pathetically low standards would have been higher had President Bush not intervened at the 11th hour to relax the regulations. Today White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto said, "This is not a weakening of regs (regulations) or standards" and the new standards are the "most stringent smog standards in history." Tony obviously doesn't understand that when the administration contacts an independent panel (of scientists and community leaders) and demands that they lower regulation standards, weakening them is exactly what they're doing. I fully expect the media to lay low on this one and give the Bush administration another free pass to screw us. Viva the free market!
Ozone, a major contributor to smog is choking off major portions of inhabited air space due to pollution from factories and cars. A stringent law would have forced communities to hold their businesses responsible for released ozone. This is a much more efficient way to regulate pollution output. Place the honus on counties to reach a low level of ozone and fine them if they don't. The cities then have the incentive to regulate their businesses and demand they lower ozone output. If they don't then the city can pass on the fine to the business. This is an important form of regulation where citizens who live in and around the areas affected by large polluters will have the ownership to demand cleaner air. Federal regulators are very inefficient because they can't look in everyone's backyard all of the time, but local governments can be held responsible for the type of pollution they allow within their jurisdiction. This will cost less money for oversight as well as bring the ownership of regulation within the communities that are affected.
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Its the same old story over and over. Industry says the new Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) ozone standards are too aggressive and call for too much of a reduction. On the other hand you have the scientists who are appalled that the EPA didn't enact tighter restrictions and feel that these levels will do little to improve the health of millions of Americans. Bernadette Toomey, president of the American Lung Association said, "Today's decision means millions of Americans will not get the protection that the law requires." So who's right?
Well it depends on how much you value your health and how responsible you think industry should be when adding potentially harmful substances to the air and water we use. Yes it is true that we all benefit from industry and the massive infrastructure we rely on daily does take a large amount of chemical processing (be it burning coal or producing plastics). But at some point the producers of harmful substances have to be held responsible. I like to think of it this way. If I buy some food that is contaminated with harmful substances there is a good chance that the media will be all over it because nobody wants to put stuff like that in their body.
But wait, don't we all put the air around us in our bodies too? Well yes, and just like food, I believe air and water should be considered consumables. Companies that want to tarnish these public stores of consumables should be held responsible. The best way to go about this is to place a very strict regulation on the amount of ozone you produce and then levy heavy fines for those who exceed the limit. Time has shown that monetary incentive is the strongest motivator for individuals and companies, and threatened with large financial loss I don't see many companies stepping outside of compliance.
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