EPA’s New Method Of Projecting Air Pollution Health Risks Would Erase Deaths On Paper, But Not In Reality, Experts Say
The new methodology would assume there is little or no health benefit to making the air any cleaner than what the law requires. On paper, that would translate into far fewer deaths from heart attacks, strokes and respiratory disease, even if air pollution increased. The problem is, scientists say, in the real world there are no safe levels of fine particulate matter in the air.
The New York Times:
E.P.A. Could Make Thousands Of Pollution Deaths Vanish By Changing Its Math
The Environmental Protection Agency plans to adopt a new method for projecting the future health risks of air pollution, one that experts said has never been peer-reviewed and is not scientifically sound, according to five people with knowledge of the agency’s plans. The immediate effect of the change would be to drastically lower an estimate last year by the Trump administration that projected as many as 1,400 additional premature deaths per year from a proposed new rule on emissions from coal plants. (Friedman, 5/20)
In other environmental health news —
The New York Times:
Citrus Farmers Facing Deadly Bacteria Turn To Antibiotics, Alarming Health Officials
A pernicious disease is eating away at Roy Petteway’s orange trees. The bacterial infection, transmitted by a tiny winged insect from China, has evaded all efforts to contain it, decimating Florida’s citrus industry and forcing scores of growers out of business. In a last-ditch attempt to slow the infection, Mr. Petteway revved up his industrial sprayer one recent afternoon and doused the trees with a novel pesticide: antibiotics used to treat syphilis, tuberculosis, urinary tract infections and a number of other illnesses in humans. (Jacobs, 5/17)
