I felt the hair go up on the back of my neck reading one of my earlier April posts called Sparks Fly Between White House and EPA Over Recent Smog Standard Reduction.

The gist of the article is that, instead of reducing the EPA mandated acceptable smog levels from the what was then 80 ppm to the recommended 50-60ppm, the EPA only reduced them to 75 ppm.

Why?

“Initially, the EPA was to implement their recommendation. But hours before the news release March 12th, President Bush personally intervened.“Never before has a president personally intervened at the 11th hour, exercising political power at the expense of the law and science, to force EPA to accept weaker air quality standards than the agency chief’s expert scientific judgment had led him to adopt,” said John Walke, clean air director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a private advocacy group. “It is unprecedented and an unlawful act of political interference.”

In a follow-up letter dated April 7th, sent by the advisory panel to the EPA, and obtained by the Associated Press(AP), the AP reported that “the committee said it remained convinced that the EPA’s concentration level “fails to … ensure an adequate margin of safety” for the elderly, children and people with respiratory illnesses.”

Now, I’m not yet elderly, a child or with respiratory illness. But how many people are?

According to the US Census Bureau, as of 2005, the total US population was 296.4 million.

Of that:
36.8 million (12.4%) were over age 65.
20 million (6.7%) were below 5 years old.

That means 19% of the population is at increased health risk.

That’s a lot of people.

There are literally hundreds of studies conducted over the last 10 years supporting these conclusions below:

Environmental Health Perspectives (October,2007). Early Childhood Lower Respiratory Illness and Air Pollution concluded that:

“Ambient PAHs and fine particles were associated with early-life susceptibility to bronchitis. Associations were stronger for longer pollutant-averaging periods and, among children > 2 years of age, for PAHs compared with fine particles. Preschool-age children may be particularly vulnerable to air pollution–induced illnesses.”

British Medical Bulletin (2003)- published Air Pollution and Infection in Respiratory Illness stating:

“This review discusses the… mechanisms of how [air pollution and infection] act synergistically to cause respiratory illnesses, especially in exacerbating symptoms in individuals with pre-existing respiratory conditions such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Do you know any canaries?

Related Posts

• June 24, 2008 -- Fluorescent Light Bulbs Can Now Be Recycled at Home Depot (4)
• April 11, 2008 -- Sparks Fly Between White House and EPA Over Recent Smog Standard Reduction (4)
• March 13, 2008 -- New USEPA Smog Regulation Could Lower Your Health Bills, and Even Save Your Life (5)
• February 17, 2008 -- The Mad Hatter Story: Mercury in Compact Flourescent Light Bulbs (1)
• February 8, 2008 -- Trash Man or Trash, Man? (0)