Public Health
5/1/08 - Pittsburgh Has Nation's Sootiest Air
Pittsburgh has spent years trying to live down its once-deserved "Smoky City" image, but a new American Lung Association report saying it has overtaken Los Angeles for having the sootiest air in the nation won't help.
According to the association's annual national report card on air pollution that's being released today, the five-county Pittsburgh metropolitan area has the worst 24-hour soot levels and the second-worst annual soot level, behind Los Angeles.
It's the first time in the nine-year history of the association's report that a metropolitan area not in California was rated No. 1 for levels of the tiny airborne particles of ash, metals, diesel exhaust, chemicals and aerosols, collectively referred to as soot. Last year, Pittsburgh ranked second for soot on both the 24-hour and annual scales.
The "State of the Air: 2008" report, which used U.S. Environmental Protection Agency air pollution data for 2004, 2005 and 2006, says aggressive emissions controls in the Los Angeles area have reduced year-round particle levels by about one-third over the last seven years, while Pittsburgh earned the top spot by making only marginal improvement.
Guillermo Cole, an Allegheny County Health Department spokesman, said Pittsburgh doesn't deserve the ranking, which hangs on high soot readings in the Monongahela River Valley caused by emissions from U.S. Steel's Clairton Coke Works.
"Where the soot levels are high in the Clairton area, we're concerned. But it's a localized issue and the problem area is very small," said Mr. Cole, noting that 25,000 people live in the Liberty-Clairton area, which includes Glassport, Port Vue and Lincoln, while 1.2 million reside in Allegheny County and 2.5 million live in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area.
"The fact of the matter is that the ranking only applies accurately to the Liberty-Clairton area, and Pittsburgh, the rest of the county and the surrounding counties have much better air," Mr. Cole said. "Liberty-Clairton is a unique situation. We have a large source, the coke works, sitting in a river valley, so it's a real challenge. There's no other area of the U.S. like that."
The Liberty-Clairton area does not meet federal air quality standards for airborne particles, but neither does the surrounding metropolitan area, even though soot levels there are lower.
Mr. Cole said significant improvements to the air quality in Liberty-Clairton are expected to result from U.S. Steel's planned $1 billion upgrade of the coke works. County permits for the first new battery of coke ovens could be issued by the end of June and they could be operational by the end of 2011, with a second battery planned for 2014.
"Our projection is that the Liberty-Clairton area will come into attainment for airborne particles by 2015," Mr. Cole said, "while the rest of the region, where particulate levels are much lower, will come into attainment by 2010. We have a plan in place, and the new coke batteries and pollution controls will improve the air dramatically."
Kevin Stewart, director of environmental health for the American Lung Association of Pennsylvania, said he understands Pittsburgh's frustration with the No. 1 ranking, but even if the Liberty-Clairton area is removed from the calculations, the metropolitan area would still rank 16th worst out of 222 metropolitan areas covered in the report.
"I respect the Allegheny County Health Department, and the lung association supports what the health department and U.S. Steel are doing to clean up the place," Mr. Stewart said, "but the importance of the report is to get the word out to the general public about these serious pollution issues."
The Group Against Smog and Pollution and Clean Water Action, two environmental groups, issued a joint statement saying the report should be a call to action for improving air quality now in the Liberty-Clairton area and throughout the region.
The report says more than 10 million Pennsylvanians -- five out of every six statewide -- live in metropolitan areas that received failing grades for dirty air.
Airborne particles pose a serious health risk because they are breathed deeply into the lungs. Exposure to airborne particles causes approximately 20,000 Americans to die prematurely each year -- primarily from heart disease -- and almost 70 million live in areas that violate the federal limits. Each year, soot also causes nearly 300,000 asthma attacks and 2 million lost workdays due to respiratory ailments.
The fine airborne particles also play a major role in climate change by forming droplets in clouds that affect how much sun is able to pass through and the amount of moisture that is returned to the surface. That strong influence on cloud formation can alter the global climate.
Although soot levels are a growing concern, the report says ground-level ozone, the primary component of unhealthy smog, continued to decline from peak levels in 2002. Pittsburgh's ozone ranking dropped from 17th two years ago to 34th in this year's report, and 20 other counties in the state also reported improvement.
Tom Rathbun, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, said ozone levels across the state have dropped by 10 percent in the last five years, because of cleaner-burning fuel and vehicle emissions and a more-comprehensive vehicle-inspection program. He said new controls on power-plant emissions will help the Pittsburgh region do better on soot soon.
"We're on the verge of some significant improvements," he said. "We still have air quality problems whether we can see them or not, and reports like this one by the lung association create more public awareness and throw more public support behind efforts to make changes and improvements statewide."
Following Pittsburgh on the list of metropolitan areas most polluted by short-term airborne particles are Los Angeles/Long Beach/Riverside, Fresno/Madera and Bakersfield, all in California, and Birmingham, Ala.
For annual soot levels, Pittsburgh switches places with Los Angeles, followed by Fresno/Madera, Bakersfield and Birmingham.
Los Angeles, despite its ranking at or near the top of the pollution lists, has experienced continued improvements in air quality, dropping its annual particle pollution level by about one-third over the last decade, as well as significantly reducing its levels of ground-level ozone, the primary component of smog.
"The air quality in several cities has improved, but in others, declines in pollution have stalled," said Bernadette Toomey, president and chief executive officer of the American Lung Association. "The trends tell us loud and clear that we need to do more to protect Americans from breathing air that's simply hazardous to their health."
4/11/08 - Do iPods interfere with pacemakers?
Results of a new study show that Apple, maker of the publicly adored iPod, has no foreseeable problems with their mp3 players creating interference with pacemakers. Patients will continue jamming shamelessly to Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" on their morning run, while Apple will coyly sidestep one small dilemma that could have foiled their plan of delivering an iPod to every last human in America.
by Anahad O'Connor
Published: April 8, 2008
A much-noted study last year raised more than a few eyebrows when it suggested that digital music players could set hearts aflutter — by interfering with pacemakers.
The study, published in the journal Heart Rhythm, found that all it took to cause electrical interference in an implanted pacemaker was holding an iPod two inches from a patient’s chest. In some cases, the study found, an iPod caused interference when it was held within 18 inches of a patient.
But many scientists were skeptical, and apparently for good reason. More recent studies that looked at music players have found they have little effect on pacemakers.
The latest, carried out by scientists at Children’s Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School, tested four types of music players on patients 6 to 60 with active pacemakers or implantable cardioverter defibrillators. The scientists found during hundreds of tests that the music players had no effect on the “intrinsic function” of pacemakers. The only slight effects occurred when the heart devices were being programmed, “but not in a way that compromised device function,” the authors said.
As a result, they concluded, patients need be wary only while their doctors are reprogramming their devices.
Another study, in January by a scientist at the Food and Drug Administration, echoed those findings. The scientist, Howard Bassen, tested four different types of iPods and found that they did not hinder pacemakers.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Research suggests that portable music players will not cause pacemakers to malfunction.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/08/health/08real.html
4/4/08 - Health Care Battle 2008 - On the Campaign Trail
Obama and Clinton duke it out over whose plan is better on MSNBC:
Dr. Ron Paul explains his free choice health care plan:
McCain's health care plan is questioned by a New Hampshire newspaper:
3/27/08 - Health Researchers vs. the American Tobacco Industry
Medical historian Allan Brandt discusses the history of conflict between
health researchers and the American tobacco industry.
Allan Brandt researched "The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product That Defined America," and after doing so for twenty years, he has become one of the top expert witnesses for tobacco-related state and federal cases. In 2004 Brandt took the stand as an expert witness for two full days of cross-examination in the case of U.S. vs. Phillip Morris. The judge's opinion referenced Brandt's testimony nearly 200 times and for the first time ever tobacco companies were found to be in violation of Federal racketeering statutes.
Now, in "The Cigarette Century," Brandt presents the definitive history of the cigarette, both as the ultimate cultural icon and as the produce that shaped US agriculture, big business, medicine, and regulatory policies in the 20th century. Making extensive use of previously secret corporate documents which became available in the last decade as a result of litigation, Brandt offers critical analysis of the cigarette controversy and how the industry used sophisticated public relations to invent a modern "disinformation" campaign.
Allan Brandt is the Amalie Moses Kass Professor of the History of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and holds a joint appointment in the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University.