Posted on 06/12/2002 8:27:52 AM PDT by cogitator
Studies of Soot Pollution Were Flawed
BALTIMORE, Maryland, June 6, 2002 (ENS) - New rules governing emissions of fine soot particles could be delayed due to problems with several studies linking the pollutants to health risks.
Earlier this week, scientists at Johns Hopkins University revealed that the computer program they used to analyze their data regarding the potential health effects of exposure to small particle pollution contained a glitch that caused the researchers to report an inflated risk of death from breathing sooty air.
Using a corrected program to review their own data, the Johns Hopkins researchers now say the increased risk of death from breathing tiny pollution particles is about 0.2 percent - about half what they first reported in June 2000.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which is now preparing new regulations to limit emissions of fine particles by diesel engines and power plants, says the error could delay the release of the new rules.
While the Johns Hopkins study is just one of dozens to link fine particle pollution to health problems, several of these studies used the same software to estimate health risks.
EPA spokesperson Joe Martyak said the agency is still analyzing the effects that the flawed studies may have on proposed new emissions rules. Scientists on the EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee are expected to review the findings next month, Martyak said
Bill Buff, a spokesperson for the Diesel Technology Forum, said "correcting this error may dramatically revise the scientific community's understanding of [particulate matter's] effect on humans." Tailpipe emissions from diesel engines are often cited as a major source of fine particle or particulate matter pollution.
The Johns Hopkins researchers have posted information about their revised findings at: http://biosun01.biostat.jhsph.edu/~fdominic/research.html
I would hope not. Scientists worthy of their stature (such as Johns Hopkins researchers) don't like to admit they screwed up, which is exactly what this amounts to. Good scientists will correct their results when they find an important error, and that's what they're doing. I think it's fortunate that the publication of the error came before the EPA released the rules, rather than after, and like I said, I hope that the EPA does a full evaluation of the impact of the rules, considering their economic impact.
Yup. In fact, there is at least one case, during a debate, where a scientist stopped, was silent for a moment, and then conceded that his reasoning was flawed. That's the kind of scholarship and intellectual honesty we need in this country.
I'm a CPA, and I used to think that good CPA's would correct their results also when they find an important error. Welcome to the real world where people can rationalize providing misleading information.
This is potentially huge if this is really a software problem. These folks probably didn't write the statistics software for this project alone -- it's probably something pretty standard, and they're using it for a number of health risk studies, which may now be invalid.
I sure wish they'd give more details on the exact nature of the error.
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