But there’s more

There is much more relevant evidence pertaining to PM2.5 and death, and none of supports the EPA’s claims.

1. Deadly air pollution incidents in the 20th century

There were three air pollution incidents in the 20th century associated with deaths  (1) in 1930, 100 people died in the Meuse Valley, Belgium (100 deaths); (2) in 1948, 20 people died in Donora, Pennsylvania; and (3) in 1952-1953, as many as 13,000 died in London, England. EPA and others claim these incidents as proof that PM2.5 kills. These claims are false.

In none of these incidents was PM2.5 blamed for deaths by contemporaneous authorities. In all three instances, the deaths were attributed to acidic industrial gases trapped in the local atmosphere by atmospheric inversions. The markedly high death toll in London is likely the result of confounding by a severe influenza epidemic that occurred that particular winter.

So it is these specific, extreme and rare circumstances (uncontrolled acidic industrial emissions amid a temperature inversion) that are required for deadly air pollution incidents to occur. This hypothesis is bolstered by the extreme PM2.5 pollution that often occurs in places like China and India today.

Although PM2.5 levels in Chinese and Indian cities can reach quite high levels  e.g., 100 times average outdoor levels in the US  no actual deaths are ever reported. The reason for this is that the level of acidic gases always remains in a safe range. Simply inhaling PM2.5 alone kills no one.

2. Coal miners don’t die earlier

If PM2.5 is the killer that EPA claims it is, it stands to reasons that PM2.5 should kill people who have very high exposures to it, like coal miners and diesel workers. Until recently, coal miners in the US were permitted to be exposed on a career basis  8 hours per day, 5 days per week, 52 weeks per year for 20 or so years  to 150 times the amount of PM2.5 as is in average US outdoor air. Yet coal miners, despite whatever health problems they might develop, have the same life expectancy as the average worker. That is true for diesel workers as well.

3. The Smoking Paradox

The ultimate slayer of EPA’s PM2.5 claims is smoking. None of what follows is meant to encourage smoking, but facts are facts.

When smokers inhale, they inhale a lot of PM2.5. If you live in the US and inhale average air, you will inhale about 240 millionths of a gram of PM2.5 every day. And EPA claims that is a potentially deadly dose of PM2.5.

Now if you are a smoker, not only will you inhale that 240 millionths-of-a-gram every 24 hours, but for every filtered cigarette you smoke, you will inhale and astounding 8,000 to 10,000 millionths-of-a-gram in the five minutes or so it takes to smoke a cigarette. But no one dies from smoking a single cigarette. The PM2.5 exposure is even higher for a marijuana joint, on the order of 100,000 millionths-of-a-gram. We give sick people medical marijuana. Have you ever heard of one of them dying from smoking a joint? No.

Speaking of sick people, it apparently is not unheard of for some elderly and sick people who require oxygen to continue to smoke against doctors’ orders. As it turns out, they can continue smoke for years and the greatest risk to them is that they ignite their oxygen and set themselves on fire. But that is obviously not a PM2.5 problem.

Research published recently in journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association reports that smokers who quit smoking by age 40 or so, have normal life expectancy. That is, these limited smokers can expect to live as long as someone who has never smoked.

For a mental image of what this means, a nonsmoker will inhale approximately two sugar packets worth of PM2.5 over the course of his 80-year life expectancy. A limited smoker, on the other hand, will inhale about a 4-pound bag of sugar’s worth of PM2.5. But both the nonsmoker and the limited smoker will have the same life expectancy of 80 years! If PM2.5 is a killer, as per EPA, how can that possibly be?

EPA is aware of this paradox and has no credible answer for it. One of EPA’s PM2.5 researchers once took a crack at the paradox and concluded that PM2.5 was only deadly at low levels of exposure (like in outdoor or indoor air), but not at high levels (like from smoking). That is, of course, an absurd explanation. It is well established and uncontradicted toxicology principle that toxicity increases with greater exposure.
What about the body counts?

Mentioned earlier was the claim that PM2.5 kills eight million people around the world annually. If PM2.5 doesn’t kill anyone, where does this number come from? It is the result of dishonest epidemiologists.

Recall that epidemiologic studies are really just statistical studies that produce mere correlations between exposure and disease. But these correlations are useful only for determining whether there is a likely statistical relationship between exposure and disease. Not only do they not establish causation (recall EPA’s admission in court), these correlations also can’t establish the risk of disease based on exposure. The reason for the latter point is that populations studied in epidemiology tend not to be representative samples of the population.