[Stoves] personal pollution monitors (Nikhil)

[Crispin Pemberton-Pigott]

Dear Nikhil

Andrew asks a reasonable question: "OK but as I said science is based on measurements, how do we arrive at the correct measurement to be able to make some sort of causal
relationship?‎"

What does it take to establish a causal relationship between a general thing, BC, and specific diseases?

The fish drying project in Ghana showed that is it not wood, per se, that is a cause of smoke but the manner in which it is burned. The fuel was the same but the Benzo(A)Pyrene (BAP) was reduced by a factor of more than 30 in the fish, possibly much more because the PAH(4) total number dropped from as much as 150 to 1. The relative composition changed dramatically proving that the fact there is BC doesn't tell us anything about what the form is, based on the elemental composition of the fuel. 

BAP definitely is a carcinogen but who says Malawian are exposed to it in a ‎'causitive' concentrations? Diesel soot is very likely to be carbon chains and bits of graphene, graphite and so on. 

As far as I can tell, the Brits never learned to burn coal cleanly so the chimney sweeps were exposed to all manner of cooked up chemicals made from roasted coal tar, the foundation material of the modern chemical industry (which they did invent, right?). 

‎My father smoked Export A and Player unfiltered cigarettes and died of lung cancer so my relationship with smoke-induced diseases is personal. It is therefore galling to me to see repeated claims that a fuel, being solid, is a cause of smoke and disease, it's 'solidity' being an attributing factor.  If we want to be taken seriously we have to be more believable than that. 

You have given some description of how disease is modeled after the fact to fabricate (literally) GBD attributions. Accepted. What does it take for the stove to make valid claims about health into the future? It seems there are going to be a lot of medical people involved, personal filters, chemical analysis and lab rat models. 

Then, if I change the stove, the result will change because the chemistry of the particles will change. In fact if I change the fuel loading and power setting, things will change too. 

We may have to abandon 'meaningful cause' and accept 'reasonable attribution'. 

Regards 
Crispin