[Stoves] Differentiating deaths from fuels v. making a difference in lives by stoves (Re: Crispin, Ron)

[Traveller]

Moderator: I changed the subject line. This is in response to Crispin
questions about 2014 claims of deaths from air pollution generally;
averting "premature deaths" is also said to be a rationale for "clean
cookstoves" and the underlying objective of WHO/EPA exercise. It also
responds in part to Ron's question to me about the Webinar, which cannot be
answered in one soundbyte.
---------------------------

1

Crispin: "There is one heck of a lot of difference between ?7 millions
deaths caused by air pollution? and 7 million people who died having lived
a life shorter than it would have been if they were not exposed to any air
pollution at all."

Confusion - deceit - is useful for raising monies, and assuring the donors
that they are doing the right thing.

GACC March 2014
<http://cleancookstoves.org/about/news/03-25-2014-who-7-million-deaths-annually-linked-to-air-pollution.html>
headline
says "7 million deaths annually linked to air pollution".

WHO press release
<http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2014/air-pollution/en/> said
"7 million *premature* deaths annually linked to air pollution."

Different deaths. A word makes the difference.

Deaths are final. Premature deaths are definitional.

Holding 86 years as universal life expectancy means practically all of
developing country people who died by 2015 suffered premature deaths. In
one fell swoop, researchers increased the number of premature deaths.
(Using cohort-specific life expectancy means that barring high child
mortality, premature deaths are about a half of the total deaths, the rest
are "post-mature". They don't have YLLs, they have Years of Excess Life
(YEL), without having to buy aDALYs.

Having nearly all deaths as pre-mature death means the numbers for
premature death due to any "risk factor" can be increased. Press releases
get more eyeballs.

A game of fooling enough people long enough. Ok for shaking money off
donors too eager to please the Clintons, not ok for WHO reports.

I think some people know the game, but keep their mouths shut. I guess I am
a different kind of fool.

******************
2

Crispin: "The question that hangs over the quote from the Geneva paper is,
was the statement from the WHO about ?deaths? or did the reporter interpret
?premature deaths? as actual killing of people who were asphyxiated (or
slower) by air pollution?""

Puh,,lease!! The only case of mass death by asphyxiation by indoor air
pollution I know of is a prison in Montepuez, Mozambique
<http://articles.latimes.com/2000/nov/25/news/mn-57078>. I may have written
about it before; too many prisoners were stuffed in a hall roughly 40x40x30
feet - with one or more small windows at the very top - with after mass
arrests following a protest rally or a riot. (I had driven by it two years
earlier and queried Manuel Retagi, our Mozambican colleague. He said,
"That's your future home!")

I believe asphyxiation is also the main cause of deaths in fires, in
buildings or in trains (Godhra 2002, which then Chief Minister Modi used as
an excuse for fires and killings

But remember, GBD does not deal with actual causes of death or deaths from
multiple causes. Barring a small portion, it ASSIGNS a SINGLE cause of
death. By statistical algorithms vetted by experts who may have never been
active in health services, just doing "global health". (It is a branch of
population health, not medicine.)

GACC and WHO both have been confusing "link" and "attributability" with
causality.

GACC says, "in 2012 around 7 million people died - one in eight of total
global deaths – *as a result of* air pollution exposure."

But then also says, "the new data reveal a stronger* link *between both
indoor and outdoor air pollution exposure and .. diseases."

Note "link".

WHO, even after using "premature" in the headline, says, "In new estimates
released today, WHO reports that in 2012 around *7 million people died* -
one in eight of total global deaths – as a result of air pollution
exposure."

And then repeats the "link".

THis isn't a reporter's error in interpretation. Reporters are explicitly
told that "7 million people died".

Strictly speaking, these are "statistical deaths", not individual deaths,
and "risk factors" can be manipulated any which way depending on what the
"super-human" saints of death and disease decide at IHME.

It depends on what the meaning of "linked" is. For that, more research
grants are required.

***
3

Crispin: "So *who gets the funding*? The one who shouts that 7 million
people were killed by air pollution or the one who claims their lives were
probably shortened because we are pretty sure air pollution has
consequences?"

NIH and EPA surely belong to the former group, as does IHME. The question
is, "What is the funding for? Whose meals does it cook, whose homes does it
warm, where does "fine-wine-dine-and-shine" some of us do in fact partake
of (as I did too) take the poor?"

I commend the World Bank for its support of coal-using eating and cooking
stoves in Mongolia and Tajikistan. Even without ISO IWA assignment of Tier
and WHO/EPA/BAMG predictions of aDALYs by assumption.

WHO/EPA/BAMG seek to make a difference in deaths by "risk factor"
allocation to those already dead. Because "premature deaths" justify the
expansion of EPA regulatory powers - Empire of Pretentions and Airs.

Your - and this Stove group's - work on quantum improvements in the quality
(exposures to emissions, burn risks, drudgery) of cooking with solid fuels
is for making a difference in lives.

There's a simple difference here - funding for life research and funding
for death research.

US CDC confuses attribution and causality in saying "*Long term exposure*
to smoke from these fuels has been *shown to cause cataracts, birth
defects, and premature death associated* with [list of diseases]. December
2015, CLEAN AND SAFE COOKING:Improving Technology and Saving Lives
<http://www.cdc.gov/globalhealth/healthprotection/ncd/pdf/factsheets/ncd_cookstoves_factsheet_01-2016.pdf>

To say "long-term exposure" (not that much has been measured, but who's
counting) causes premature death is like saying rural electrification
causes growth in GDP. Computational details are irrelevant.

But CDC get a lot more funding than Paul, Ron and others who want to make a
difference in the lives of the poor. Same with WHO and EPA.

Nikhil
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.bioenergylists.org/pipermail/stoves_lists.bioenergylists.org/attachments/20161003/bcaf60fc/attachment.html>