[Stoves] UNBS moves to ban ‘fake’ stove manufacturers.

Tue Nov 28 11:56:31 CST 2017

Crispin:

I wish I could endorse your view about "attributed".

Such attribution of identified causes of deaths and disease to risk factors
is not in itself a great bother. There can be debates about such
attribution, as in economics there has been about sources of growth and
attribution to different factors of production or role of technology, human
capital as embodied knowledge, etc. since the first large-scale study by
Denison (in the 1950s, I think).

It is in the nature of attributions that assumptions and methods can be
debated as new evidence emerges. Why, the Nobel Laureate Angus Deaton and
his wife Anne Case identified higher rates of death, in part by startlingly
higher rates of suicide, among Whites in the US some three years ago. They
don't do detailed modeling for attributability - Deaton is far smarter and
wiser than IHME folks - but continue their work ('Two Americas,' Updated
<https://www.wsj.com/articles/an-update-on-the-two-americas-1510784348>,
WSJ 19 November 2017), reaching some conclusions on the likely role of
education. Case speculates about different types of employment, unstable
living relationships, and generally "So those pillars of life - church,
family, job - have disappeared for the white working class in a way that it
hasn't really been the case for blacks."

There are limits of quantification and confidence in precise allocation of
attribution across risk factors.

What is galling in the WHO methods for HAP Global Burden of Disease
<http://www.who.int/phe/health_topics/outdoorair/databases/FINAL_HAP_AAP_BoD_24March2014.pdf>
- which I invite everybody to check out; I just haven't got around to
criticizing them because they are so curious - is that there is no factual
basis for what they claim as "data". Their "health data", "exposure data",
are spurious, not even first level of approximation.

I know this is a serious charge, but I challenge anybody to show me
otherwise. I have spent 40 years on all kinds of statistics - in energy,
environment, land, water, farming, health - across the world and am
unlikely to have missed anything you and I - or anybody else on this list -
would regard as "data".

I now have a fair idea of the motivations for WHO HAP estimates, but I will
reserve my speculations for another time.

Suffice it to say that if one went along the logical sequence of measuring
emission rates, concentrations, exposures/ingestions, disease incidence
over lifelong periods for non-communicable diseases - much as was done for
cigarette smoking - there is no tenable basis on which WHO generated
"data". The assumptions - listed in original documents one has to go down
the reference chain - are honestly stated, just that it seems nobody
bothered to read the genealogy of indoor air pollution and disease
literature or kept mum for protocol and diplomatic reasons. (I do know a
few instances of this latter kind.)

In short, I disagree "that the truth is: that indoor air pollution from
stoves has been attributed statistically to being a contributor to a number
of premature deaths."

It is not truth. It is a fiction. There are standards of scientific
integrity in such attributability exercises. IHME runs down a numbing list
of all WHO procedural requirements that the GBD exercise abide by. I grant
all those, but someone has to go down to the brass tacks and measurements
in all attributions because otherwise HAP is blamed - and "savior stoves"
are conjured - for invalid reasons.

That is a serious disservice to societies around the world.

I have a draft of an independent review of WHO's normative functions which
takes WHO assertions as I provided links to at face value. I would rather
that anybody who has experience in the collection and use of statistics,
and statistical inference methods, should examine WHO claims and protest
loudly - "This doesn't pass muster." Anything repeated a thousand times
becomes more credible, but does not make it the truth.

Nikhil

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nikhil Desai
(US +1) 202 568 5831
*Skype: nikhildesai888*

On Tue, Nov 28, 2017 at 11:46 AM, Crispin Pemberton-Pigott <
crispinpigott at outlook.com> wrote:

> Dear Friends
>
>
>
> “Mr Daniel Wanjohi, the East Africa regional representative at the UN
> foundation Global Alliance for clean cook stoves, said close to 2,000
> people in Uganda die annually as a result of indoor pollution due to lack
> of clean cooking solutions.”
>
> I believe this statement to be untrue, and that the truth is: that indoor
> air pollution from stoves has been attributed statistically to being a
> contributor to a number of premature deaths.
>
>
>
> “Household indoor pollution causes 19,700 deaths each year the majority of
> whom are children below five succumbing to pneumonia, mental impairment and
> cardiovascular disease because negative impacts affect them more than
> adults because their organs are not yet fully developed,” Mr Wanjohi said.”
>
>
>
> This statement, which I presume refers to Uganda only,  conflates
> *impairment* with *death* which is not legitimate. It also gives the
> impression that cooking stove emissions and household pollution are one and
> the same thing.  I do not believe that Mr Wanjohi conducted any research
> himself into this matter because we know that the data needed to
> categorically support such assertions does not exist. He must be copying
> something being said by someone else. Who could that be? Why are they
> changing a ‘statistically attributed contribution to premature deaths’ to
> ‘causing deaths’?  What are we to do about the other 90% of pollution that
> does not com from stoves?
>
>
>
> I cannot see how the misrepresentation of facts helps the case for making
> highly improved stoves available in developing countries.  I would be far
> better to talk up health-related impacts of smoke inhalation, but not to
> take an attribution of impact and turn it into a claim for a cause of
> death. So far attempts to connect stove smoke inhalation to the medical
> consequence of pneumonia in children have failed.
>
>
>
> Regards
>
> Crispin
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Stoves [mailto:stoves-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] *On
> Behalf Of *Nolbert Muhumuza
> *Sent:* 28-Nov-17 10:07
> *To:* Stoves <stoves at lists.bioenergylists.org>
> *Subject:* [Stoves] UNBS moves to ban ‘fake’ stove manufacturers.
>
>
>
> I don't think this this story was view by all on this list:
>
>
>
> http://www.monitor.co.ug/Business/UNBS-moves-to-ban--
> fake--stove-manufacturers/688322-4104988-oamctn/index.html
> <https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.monitor.co.ug%2FBusiness%2FUNBS-moves-to-ban--fake--stove-manufacturers%2F688322-4104988-oamctn%2Findex.html&data=02%7C01%7Ccrispinpigott%40outlook.com%7Ccefff3a6f54a45e376a908d536722929%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636474786301397973&sdata=oNhJK3D%2F5ToPKQJg2eLqgn0MB8uz7QzKzSg2QJoikd4%3D&reserved=0>
>
>
> In Service,
>
>
>
> *Nolbert Muhumuza*
>
>
>
> *Co-Founder & CEO*
>
>
>
> St. Noah Church of Uganda,
>
> Makerere Kikoni (Opposite Caltec Academy)
>
> PO Box 40127, Kampala, Uganda.
>
>
>
> O: +256-751-292686 <+256%20751%20292686>
>
> M: +256-776-346724 <+256%20776%20346724>
>
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>
> Skype:  nolbertm
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