<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class="">Nikhil, Professor Gadgil and ccs (adding the stoves list - as I think many will appreciate the new cites you provide)</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>The key sentence below, for me, is this: "<i class="">I will get around to answering you and Ashok Gadgil when health permits, but I am simply putting the burden of proof upon you — find me the primary data and the validation of causality."</i></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Sorry to hear of the health issue. My recollection is that Professor Gadgil and I were asking exactly the reverse. We would take this dialog seriously if you could provide someone/anyone who supports your denunciation of WHO, IMHE, HEI, Kirk Smith, GACC, etc. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>I vaguely recall the connection to Cox (see below). Looking again at <a href="http://cox-associates.com/index_htm_files/Coxbio.pdf" class="">http://cox-associates.com/index_htm_files/Coxbio.pdf</a>, I don't see much reason yet for his view on risks (his specialty) to over-ride the many hundreds of experts around the world coming up with the numbers you point us to below. Glad to look at a specific reference in support of your views</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>I claim zero expertise on this topic; I have things to do that are much higher priority than trying to come up with evidence beyond that you already give below. I trust what I read in the Lancet and other places - because I would be happy if they are within 10 or even 20% - and because a number like 4 million seems about right. Maybe a few experts are generating death statistics only for the income, but I don't see that for the ones I have come to know - especially Prof. Smith.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>I recall much larger numbers for days loss from work/school etc due to indoor pollution (NOT deaths, not DALYs). Can you supply a cite to such illness numbers? I don't see any such statistics in the cites below. The economic loss from illness alone has to be justification for many countries to do what we are about on this list. In my >20 years on this list, we have made considerable progress (too slow) and more is clearly on the way - as a stove Tier system becomes a driver. Such a system will drive users to the cleanest of stoves - but not for health reasons. It will be because the user can experience negative costs - which amazingly also has climate significance as char is placed in soil.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Ron</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><br class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Aug 22, 2018, at 3:22 PM, Nikhil Desai <<a href="mailto:pienergy2008@gmail.com" class="">pienergy2008@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class="">Dear Ron: <br class=""><br class="">As the fervent devotee of WHO, you might be excited by this news -
<span style="font-size:small;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline" class=""><a href="http://www.who.int/airpollution/events/conference/en/" class="">http://www.who.int/airpollution/events/conference/en/</a>.<br class=""></span><br class="">If you happened to read the HEI report you were so excited by, you may have discovered the hollowness of the whole exercise of computing premature deaths by causes of death via a series of assumptions and manipulation - i.e., no valid data - and then cooking up the allocation of the causes of death among "risk factors". <br class=""><br class="">I will get around to answering you and Ashok Gadgil when health permits, but I am simply putting the burden of proof upon you -- find me the primary data and the validation of causality. This is all poppycock dressed up as science, in the service of third rate economics (such as "expected disease of burden at a given level of development", as if these fools know a thing or two about what "level of development" means). <br class=""><br class="">Examining the roots of quantification of health damage due to air pollution exposures is indeed examining the Heart of Darkness, or Apocalypse Now, the Francis Ford Coppola classic 40 years ago. <br class=""><br class="">Below my summary commentary today on a WHO "Fact Sheet" on "Household Air Pollution" - intellectual pollution by Kirk Smith & Co. <br class=""><br class="">N<br class=""><p style="margin-bottom:0in" class=""><a href="http://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/household-air-pollution-and-health" class="">http://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/household-air-pollution-and-health</a></p><p style="margin-bottom:0in" class="">It says
"Household air pollution <u class="">causes</u> noncommunicable diseases .."
and "Close to half of deaths due to pneumonia among children
under 5 years of age are <u class="">caused</u> by particulate matter (soot) inhaled
from household air pollution."</p><p style="margin-bottom:0in" class="">There is zero
evidence for these allegations of "cause" in WHO
literature. Some epidemiologist would have to offer proofs of causality of PM2.5 and diseases; Tony Cox's review earlier this year trashed all such pretenses so far. <br class=""><br class="">As a matter of fact, as one reads down from "Key
facts" to the rest of the Fact Sheet, one only finds the words
attributable or attributed (4), risk or risk factors (15 times). and
likely and contributes (once each). The word "cause" comes
in only for emissions caused by combustion practices (which can vary
for every fuel; organic pollutants are not inherent to fuel),
kerosene as a cause of childhood poisoning (which has nothing to do
with cooking per se). The alleged evidence of "links" is
spotty and specific to particular periods and cohorts and indicates
no causality.<br class=""></p><p style="margin-bottom:0in" class="">Rather, WHO
ASSUMES a) a fictional level of daily average concentration worldwide
among users of solid fuels for cooking and heating, b) that
concentration is a proxy for inhalation, and c) that a Relative Risk
can be assigned on the basis of instantaneous response to such
assumed level of inhalation using an assumed Integrated Exposure
Response (IER) curve."<br class=""></p><p style="margin-bottom:0in" class="">There are no
actual data on fuel quality and quantity, emission rates, emission
loads, concentrations, exposures, diseases, medical treatments and
responses, disabilities or deaths. At every single step, a set of
assumptions are substituted for facts, and the results are marketed
as science. Every quantification - number of people exposed to HAP,
level of exposure, resultant disease and death - regarding the health
impact of HAP is a carefully manufactured lie.<br class=""></p><p style="margin-bottom:0in" class="">GBD estimates
are made by both IHME and WHO to allocate premature deaths by causes
and then allocate causes to risk factors. Estimates of HAP DALYs are
based on non-existent data on exposure or disease incidence and on
assumptions and methods that are not credible. In any event,
attribution is not causality - so the claim that solid fuel
emissions "kill" anybody is spurious - nor does the
attributable mean avoidable. There will be premature deaths even if
all household fuel was gas and electricity; the deaths and diseases
will be allocated to other risk factors.
</p><p style="margin-bottom:0in" class="">In short, the
HAP GBD numbers are fiction and of no policy relevance.<br class=""><br class="">There is enough criticism of this hyper-adventurism of IHME to please the purveyors of MDG and SDG "progress". <br class=""><br class="">It is easy to cook up numbers and graphs; more below. <br class=""><br class="">N</p>
<br class=""><a href="http://www.who.int/gho/phe/indoor_air_pollution/burden/en/" class="">http://www.who.int/gho/phe/indoor_air_pollution/burden/en/</a><br class=""><br class="">But no data on exposures: <a href="http://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.134?lang=en" class="">http://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.134?lang=en</a><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">One-time delivery of premature deaths (2012): <a href="http://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.134?lang=en" class="">http://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.134?lang=en</a>. <br class=""><br class="">Summary 2004 and detailed 2012 DALYs cooked up by country: <a href="http://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.BODHOUSEHOLDAIRDALYS?lang=en" class="">http://apps.who.int/gho/data/node.main.BODHOUSEHOLDAIRDALYS?lang=en</a> </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""><br class=""><br class=""><br class=""><br class=""><br class=""><br clear="all" class=""><div class=""><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class=""><font face="georgia, serif" class="">------------------------------------------------------------------------<br class="">Nikhil Desai</font></div><div class=""><span style="font-family:georgia,serif;font-size:small" class="">(US +1) 202 568 5831</span><font face="georgia, serif" class=""><br class=""><i class="">Skype: nikhildesai888</i><br class=""></font><br class=""></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
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