Mart,

Blaming asthma on roach feces is an insult to people, a deflection from
environmental asthma causation.  It motivates immaculate house-cleaners to
buy RAID Insect Killer, thinking they are halting asthma. 

Similar apparent deflection of environmental causation for respiratory disease:

Wikipedia* writes,
"The Great Smog of 1952 darkened the streets of London and killed
approximately 4,000 people in the short time of 4 days (a further 8,000 died
from its effects in the following weeks and months). Initially a flu
epidemic was blamed for the loss of life."  Is that so?

*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smog
===
On Tue, 5 May 2009 03:23:06 -0700, mart <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>on this issue, one thing i'd add us often asthma in inner cities is always
blamed on roaches in dirty houses, while air pollution is downplayed as a
problem.�� i don't like poorly thought out speculations on any thing, but i
have little dought that air pollution is a problem in cities, and that
vested interests don't want it mentioned.

----- Original Message ----
From: Luis Gutierrez <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Saturday, May 2, 2009 4:09:31 PM
Subject: Re: "Swine flu" : Severe Pollution Context

This thread really caught my undivided attention.� Examples:

> Jim West:
> "Swine flu" symptoms, fever, nausea, headache, disentery, etc., are� � >
similar, appropriate for concern about these air pollution scenarios."

My reaction: Reminded me of the odors in the NJ turnpike close to NYC

> Michael Balter:
> "I think we can all appreciate the scientific rigor of Jim's study,� >
which meets the same high standards as his earlier study demonstrating >
that polio is caused by pesticides and not a virus."

My reaction: Rachel Carson must be dancing of joy!

As you all know, President Obama recently made it official, that human
health is affected by environmental pollution.

QUESTION: Is there any good compilation of adverse health effects of
pollution, preferably online?

Please let me know, thanks.

Luis


SCIENCE-FOR-THE-PEOPLE automatic digest system wrote:

------------------------------

Date:� � Fri, 1 May 2009 12:04:22 -0400
From:� � Jim West <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: "Swine flu" : Severe Pollution Context

I would like comments on my environmental study of "Swine flu", presented=
here.

NYC (my home town) is the US epicenter.� I'm considering the recent time
period of 4/22 - 4/29/2009

Two main epicenters listed for NYC are reviewed below.

Epicenter #1
Google map keywords:=20=20
"St. Francis Preparatory School" Queens

Note (satellite view) strictly adjacent are three expressways and traffic=

loops and NW is the La Guardia main take-off lane directly in line.

Epicenter #2
Google map keywords:=20=20
"Rye School" Westchester

Note (satellite view) strictly adjacent are two expressways and loops.

Weather conditions for Queens

In the week of the emerging "Swine Flu" epidemic, note that on April 22nd=

wind moved to zero mph, stayed slow and then again to zero mph on 24th, t=
he
day when many students "suddently lined up at the nurse's station with
nausea", etc.� Usuallly, wind averages are closer to 10mph.� Air pollutio=
n
could not disperse away from school, and would concentrations would incre=
ase
from vehicular exhaust.

Temperature is very high, and high temperature defeats exhaust convection=
,
leading to higher ground-level pollution.

Wind direction is from the three adjacent expressways.

Examples Misc
Other epicenters mentioned in the media are "Mexico City", "New Jersey",
"Austin Texas", which if looked into (weather and location) may find simi=
lar
environmental causations.

Symptoms
"Swine flu" symptoms, fever, nausea, headache, disentery, etc., are simil=
ar,
appropriate for concern about these air pollution scenarios.

------------------------------

Date:� � Fri, 1 May 2009 09:09:43 -0700
From:� � Michael Balter <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: "Swine flu" : Severe Pollution Context

--001485f791ce93f0d20468dc0bf7
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

I think we can all appreciate the scientific rigor of Jim's study, which
meets the same high standards as his earlier study demonstrating that polio
is caused by pesticides and not a virus.

MB