National Academy of Sciences Confirms Smog-Death Link
A new report by a Committee of the National Academy of Sciences has confirmed that short-term exposure to ozone smog is likely contributing to premature deaths.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) asked the committee to resolve a controversy about whether it should include the benefits of mortality reductions in evaluating air pollution control regulations aimed at controlling smog.
In recent cost-benefit analyses, EPA had included a range of smog related mortality estimates, but that range extended down to zero, nullifying the value of smog cleanup measures. The National Academy of Sciences report resoundingly concluded that the health-benefits estimates “should give little or no weight to the assumption that there is no causal association between estimated reductions in premature mortality and reduced ozone exposure.”
A free download of the executive summary or the full report is available from the National Academy Press at:
http://books.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12198
