Orange County Register,
May 20, 2005

Commentary Section

Beware of Lung Association Alarmists

By JOEL SCHWARTZ -- Visiting Fellow at the American Enterprise
Institute

California
and the nation achieved record-low air pollution levels in 2004. Yet despite
this ongoing progress, the American Lung Association's State of the Air report
continues to exaggerate air pollution levels and risks, fomenting unwarranted
public fear.

Even places with clean air can get a failing
air-quality grade from ALA. Orange
County failed for ozone
smog, yet the entire county complies with the federal government's tough new
eight-hour ozone standard. Even in Los Angeles
County, 60 percent of people breathe
air that meets the standard, yet ALA
counts everyone in its polluted-air tally. ALA contends 152 million Americans breathe
air that exceeds federal standards, but the true number is only about one-third
this amount.

ALA also exaggerates
the amount of pollution in the air, claiming Los Angeles County
averaged 57 days per year exceeding the federal ozone standard during
2001-2003. Inspection of the actual monitoring data shows the worst location,
Santa Clarita, actually averaged 49 days, while the rest of the county averaged
10.

Despite ALA's
phony numbers, tens of millions of Americans really do live in areas that
exceed EPA's health standards for ozone, particulates or both. But that doesn't
mean they all suffer serious harm as a result. In reality, nearly all potential
benefits of reducing air pollution have already been achieved.

California's
Air Resources Board (ARB) estimates that achieving statewide attainment of the
federal ozone health standard would reduce total hospital admissions for
respiratory disease by only 0.7 percent. ARB's
Children's Health Study followed more than 1,000 children from ages 10 to 18
during the 1990s and reported no relationship between ozone levels and lung
function, and also reported that asthma incidence was 30 percent lower in areas
with the highest ozone levels.

Both activists and regulators claim current,
historically low particulate levels are killing thousands each year, but they
ignore weaknesses in studies supporting this conclusion and contrary evidence
from other research. The American Cancer Society study, which provided the main
support for the current federal particulate standard, reported that
particulates kill men, but not women; those with no more than a high school
education, but not those with at least some college; and former smokers, but
not current or never smokers. These biologically implausible results suggest
problems with the study's statistical methods, rather than real causal
relationships. In contrast, a study of 50,000 veterans with high blood pressure
reported no relationship between particulate levels and risk of death.

Environmentalists depend on public fear and outrage
to keep the donations flowing and maintain support for increasingly costly
regulations. Reality is far too benign to generate the desired level of
anxiety, hence the scary statistics manufactured for reports like State of the
Air. The bottom line: Air pollution is at a historic low, and affects far fewer
people, far less often and with far less severity than activists care to admit.