"The pollutants of most concern are carbon monoxide and carbon-containing particles in the
atmosphere," Ron Wyzga, an EPRI executive, told a news conference.
The EPRI is an independent, non-profit center set up to study health effects associated
with the power industry. Some environmental groups say it is biased because it receives
industry funding.
The EPRI has been studying the health effects of air pollution over Atlanta, as a typical
Eastern U.S. city, since 1998. The study is epidemiological, meaning it looks at the
population as a whole and not at individual effects and so far it has only looked at
short-term effects.
Details have been given to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the group said.
The more pollution, the higher the rate of heart-related deaths, emergency room admissions,
visits to doctors and "events" forcing activation of defibrillators implanted in the chests of
heart patients, the study found.
"When you go from a relatively low-pollution "clean" day ... to an average day, you see an
increase in heart deaths of about 7 percent," Wyzga said.
In one study backed by EPRI, Kristi Metzger of Emory University in Atlanta and colleagues
collected information on 4.4 million emergency room visits at 31 hospitals from 1993 to 2000.
They found cardiovascular disease incidents in general went up in winter and were
associated specifically with higher levels of ozone, nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide and
of tiny particulates.
The study, published in the journal Epidemiology, did not break down the visits by specific
type of heart emergency.
Particulates -- bits of airborne metal, silica, soot, and other compounds, have longed been
linked with health problems. In particular the sulfur-based compounds emitted by fossil
fuel-burning power plants have been targeted.
"In Atlanta we did not see any consistent results with sulfates," Wyzga said. This
immediately attracted criticism from environmental groups.
"Numerous studies point specifically to sulfate and sulfur oxides pollution from coal
combustion as strongly linked to health impacts and premature deaths," said Dr. Jana Milford
of Environmental Defense. SOURCE
