August 25, 2004
IN THE BEST CLUB OF ROME TRADITION
Pollutants cause huge rise in brain diseases (Juliette Jowit, The Guardian, August 15th, 2004)
The numbers of sufferers of brain diseases, including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and motor neurone disease, have soared across the West in less than 20 years, scientists have discovered.The alarming rise, which includes figures showing rates of dementia have trebled in men, has been linked to rises in levels of pesticides, industrial effluents, domestic waste, car exhausts and other pollutants, says a report in the journal Public Health.
In the late 1970s, there were around 3,000 deaths a year from these conditions in England and Wales. By the late 1990s, there were 10,000.'This has really scared me,' said Professor Colin Pritchard of Bournemouth University, one of the report's authors. 'These are nasty diseases: people are getting more of them and they are starting earlier. We have to look at the environment and ask ourselves what we are doing.'
Well, Professor, what we are doing and have been for years is cutting pollution to record low levels, banning vices like smoking, inventing more and more miracle drugs and encouraging everyone from childhood on to work, play and eat with a view to living as long as they possibly can. However, if you want your funding renewed, you are well-advised to blame economic growth and enterprise. Your donors are getting on and would prefer not to confront the unsettling truth.
[The rise h]as been linked to rises in levels of pesticides, industrial effluents, domestic waste, car exhausts and other pollutants, says a report in the journal Public Health.
Great, then we know the entire report is bogus. Pollutants from car exhaust and all these other sources have been plunging since the '70s.
Posted by: John Thacker at August 25, 2004 12:21 PMJohn:
Of course it is bogus. What has that to do with anything?
Posted by: Peter B at August 25, 2004 12:26 PMAnd we've been getting older.
Posted by: Sandy P at August 25, 2004 1:17 PM10,000 deaths a year in a population of 50 million don't sound like many.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at August 25, 2004 1:59 PM"These are nasty diseases: people are getting more of them and they are starting earlier."
Are these figures adjusted for AGE? Elderly people are able to survive to a greater age, so the attack rate increases greatly.
Also, as diseases which were relatively incurable become somewhat treatable, there's then money to be made in the 'treatment industry,' and diagnosis is spurred. Certain ambiguous symptoms are more aggressively recognized as definitive of these diseases(childhood attention deficit disorder is now excessively diagnosed; ditto for old-age disorders.) One NONCYNICAL factor is that earlier diagnosis results from improved assessment -- but in the past, some of these diseases DID occur in a younger cohort, it simply was not recognized without today's improved technology. So a disease can be no more prevalent than in the past, but we now recognize its greater presence.
Addendum: There is NO reason to believe that Legionaire's disease DID NOT exist before the 1970's, despite the fact that it wasn't recognized, and also there was no prior disease that we can now say was the earlier manifestation of what we presently call "Legionaire's disease."
Posted by: LarryH at August 25, 2004 2:31 PMI'm reminded of the hysteria over the "cancer epidemic." In the real world, cancer mortality rates are declining for people under 60.
Posted by: Joseph Hertzlinger at August 25, 2004 4:29 PMI'm reminded of the hysteria over the "cancer epidemic." In the real world, cancer mortality rates are declining for people under 60.
Posted by: Joseph Hertzlinger at August 25, 2004 4:30 PM>However, if you want your funding renewed, you
>are well-advised to blame economic growth and
>enterprise. Your donors are getting on and
>would prefer not to confront the unsettling
>truth.
o/~
I'm never gonna grow old,
I'm a Baby Boom kid...
o/~
Remember Shelley Winters' character in Wild in the Streets, as they come to take her to a concentration camp for being over 30?
"NOT ME! NOT ME! I'M YOUNG! I'M YOUNG!"