EPA rule sparks air quality concerns, cancer survival hits record high, and NASA executes historic space evacuation
Kendra Pierre-Louis: For Scientific AmericanIt is Science quicklyMy name is Kendra Pierre-Louis, I’m replacing Rachel Feltman. You are listening to our weekly summary of scientific news.
First, earlier this month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a new rule signaling a major change in how it considers the impact of certain air pollutants on human health. Many health experts say this change will likely lead to increased air pollution and worse health consequences.
Andrea Thompson, SciAmThe Agency’s Editor-in-Chief for Life Sciences, is here to give us a better understanding of what the agency does and what it means for the air we all breathe.
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Hi, Andrea. Thank you for joining us today.
Thompson: Thank you for inviting me.
Pierre-Louis: My understanding is that generally the EPA uses some sort of cost-benefit analysis to understand the impact of an environmental regulation. Can you tell us a little bit about how, before this rule change, the EPA measured these costs and benefits?
Thompson: Yes, so in general, the science for calculating the cost of regulation and what kind of economic benefits you’ll get from it is pretty well established over several decades.
So at least for the benefits part, it starts with health studies that compare areas where, say, a certain pollutant is high and areas where it’s low, and look at differences in hospitalizations, premature deaths, and other health indicators, and control for other factors that may influence them, and come up with a model that you can use to see, “Okay, if this pollutant increases or decreases, how much do these health indicators change?” And then, to this are added economic studies which are in some way interested in what we call the “statistical value of a life” – so it is not a question of a moral judgment on the value of a life. [Laughs]; it’s a statistical question. And all of that kind of comes together to determine, “Okay, here’s what the economic benefits are going to be if we regulate this pollutant. »
And on the cost side, you know, what is the cost to the industry to implement any technological changes that would be necessary to limit this pollutant? And then you look at the balance sheet.
Pierre-Louis: So how does this change finalized earlier this month change that calculation?
Thompson: So it’s a little vague, because the EPA hasn’t been very specific on this point. From the language cited in a New York Times According to the story that’s been revealed, at least they’re not calculating, you know, some sort of monetary value for the health benefits. And they said they weren’t going to calculate that for PM2.5which are small particles that can penetrate very deep into the lungs, into the bloodstream; are linked to many health effects, from asthma to cancers to low birth weight babies.
Pierre-Louis: That’s right, these are the kinds of things we encounter when we burn gasoline for fuel or during forest fires.
Thompson: RIGHT.
Pierre-Louis: So, in the old days, let’s say I had a factory, and it was polluting, and it cost me, I don’t know, $100 to put a scrubber on my factory so that it had less particulate pollution, and the government could say, “Well, yeah, it’s going to cost you $100, but it’s going to save $1,000 in human health costs.” But now they’re still looking at the $100, but they don’t have that $1,000 to compare to anymore.
Thompson: Yeah, basically. They said they weren’t going to calculate this for PM2.5 and ozone.
Pierre-Louis: And when news of this change first broke, it seemed that many health advocates responded, “It’s probably going to lead to higher levels of these pollutants.” » Have you heard anything similar?
Thompson: Yeah, so from the experts that I’ve talked to, you know, that would mean that anything that falls under regulation where it comes to the new policy, you’re probably going to have higher levels of air pollutants than you would otherwise because it cripples that essential tool for determining, you know, whether regulation is going to be worth it.
Pierre-Louis: If changing the rules in this way is likely to lead to more air pollution, why do it? Like, who benefits from this?
Thompson: So the obvious answer is which companies should comply with these costs. And that’s sort of the tension behind implementing any kind of environmental regulation: the regulatory costs – if you’re the power plant to put a scrubber on, are easier to calculate, whereas the costs to society are diffuse and much harder to calculate. And you don’t consider how this pollution affects, you know, thousands of people.
Pierre-Louis: I know some people listening at home may be wondering: is there something their State can he do to impose stricter rules on air pollution than the EPA can do, for example?
Thompson: It’s true, states often have specific environmental rules. The problem with something like air pollution is that there could be a polluting factory in, say, Pennsylvania, and those pollutants would be released into New Jersey and New York. So you… there may be limits to what a state can do. The reason the EPA exists is because this is an issue that doesn’t obey those kinds of political boundaries, and this national regulation is really needed.
Pierre-Louis: To learn more, visit ScientificAmerican.com to read Andrea’s article.
In cancer news, 70 percent of cancer patients now survive at least five years after diagnosis, according to the most recent annual report from the American Cancer Society. The organization says this is an all-time high.
Rebecca Siegel, the organization’s senior scientific director for surveillance research, said in a statement: “This stunning victory is largely the result of decades of cancer research that has provided clinicians with the tools needed to treat the disease more effectively, transforming many cancers from a death sentence into a chronic disease.” »
The report found that the largest increases were among people with high-mortality cancers and advanced diagnoses. The five-year survival rate for myeloma, a type of blood cancer, increased from 32 percent in the mid-1990s to 62 percent between 2015 and 2021. Similarly, five-year survival rates for regional-stage lung cancer, which is usually stage 3, increased from 20 percent to 37 percent during the same period.
Researchers cited improved cancer screening and treatment, as well as declines in smoking, to explain these positive results. But the authors also warned that recent changes in federal policy could reverse that progress. The report concluded that “looming federal cuts to health insurance and cancer research will inevitably reduce access to life-saving drugs and halt progress at a time when the incidence of many common cancers is increasing.”
Speaking of illnesses, NASA astronauts Mike Fincke and Zena Cardman, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov and Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui, also known as Crew-11, splashed down Thursday off the coast of California following a medical evacuation. Crew 11 was scheduled to remain aboard the International Space Station until mid-February, but NASA ordered them to leave after one of the astronauts developed what the agency administrator called “a serious health problem.” Due to medical confidentiality rules, NASA has not revealed which astronaut became ill or what condition they developed. The agency stressed that it was not an emergency, but that the condition exceeded the station’s medical capabilities.
This is the first time that a space agency has ordered a medical evacuation from the International Space Station. Lessons from this evacuation could help prepare for future human spaceflight missions, including Artemis II. This mission, planned for this year, will be the first crewed lunar mission since Apollo 17 in 1972.
And now some animal news. Researchers have long known that same-sex sexual behavior is common among animals. But in a study published last Monday, a team of scientists proposed to better understand the potential evolutionary foundations of this behavior in primates. Researchers at Imperial College London examined data from 491 species of non-human primates and found same-sex sexual behavior in 59 of them. The team then examined the links between these behaviors and 15 environmental, life history and social traits.
Scientists have found that same-sex sexual interactions are more likely for species with certain characteristics. For example, primates that lived in drier places were likely to face greater food shortages and greater predation pressure. Or those with longer lifespans and substantial size differences between the sexes, and groups whose social structures and hierarchies show more complexity.
Vincent Savolainen, lead author of the study, said The Guardian that the findings suggest that same-sex sexual behavior appears to “increase bonding, decrease tension and aggression, and enable all species, their particular environments and societies, to cope with the challenges they face.”
While researchers have emphasized that we cannot extrapolate the sexual behaviors of the primates studied to humans, fans of the hit TV series Passionate rivalry maybe wonder if these gay hockey players weren’t involved in building a team.
That’s all for today’s episode. Tune in Wednesday, when we take a deep dive into the scientific quest to define consciousness.
But before we go, we’d like to ask for your help with an upcoming episode: it’s about kisses. Tell us about your most memorable kiss. What made him special? How did you feel? Record a voice memo on your phone or computer and send it to ScienceQuickly@sciam.com. Be sure to include your name and where you are from.
Science quickly is produced by me, Kendra Pierre-Louis, with Fonda Mwangi, Sushmita Pathak and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck check in on our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Subscribe to Scientific American for more recent and in-depth scientific news.
For Scientific American, This is Kendra Pierre-Louis. Have a good week!
