> Adjust for those factors and the increased incidence disappears.
'Adjusting' for those factors builds in the assumption that they're independent of the thing you're trying to measure. If living near a smokestack is undesirable, then poorer/marginalized people will live there even if it also causes cancer.
I assume they meant if you look at roughly the same socioeconomic group that lives 500 miles from refineries as opposed to 500 meters you'll find similar numbers for cancer/other stuff. I'm not on either side of the fence because I don't know, just pointing out what was meant. I'd welcome statistics from either case.
Not really. It's just a widespread area that rolls up to zipcodes, etc.
My mom was in public health research -- there's a ton of cancer clusters tied to industry and other factors which don't get recognized because of the methology for defining place and jurisdictional boundaries. In rural areas you have population issues because environmental impacts can be localized due to low population density.
One example at I can't find a free article online for was a 20-30 mile long county highway that was paved with oiled gravel in the 1960s and 70s. Incidence of lung cancer in non-smokers was higher than smokers in the general population, and with smokers significantly higher. Reason? A local industry donated waste oil from industrial processes to the county highway departments. They were laden with PCBs, dioxins and other goodies, delivered to your home in the form of road dust. Another was a plant that processed depleted uranium for munitions, that elevated kidney and bladder cancers in a narrow range across a few jurisdictions. The contractor settled claims there.
Around Houston, I'd expect what I experienced as a child downwind of the former Greenpoint garbage incinerator and Newtown creek refineries in NYC ... more childhood asthma, higher incidence of cancers of lung/mouth from long tenured residents, etc. Lots of nasty stuff is emitted in refining and chemical operations.
All these things people claim in the comments section seem like not very rigorous. Also, any increase in cancer cases has to be corrected for overweight people in the US.
Majromax|8 months ago
'Adjusting' for those factors builds in the assumption that they're independent of the thing you're trying to measure. If living near a smokestack is undesirable, then poorer/marginalized people will live there even if it also causes cancer.
EasyMark|8 months ago
timcobb|8 months ago
Spooky23|8 months ago
My mom was in public health research -- there's a ton of cancer clusters tied to industry and other factors which don't get recognized because of the methology for defining place and jurisdictional boundaries. In rural areas you have population issues because environmental impacts can be localized due to low population density.
One example at I can't find a free article online for was a 20-30 mile long county highway that was paved with oiled gravel in the 1960s and 70s. Incidence of lung cancer in non-smokers was higher than smokers in the general population, and with smokers significantly higher. Reason? A local industry donated waste oil from industrial processes to the county highway departments. They were laden with PCBs, dioxins and other goodies, delivered to your home in the form of road dust. Another was a plant that processed depleted uranium for munitions, that elevated kidney and bladder cancers in a narrow range across a few jurisdictions. The contractor settled claims there.
Around Houston, I'd expect what I experienced as a child downwind of the former Greenpoint garbage incinerator and Newtown creek refineries in NYC ... more childhood asthma, higher incidence of cancers of lung/mouth from long tenured residents, etc. Lots of nasty stuff is emitted in refining and chemical operations.
looofooo0|8 months ago