249 kids does not a study make! Especially a "study" done in only one part of the country! Moms who do not finish HS = babies who cannot learn because mom doesn't know anything! duh! I was reading to my daughter when I could prop her up in my lap! As soon as she could sit up by herself she had puzzles and colour books to do. As soon as she could hold a crayon I was teaching her the ABC's and 123"s and colours.  At age 2, I enrolled her in Little Red Schoolhouse where she learned French and Spanish! Sooooo my point is, how many of the moms of the 249 kids did any or all of that with their child? I'll bet none.

IMO it is pretty much a common sense issue that the kids, who's parent(s) have not even completed HS and sit at home on welfare watching TV, have almost no chance of learning anything prior to kindergarten................if even then.

Did they "study" moms in the mountains? Suburbia? beach towns? 

Assuming that because the children came from low-income households that they would automatically not have as high of an IQ is assinine, considering IQ is not a measure of intelligence, but how quickly the mind can learn/comprehend.  Therefore, while one might have a higher IQ, it is up to them to live up to their potential or not.  Either way, there are plenty of children that grow up in low income neighborhoods who excel in school.

I'd also like to point out that regardless of whether this study provides an accurate statistical sample (I admit that I wouldn't consider the experiment a success either), the reality is that we are putting toxins into our environment which do create health problems.  I don't always agree with proposed law or current legislation, but I do believe that we need to work together to ensure that we reduce our negative impact on the earth. 

 I "asked" for the details of the study and was also denied.  I was told I have to subscribe to the magazine first.

Anyway, the abstract, with the credentials of the scientists doing the study, is enough to at least give them the benefit of the doubt and assume there was some kind of valid association between prenatal exposure to pollutants and lower IQ.  Your ranting about uneducated and low-income mothers does a disservice to the authors of the study who obviously corrected their data for those factors.

Lois, you are doing a lot of harm with your tactics of disputing amateurishly every study that comes along linking air pollution to physiological effects.   What you are really saying is let the polluters make their money until everyone is dead, then it won't matter anymore.

pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstra ct/peds.2008-3506v1

quote from abstract: 

Results   After adjustment for maternal intelligence, quality of the home caretaking environment, environmental tobacco smoke exposure, and other potentially confounding factors, high PAH levels (above the median of 2.26 ng/m³) were inversely associated with full-scale IQ (P = .007) and verbal IQ (P = .003) scores. Children in the high-exposure group had full-scale and verbal IQ scores that were 4.31 and 4.67 points lower, respectively, than those of less-exposed children 2.26 ng/m³). The associations between logarithmically transformed, continuous, PAH levels and these IQ measures also were significant (full-scale IQ: β = –3.00; P = .009; verbal IQ: β = –3.53; P = .002).

Louis, I agree with airqualityguy. Besides the title "Trust me science doesn't cut it" and admitting you haven't read the study really doesn't want to make me trust you either. Anyone who reads the abstract will come to the same conclusions about the constraints of the study.

The bottom line still is that Kern County has the worst particle pollution in the nation, according to the 2009 State of the Air Report released by the American Lung Association. According to the Lung Association particle pollution is a toxic mix of soot, diesel exhaust, chemicals, metals and aerosols. Breathing in particle pollution can increase the risk of early death, heart attacks, strokes and emergency room visits for asthma and cardiovascular disease. Particle pollution also affects how children’s lungs grow and function. 

Now, add to the particle pollution the high Ozone levels. We get the daily "unhealthy" warnings. According to the Lung Association, Ozone is the most widespread form of air pollution. Ozone pollution immediately irritates the lungs when inhaled, resulting in something like bad sunburn. The health effects of breathing it can be immediate. Ozone can cause wheezing, coughing and asthma attacks. Breathing ozone pollution can even shorten lives. Breathing ozone and particle pollution is bad even for healthy children and adults. The ozone grades incorporate the new national air quality standard for ozone, adopted in March 2008. This standard recognizes that even lower levels of ozone can be more harmful than previously thought.

This IQ study aside, I think people really need a wakeup call. I get the impression that there are some people defensive about the air quality, like it's all some kind of liberal hoax. If you don't mind the air here and don't care about the worsening conditions good for you. I just think this place has a lot more potential but I doubt I'll stick around long enough to see any changes. witterpitters, sounds like you're doing a fabulous job. Living a healthy lifestyle goes a long way too but unfortunately the air pollution is always there.

I would ask  where the money for the study came from. Studies now are simply another form of advertorial content used to pilfer money from one demographic and transfer  it to another. There was an article from Science Daily that reported 29% of cancer studies published in major health journals disclosed a conflict of interest. "Randomized trials with reported conflicts of interest were more likely to have positive findings."

Always wise to follow the money regarding these "studies."

I would ask  where the money for the study came from.

That was my first thought too,  Adam.   Follow the money!

The bigger question for me is, where is Lois going with all these articles on air pollution.

Is she trying to say

1.  The air is not polluted

2.  The air is polluted but it's harmless

3.  The air is polluted but it doesn't contribute to global warming

4.  Some scientists have an agenda for claiming there's air pollution

I would understand her questioning one air pollution study, but to question one study after another and arriving at the same conclusion every time smacks of  a preconceived idea.

But, I could be wrong.

 Nice call, Audrey.

airqualityguy

I just looked at your profile information.  A farmer AND an environmentalist.  You don't see that every day.  ;-)

A "small" farmer.  80 acres of almonds is the most I've ever had.  I teach school to earn a steady income.  In recent years I have leased out most of my ground to my brother except for some pasture for grass fed meat and eggs.

Farmers are often environmentalists, knowing the value of uncontaminated soil, fresh water, and clean air.   But, in this area "environmental whacko" is how you are immediately labeled so most avoid the term all together.

Actually this very thing was on the radar of my excellent Valley mid-wives back in 1988.  The it was suggested that I take very early morning walks and lots of vitamin C. As has been shown a mother with a conscious(no substance abuse of any kind) and a good diet that breasts feeds can up those IQ points by a bit,as if IQ was the end all...

BTW Witters~ while I have my AA I never made it out of high school. My intelligence on those silly tests is high,as was Christopher's~ who I read to,taught etc just like you. Now you may "have me" with Kelsey but that is only because he couldn't hold a pencil. Plus he was too smart to preform like a trained seal.

There are some parts of Ms. Henry's article I readily agree with. Proprietary information, by definition, cannot really be scientific data. And research which is not reproducible is not really scientific research. On the other hand, the serious effects of air pollution on infant health are not in doubt. There are hundreds of studies each year all showing effects in the same direction, from all over the world. Many of these studies have case controls, adjust for regression effects, and have publicly available data sets. A good example is Ritz and others (Pediatrics, 118, 2006, 493-502) in which all 20,000 infant deaths in LA County over 10 years  are matched with living infants of the same age  in the same area and with readings from the closest air monitors shortly before death. Effect are adjusted for income, education, and other obvious concomitants. Risk of infant death, especially from respiratory causes, increases dramatically with increasing degrees of CO and PM exposure. 

Which brings us to the next question. Why this article ? Does Ms. Henry care so much about scientific method ? It may be true that some researchers exaggerate the importance of their results to increase the probability of getting their next grant. But even if that were true, there is no evidence of a conspiracy of researchers that want to scare us to death. There is, on the other hand, plenty of evidence of a coalition of industry and agencies that want to lull us into complacency. In the light of that Ms. Henry may want to reexamine her priorities.

Jan de Leeuw, Distinguished Professor and Chair, UCLA Department of Statistics

Thanks Jan de Leeuw

To me, it's a case of common sense.  When the air is crappy, I can't breathe.  That study didn't cost me a cent.

It's like the weather forecaster who's trying to predict rain when all he has to do is open the window to watch the downpour.

AirQual, Audrey and others,

I'm writing about these studies because they keep coming out and they all have certain things in common, they make large scary allegations that upon closer inspection do not hold up. And since we've seen what California in particular will do with that kind of flimsy information in terms of regulation, I think it's incumbent upon someone to look more deeply into these things.

NO, this air pollution and IQ study is NOT solid science.

First, I didn't say I or anyone else didn't have access to the study or the abstract, that's out there. What isn't available is the DATA sets, which could be used by other scientists to see how they arrived at their findings. They're not giving that up.

Looking at the information that WAS released, one statistician I contacted noted the following:

I was struck by this: 249 in the study. They divided the people using the median value (they say so in
the abstract) for PAH so there should have been 124/125 in the two  groups. The high-exposure group had 140. I checked the paper and the split was 140/109.  Not even close to a median split.
So, A) Authors split on the whole data set, n=392, and then tested on the data set after 143 were removed for various reasons*.
Or B) Authors moved the cut point around in order to get a smaller p-value (that means something of "statistical significance" in order to prove their point).

IF the statistician had the data set, he said, he could figure out how and why they split the numbers up the way they did.

*That so many were removed and it changed the number in each group so much from 50:50 implies that there could serious bias problems with the data set.
 

My point in doing this isn't to say we have no air pollution, but to illustrate how studies can be used to create statistical "realities" that simply don't exist. Considering these studies often lead to regulation that can create undo burdens on taxpayers and the economy in general, we should be able to trust that we're doing these things for some REAL benefit.

Jan, you answered your own question.

No, researchers don't have a conspiracy to scare people to death.

But the scarier their "findings" the more grant money they're liable to receive, often from the very agencies tasked with creating regulations on these issues.

Which strikes me as just as strong a motivational factor to find "harm" as the motivating factor for corporations to claim no harm.

Lois, that researchers get more grant money if they find "scary" results is a completely unsubstantiated claim. Science works by peer review. If your claim was true, there would indeed be a conspiracy, because journal  reviewers/editors and the review panels of granting agencies would all have to be accomplices.  In fact, researchers  can probably make more money in the private sector by publishing "less scary" results -- as is amply demonstrated by research sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry, the tobacco industry,  the financial industry, and the various energy providers.

Second,  selecting some small studies from the thousands that have been published is not a very responsible way to arrive at strong statements about the entire field.

Third, warning for serious harm when it may not be that serious is much less costly in the long run than willingly ignoring harm and trying to minimize or advertise it away. It is also much less criminal. Ask Merck. Ask Philip Morris.

Ultimately, your columns on this topic serve as fodder for the pollution-deniers and the neanderthals who believe that all evil in this world comes from government regulation.

Back in the dark ages when I was in junior high, my science teacher told us "If its not Reproducible it's not Science".  Various science instructors since then have agreed.  On the other hand, my observations of practitioners of Political Science indicate when they don't want you to know the ingredients they are trying to sell you snake oil.

I guess that makes me a Neanderthal…

Jan,

Using a loaded term like "pollution denier," let alone "neandertals" is pretty uncalled for. We all know, the term "denier" is a reference to "holocaust denier," which automatically puts the person with an opposing view on this topic in the "crackpot racist" category. It's one of those sneaky little word games some people use. Neandertal, of course, speaks for itself.

I've never "denied" we have air pollution. Of course we do. My concern is that these studies, which are used by regulators to tighten  restrictions on individuals and businesses, aren't valid. They raise potential questions, but they're just a slice, not the whole picture and yet, they're being used as gospel.

Yes, there have been many many air pollution studies published re: health dangers. I've read at least a dozen. The problem is this, a couple of them (Pope mainly) have been used as the gold standard and those findings are used to "piggy back" other studies' findings. But Pope and others have never allowed their data sets to be examined by other scientists to replicate those orignial findings (which by the way showe little to NO increase in death rates for California and the west from PM2.5 exposure).

So to simply say thousands of studies have been published isn't good enough if those studies have been based on false assumptions and their findings never independently replicated. A lie is still a lie no matter how often its repeated.

Yes, we have air pollution. Yes, we should do what we can to clean it up. But scaring people with false information to induce behaviors that have potentially little or no benefit is the wrong way to go about it.

Like talking to a wall. Still, I'd be interested to know if this skepticism of yours carries over to global warming too. Another liberal agenda we shouldn't be overreacting about perhaps? [Oh did he just go there]...watch out now, here they come!

Fredster:

Ditto as to your wall comment.

As for your earlier post regarding worsening conditions, that is absolutely false and every monitor in the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control district shows that. Our air quality for ozone and PM10 and PM2.5 is better than it's been in the last 20 years. In fact, the district just won a lawsuit filed by Earth Justice over our attainment status for PM10. We ARE in compliance for that standard, when we certainly weren't before.

The issues with ozone and PM2.5 are that the EPA continues to move the standard to an ever more unreachable goal. So, yes, we're out of attainment, but only because the goal has been moved further from our grip.

Think about this, our air pollution has been decreasing and yet asthma cases have been increasing, all over the world, including the coast which doesn't have nearly the same concentrations we have of ozone nor PM2.5. That alone should make people ask more questions.

I do not deny we have air pollution. I question the studies that suggest it is killing us or making our babies stupid.

To question something isn't to deny it. In fact, questions should make good science that much stronger.

Not every monitor. See http://preprints.stat.ucla.... for ozone. Improvement over 20 years depends on the location and the standard used. The district is doing better (a) in urban areas, (b) on federal compared to state standards, and (c) on 1-hour compared to 8-hour standards. All in all there is about a 20% improvement on average, but in rural communities such as Shafter and Arvin the air may be getting worse. The district admits this, and say it is because they are fighting the ozone precursors in Bakersfield, with as a consequence that the ozone is formed further south. We do not know what the PM situation is, really, because of a disastrous lack of monitoring.

So is air pollution killing us ? Of course not, it is just shortening our life expectancy, especially if we live in high impact areas such as Arvin or San Pedro.  Is air pollution making our babies stupid ? Of course not, there are many social, cultural, economic, genetic, and chemical reasons why babies are stupid, or why babies become stupid adults. But if they are given the option, I am sure people choose to have and raise their babies in an area with a minimum of pollution of any kind. Ozone, PM, lead, mercury, arsenic, prejudice, bigotry, denial, and crime. Some of us have that option, many of us don't.