Enviros ask, JunkScience delivers negative air quality study

By Steve Milloy —— Bio and Archives August 3, 2011

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We know it’s a futile gesture on our part, but here goes. Amid a spirited and ongoing online debate sparked by JunkScience.com’s “Show us the bodies, EPA” challenge, the Environmental Defense Fund’s director of online propaganda commented,

I just wish someone on here — anyone — would provide one single link to a peer-reviewed scientific study denying that current air pollution levels contribute to the premature deaths of tens of thousands of Americans per year. Is that really too much to ask?

Well no, it’s not too much to ask. Check out “EnstronIT121505Fine Particulate Air Pollution and Total Mortality Among Elderly Californians, 1973–2002” published by UCLA epidemiologist Jim Enstrom in the journal Inhalation Toxicology in 2005. In this study of 49,975 elderly Californian subjects, Enstrom concluded:

These epidemiologic results do not support a current relationship between fine particulate pollution and total mortality in elderly Californians, but they do not rule out a small effect, particularly before 1983.

Now that we’ve satisfied the enviro-comrade’s request, how about showing us a body?