Harvard study: Soot standard 'not sufficient'

摘要

Harvard University researchers have reaffirmed a connection between soot exposure at levels below EPA'scurrent national standards and the risk of premature death."This indicates that the current U.S. and E.U. standards are not sufficient to protect public health," they wrote in astudy published online last week in the journal Environmental Research.Using a causal modeling approach, they linked an exposure increase of 1 microgram of soot per cubic meter ofair to 14,000 more premature deaths annually among older people. The effect size is "large enough to indicatethat reducing PM2.5 concentrations in the U.S. could save tens of thousands of premature deaths each year,"wrote the authors, who include researchers from other institutions in the United States and China.