Text of my acceptance speech after winning NC Policy Watch’s monthly award for market fundamentalist nonsense:
“Wow! I didn’t expect to win this award so I haven’t
prepared any remarks. Geez. I’m a little nervous. Let
me see. First, I want to say that the other nominees, whoever
they are, all are equally deserving of this award.
I want to
thank my family, friends, cats, my agent, colleagues at JLF, and of
course the voters at NC Policy Watch for this award. I know I’m
forgetting someone. If I forgot you, I’m sorry. I hear the
music playing, so I know I better hurry up.
I guess this means you love me, you really love me!”
————-
After
winning the award and having some time to reflect on it, I really
appreciate the efforts NC Policy Watch went through so that I could win
the award. They even tried to counter my report
(which won me the award) on the regulation of mercury emissions from
coal-fired power plants with misleading statements, and even using a
classic recycled statement about children at risk. Let me explain:
On November 13, 2006, NC Policy Watch wrote:
“The Bush Administration?s Environmental Protection Agency estimates
that between 300,000 and 600,000 or more children may be born each year
with unhealthy mercury levels.”
On November 22, 2006, they decided to push it even further:
“The Bush Administration?s Environmental Protection Agency estimates
that as many as 600,000 children may be born each year with unhealthy
mercury levels.”
NC Policy Watch?s statements clearly communicate that the EPA
made and endorse these numbers. The funny thing is the EPA itself
never made these estimates. This a common tactic that is used by
environmental groups?take the work of one or a few people that work for
an agency and then attribute the paper to the entire
agency.
The 300,000 number is derived from an article
written by three EPA researchers and published in a publication called
Environmental Health Perspectives. The article explicitly states:
“Views expressed in this manuscript are the professional perspectives
of the authors and should not be interpreted as the policies of the
U.S. EPA.”
The 600,000 number is derived from one EPA researcher?s presentation
at a forum in San Diego. In her presentation, she even says that
her number is ?preliminary in nature? and the information is simply
presented ?as part of an ongoing dialogue on how best to understand
mercury exposures.?
If it weren?t for making it look like the EPA, and even better the
?Bush Administration?s EPA? made these estimates, I probably wouldn?t
have won the award. However, NC Policy Watch didn?t just stop
there.
I love that they used the very misleading 300,000 and 600,000
numbers. Since this already is a long post, let me try and be
very brief:
The EPA developed a blood mercury level of 58 ppb
(parts per billion) to represent the level associated with subtle
health effects (this number already is very conservative). To
provide a 10-fold safety cushion, the EPA developed a blood mercury
level of 5.8 ppb to correspond with what is called the “reference
dose.” The reference dose is the highest daily dose of
methylmercury that the most sensitive in the population can be exposed
to over a lifetime without having any adverse effects.
The CDC conducts a survey called the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Here is what the CDC said
about their most recent NHANES data: ?Blood mercury levels in both the
1999-2000 and 2001-2002 subsamples are below levels considered
associated with known health effects.?
How then did the authors
and environmental groups get the 300,000/600,000 numbers from this same
data (actually just the 1999-2000 subsample)? They figured what percent
of women were above the reference dose (the 5.8 ppb) which is the
10-fold safety cushion and not the 58 ppb, which is the level “with
known health effects.” Since 7.8% of the women were above 5.8
ppb, and the number of births was about 4 million in 2000, you get a
little more than 300,000. Here is what the EPA has said
about the reference dose: The reference dose ?is not a bright line
between safety and toxicity.? Yet somehow 300,000, or even
600,000 children “may be born each year with unhealthy mercury
levels.” To be accurate, 5.8 ppb certainly shouldn’t be used for
such a statement but neither should 58 ppb (even though at least it is
a number with known effects) because too little is known to make such extreme statements.
The 600,000 number is a product of double-counting by the author
and environmental groups. They try to give the impression that
the EPA didn’t take into account some differences between cord-blood
and maternal blood and therefore the number should be adjusted
upward. The problem is the EPA did take into account these differences when coming up with their safety cushion.
Most
impressive though, by far, is the fact that NC Policy Watch and the
environmental groups have remained vigilant not only in using
misleading data but also in using outdated misleading data. They
use the 300,000 number despite the
fact that CDC issued new data in 2001-2002. The new data showed
that
only 3.9%, not 7.8%, of the women were above the reference dose.
This
would have brought their numbers down a great deal though from
300,000. They also don’t take the best approach by using data
from both NHANES subsamples on pregnant women only. It also would
bring the already misleading numbers down.
Thank you again NC Policy Watch.
