Health warning for U.K. refiners

David Knott
London
[email protected]

With the rising tide of European Union legislation on fuel quality and air pollution, Europe's refiners must be increasingly tempted to give it all up and run a nice wind farm somewhere remote.

In the U.K., in particular, petroleum companies have had an unhappy start to the New Year, with the government and its agencies lining them up squarely in their gunsights.

The U.K. has taken over presidency of the EU for the first 6 months of 1998 and has put improving the environment in the same category as tackling crime-a top priority.

John Prescott, Britain's deputy prime minister, says he wants to make the most progress in the areas of climate change and air quality over the next 6 months.

"There's no doubt," said Prescott, "we need a major effort to follow up the outcome of Kyoto. And it's no secret that there is considerable public concern in U.K. and across the EU about poor air quality.

"That's why we'll be acting on a new proposal to reduce emissions from heavy-goods vehicles, plus introducing tougher rules on damaging emissions from aircraft."

Health warning

As if to encourage Prescott, the Department of Health published a report on the effects of air pollution that claims a direct link to premature deaths.

Launching the report on Jan. 13, Kenneth Calman, chief medical officer, said: "This is the first report that attempts to quantify the impact of short-term air pollution on the health of people living in the U.K.

"It suggests that the deaths of 12,000-24,000 vulnerable people may be brought forward and 14,000-24,000 hospital admissions and readmissions may be associated with short-term air pollution each year."

In the study, the number of deaths per day has been plotted against daily levels of pollution, taking consideration of daily temperature and epidemics of infectious diseases.

The department claims the statistical techniques it used allow relationships between deaths and pollution to be discovered that would not have been suspected to exist using earlier methods.

The department says a 10 mcg/cu m increase in the 24-hr average concentration of particulate matter is associated with about a 1% increase in deaths.

Grim reaper

The British Medical Association (BMA) followed the health department's report with one of its own, which said curbing road traffic levels would help tackle the problem.

Noel Olsen, a member of BMA's Board of Science, said, "The grim reaper comes early when there is heavy air pollution. For individual patients, there are some important messages from the new figures.

"It is people with serious heart disease, chronic bronchitis, severe asthma, and the frail elderly who are most vulnerable to air pollution. Patients who are very frail, with weak chests, may need to stay inside when pollution is at its worst.

"I urge the government to use the opportunities created by our EU presidency to introduce some practical steps to curb traffic levels and vehicle emissions. The great smogs of the 1950s led to the Clean Air Act; this new data should provide a similar spur to effective government action."