Copyright 1999 Scripps Howard News Service
February 23, 1999

MITZI PERDUE: Saving 60,000 lives annually

Are you ready for an extraordinary statistic? Dr. John Graham from the Harvard School of Public Health says that if we allocated our treatment and prevention resources more wisely, we could save 60,000 lives a year in this country alone.

To get an appreciation for the stakes involved, remember that 40,000 people a year die of AIDS in this country each year and 48,000 die in traffic accidents. "Imagine a pill," Graham says, "that would eliminate the equivalent of all of the AIDS deaths or all the traffic deaths."

Graham and his colleague, Tammy Tengs from the University of California at Irvine, have been studying what really works - and what doesn't work - when it comes to keeping us safe and healthy. The results are surprising.

"We investigated 500 programs," Graham says, "and we learned that some are highly effective: vaccinating children for mumps or rubella, painting edge lines on rural highways or taking the lead out of gasoline."

On the other hand, the data show that a number of programs accomplish very little while costing a great deal. Included in the list: reducing exposure to radiation from nuclear waste storage facilities or power plants, or reducing further the already minute amounts of pesticides in our foods.

Graham knows that if you aren't a scientist, this assessment of the risks from pesticides or radiation may be surprising. The difference in perception of these risks between knowledgeable scientists and the public, he says, is overwhelming.

To put your risk from these sources in perspective, remember that the chances of your dying from these hazards is less than your risk of being struck and killed by a crashing airplane. The risk is real; it's just that it's a very, very small risk.

"In this funny society," he says. "We're neglectful and paranoid at the same time. We get bent out of shape by minor risks like pesticides on fruits and vegetables. Then we neglect major risks like the failure to use seat belts and speeding."

Graham has hundreds of examples of how society could do a better job in responding to risks, but here's one that affects you directly:

"We would be better off," he says, "if we focused more on reducing indoor air pollution rather than trying to get rid of the last bit of outdoor air pollution."

Indoor pollution is currently a far greater risk to us than outdoor pollution. This is partly because most of us spend more than 90 percent of our time indoors. It's also because, with smoking and other indoor pollutants, indoor pollution levels can be 25 times - or even 100 times - higher than they are outdoors.

Graham doesn't want to neglect outdoor air pollution, but consider this: we spend $30 billion a year on outdoor air quality. The amount we spend on indoor quality is so minuscule that Graham doesn't know of anyone who has even bothered to calculate it.

Graham wishes that as a society, we would use our national resources where they can do the most good. That means assessing the relative risks of the different hazards we face and then using our resources to address those that really harm us.

If we do, we can save tens of thousands of lives. "We'll be healthier and happier," he says. "Think of it as an investment-and the payoff is in the lives of our parents and children."

For more information, order his book, "Risk vs. Risk," published in paperback by Harvard University Press.

Mitzi Perdue writes about environmentally related matters weekly for Scripps Howard News Service.