In the "Time" was recently a long article on the dangers of alcohol. Science disagrees on the effects that regular consumption of alcoholic beverages has on health. One of the quoted scientists, who, not surprisingly, lives in Germany, argues that every sip of wine is a sip too much. A text published by him in the "Deutsches Ärzteblatt" bears the title: "Consumption always means risk".
The sentence I would agree unreservedly. To live means to die of something at some point, that is almost inevitably so. Conversely, this also means that you should not go crazy. That's the comforting message.
However, the health researcher meant the sentence recognizably different, namely as a call for risk avoidance. He advocates zero tolerance for alcoholic beverages, because one can not rule out that alcohol leads to heart damage, stroke or cancer even in very small quantities.
"Consumption always means risk" is the appropriate motto for people who prefer to crawl. It can be applied to anything that seems dangerous. Even herbal tea is now suspected to produce unwanted side effects. Increased cancer risk due to "unexpectedly high levels of pyrrolizidine alkaloids," a major newspaper reported. Children, pregnant women and nursing mothers should often leave their teacups empty, was the recommendation.
How is that with the impartiality?
No one attracts so much anger in a faith movement as the heretic. A week ago, more than 100 pulmonary doctors responded with a call because they do not believe that particulate matter and nitric oxide are as harmful as it is everywhere. Now it is trying hard to prove that the signatories are people who are either blinded or bought by the industry.
One of the initiators worked as an engineer on the development of diesel engines. This was emphasized, as well as the objections of the pulmonologists, who consider a review of the limits for indicated. You might as well ask how many doctors who believe in the direct harmfulness of particulate matter and nitric oxide are members of the Greens or one of the myriad of environmental organizations. This too could be taken as evidence of a lack of impartiality. But that's not how it works.
There is already a new word for people who do not take particulate matter seriously: "particulate matter denier". Podcaster and Grimme Award winner Tilo Jung has launched it. I'm sure the term is about to have a great career. Ten more days and the Federal Environment Agency will publish a booklet why one can not trust journalists who doubt the limits of nitrogen oxides and particulate matter.
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The Federal Environment Agency has experience with such brochures. Five years ago, it hit journalists and scientists who had deemed reports on climate change exaggerated. They were listed by name as "climate change skeptics" who would hold positions that did not match the level of knowledge of climate science.
The closer you get to the matter, the more complicated it becomes
What surprises me about the discussion on thresholds is that even people who have earned a university degree are clearly struggling to distinguish between correlation and causality. It is indisputable that people who live on a major road, suffer more frequently from diseases than city people who are fortunate enough to own a house in a quiet side street. The layman (and as it turns out, also a number of experts) concludes that it must be the car traffic, which brings the main street residents prematurely to the grave. What explains the cause may be only a seemingly causal relationship. At least as plausible is another explanation.
Anyone who has his apartment right on a busy street is probably one of the less privileged people. Poverty is often accompanied by an age-shortening lifestyle. There is more smoking and drinking, poor people often eat worse than well-off and do less exercise. In order to arrive at a reliable statement about the danger of an environmental toxin such as nitric oxide, one would have to distribute the citizens randomly over the city. Unfortunately, such an experiment does not go through any city council.
The closer one gets to matter, the more complicated it becomes, which may explain to some of the political public the unwillingness to get to the bottom of things. Until today it is a mystery, why in many cities after establishment of environmental zones not as expected the fine dust values did not decrease as expected, but increased.
In any case, the risk of getting a fine lung is highest where most people do not suspect. What is the concentration of particulate matter in the air, the most dangerous place in Germany? No, it is not the traffic island and not the motorway junction. It is, you will not believe the subway station. Brake abrasion in an upwards closed room: Worse, as I have taken on the weekend of my Sunday paper.
I am now waiting for the blocking of all underground stations in Germany. "Public transport kills" - that can not stop politics!