LETTERS
More on monitoring
Dear Sir: I have just read Dr. Herbert Inhaber’s very interesting article, “A Canadian view of monitoring activities,” (fS&T, March 1975, p 206). This article represents an excellent example of the use to which the Smithsonian Institution’s data on pollution monitoring programs can be put. I should like to bring to the attention of your readers that the Directory of National and International Pollution Monitoring Programs, published by the Smithsonian Institution in 1974 under contract with the United Nations Environment Program substantially is outof-date. However, we have maintained a computerized data base on worldwide pollution monitoring programs that now contains information on the operational and administrative characteristics of 700 existing monitoring programs in 78 countries and territories. A printout of this up-to-date information is available in a directory format at cost from the Smithsonian Institution, Center for Short-Lived Phenomena, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, Mass. 02138. The data base itself also is available on magnetic tape. John Whitman, Program Manager Smithsonian Institution Office of Internationaland Environmental Programs Cambridge, Mass. 02138
Small particles
Dear Sir: Is there a microparticulate mechanism in heartllung disease? A major medical effort is taking place to locate the source of the lung cancer and coronary disease epidemic in eastern Finland. For example, in that region, lung cancer affects over five times as many males as it does in Norway. And the heart disease rate is the highest in the world! We might be closer to a solu-
tion through the research on stack emissions from coal-fired power plants (€S&T, November 1974, p 1107) in which toxic concentrations of trace elements were found to increase sharply with decreasing particle size. Microparticulates on the order of the wavelength of light bypass not only the stack filter but also the body’s respiratory filter. Thus, the almost invisible aerosol haze suspended above cities could well prove more deadly than the heavy sulphur-laden smog that sets emission standards. Ironically, if a fossilfuel power plant severely limited its SO, emissions, it could thereby operate at higher levels and in so doing release higher concentrations of toxic aerosols. There are few smokestacks of this type in eastern Finland to foul the country air. However, a similar plant stands in the backyard of nearly every Finn-a wood-burning sauna. In eastern Finland particularly, the open-fire sauna, presmoked before entering, is an almost daily way of life. One would think that the sauna, or for that matter any extensively used indoor wood or coal fire, would top the list of prime suspects. But Fradley Garner, international editor of Environment, has long maintained that the Finns have avoided a determined search for a possible correlation between the sauna and heart and lung disease. Garner has authored an anthropological study of sauna habits, particularly in Finland where the sauna is sacrosanct. The stack research introduces a plausible mechanism. The sauna environment differs in one important aspect from the surroundings of a smokestack. In a sauna, conditions are far from ideal with respect to the ability of the human system to resist overloading such as might come about by a massive intrusion of microparticulates. Arthur 1. Berman Energy Review DK-1208 Copenhagen, Denmark
CIRCLE 15 ON READER SERVICE CARD
Volume 9, Number 7, July 1975 611
