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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Leonardo Trasande, MD, MPP, Center for Children's Health and the Environment, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, One Gustave L. Levy Place Box 1057, New York, NY 10029, 212-241-8029, leo.trasande@mssm.edu, Clyde Schechter, MD, MA, Family Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, 100 Morris Park Ave, Bronx, NY 10461, and Philip J. Landrigan, MD, MSc, Department of Community and Preventive Medicine, Center for Children's Health and the Environment, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, One Gustave L. Levy Place Box 1057, New York, NY 10029-6574.

Exposure in prenatal life to methylmercury has become the topic of intense debate in the US after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a Rule on 15 March 2005 to reverse strict controls on coal-fired power plant emissions of mercury that had been in effect for the preceding fifteen years. To inform that process, we compared the public health and economic impacts of the EPA's newly announced Clean Air Mercury Rule with five alternative, more stringent policy options. We compared the alternative policy options with the EPA Rule by estimating the aggregate loss of IQ and cases of mental retardation that would result from methylmercury toxicity in the 2005-2025 birth cohorts. We also estimated the medical and special education costs and the resulting loss in economic productivity for two alternative policy proposals EPA considered as well as proposals made by Senators Jeffords and Carper. Preliminary data suggest that the EPA's Clean Air Mercury Rule will prevent 346,580 points of IQ loss, 1,475 cases of MR, and provide a net benefit to society of $232 million (1999 dollars; C/B ratio = 0.94) between 2005 and 2025. Earlier and more aggressive mercury pollution options would prevent an additional 65,000-1.4 million points of IQ loss and 274-5925 cases of MR. Our analysis suggests that more significant reductions in mercury pollution may provide additional net benefits to society, comparable with those that resulted from the removal of lead of gasoline and the banning of polychlorinated biphenyls.

Learning Objectives:

Articulate why mercury emissions from coal-burning power plants may impact neurological development.
• Articulate why mercury emissions from coal-burning power plants may impact neurological development.
• Describe the health and economic savings that would result from the implementation of the EPA’s newly announced Clean Air Mercury Rule.

Keywords: Environmental Health Hazards, Economic Analysis

Related Web page: www.childenvironment.org

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation