The Effects of Volcanic Emissions on Health

[MarkP]

The volcano has been here almost infinitely longer than the plant and is almost infinitely larger. There very well may be health effects from emissions but are the emissions from the plant or the volcano?

[hotinhawaii]

Pam jones, my mother also has had a lingering cough for months every year or two for about ten years. Do you think the geothermal could be causing this? She lives 6000 miles away from here. My point is that this happens everywhere. Why would you so strongly conflate it with living near a geothermal plant? There are probably a million other explanations.

[leilanidude]

I said it earlier in this thread about not equating volcano with geothermal...

The geothermal in Iceland that people bathe in - comes up to the surface naturally. Yes, Iceland does use geothermal energy as well, and uses geothermal heated water for heating homes/businesses. Here though, the water and steam is contained and injected back down into the ground, thousands of feet down, to be re-heated by the volcano.

Any ill health effects here are caused by the ever present natural releases of steam and other nasty pollutants from the volcano itself, which has vents all over the area. It isn't man-made!

[Obie]

"I think the issue is very relevant to us locally."

If you truly believe this,Why do you live here ??

If natural geothermal emissions are causing cancer,Why does anyone live here ??

[Lee M-S]

Pam Jones, I also had a long-term cough that Kaiser couldn't resolve. First they thought it was acid reflux, then it was a tumor, but treatments were useless. I kept saying I thought it was allergies, but they ignored me. I finally talked a doc into a Rx for fluticasone nasal spray (now available OTC), and it cleared up in 6 weeks.

><(((*< ... ><(("< ... ><('< ... >o>

[geochem]

quote:

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Originally posted by pam jones

I live 30 miles from the geothermal plant so don't think I'm britching and beating a dead horse here. What I do know is that on at least three occasions in the past 12 years I have had a long term, unexplained cough which lasted for a number of months.....

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My condolences for the chronic health problems that you've experienced. I don't in any way want to discount them. But, the statement by your doctor that there have been no studies of respiratory health status in Puna or on the island, is false. There have been a number of health studies during the last three and four decades - I served on the research/dissertation committee of a PhD student in the UH School of Public Health that looked for an association of vog and asthma treatments - he couldn't produce any statistically significant findings of an association. Dr. Elizabeth Tam, at the UH School of Medicine, has conducted at least one and possibly more studies of an association between volcanic emissions and respiratory health. There was a much cited study many years ago that allegedly concluded that the rates of respiratory problems were substantially higher on the windward side of Hawaii Island than they were elsewhere in the state. But there have been few, if any, findings (by a scientifically validated study) of an association between volcanic or geothermal emissions and health problems in populations upwind of Kilauea. This one (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3086318/) finds quite the opposite.

A larger study (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/art...2016301052) did find a correlation between increased cough and high rates of exposure to Kilauea's vog plume but only if the analysis corrected for asthma ("analysis suggested a trend to increased prevalence of cough in the Frequent and Acid vog exposure zones (Table 4). This remained non-significant even after adjustment for age, sex, race, sitting height, premature birth, maternal smoking during pregnancy, current smokers in the home, and mold or mildew in the home in the prior 12 months" and "Increased cough in the Acid exposure zone reached statistical significance when physician diagnosed asthma was included in the adjustment. Stratified analysis of asthmatic and non-asthmatic participants indicated that the odds of cough doubled among the non-asthmatic participants (9% in the Acid vs 5% in the Low exposure zones)".

I get a couple of take-away messages here:
1) If you are not asthmatic, not living downwind of Kilauea, and/or are not episodically exposed to high levels of vog and still have cough, then the volcano has nothing to do with your cough.
2) They give a very nice listing of all the other factors that can affect respiratory health: "maternal smoking during pregnancy, current smokers in the home, and mold or mildew in the home in the prior 12 months". You might want to look at those other risk factors and see if there is a correlation between any of those and your cough. The last one, for me is relevant: I lived in lower Puna for a while, renting a house that was off-grid. As soon as the monsoons came in, it was permeated with mold and mildew and I couldn't walk in the door without my chest starting to feel tight. In the years since, toxic mold has increasingly become recognized as a significant health issue in a lot of humid environments - and I have heard of homes being condemned, and torn down, because they were infested with toxic mold.

So, maybe you want to start keeping a diary of when you suffer from chronic cough and what your exposure levels are to smokers and to weather conditions likely to accelerate mold growth. You might also want to maintain a food diary as well since food allergens may play a roll... (I discovered that when I drank some tea made with, what I discovered later, were moldy tea leaves and spent the day coughing and wheezing.)

[Mimosa]

Living on an active volcano and the many forms of pollutants has ill effects on certain humans who unbeknownst to them may or may not be affected by what mother nature or father time throws at humans.
In L.A. Calif or as we call it - Smell A - when there is a smog alert meaning inversion layer of many types of pollutants - it has been said that it is like smoking 2 packs of Lucky Strikes non filter cigs a day for the masses .
Hang out at Hara Store and see all the humans who buy cases of beer / wine daily.Each beer / or bottle of wine contains known cancer causing chemicals,add with the factory foods and fast food humans consume daily along with PBA in all canned food products and a human regardless of where one resides - be it Iceland or Hawaii the Island is at one time or another going to develop cancer of one type or another or a lingering cough or a multitude of many types of illnesses that specialists can not pin point as they are not sure the exact causes .
Even cell phones emit known cancer causing electromagnet radiation that is a known cancer causing unit in to itself.Apple and LG type phones ( cell ) emit the most radiation of all cell phones .

Just our perspective .

Mrs . Mimosa

[VancouverIslander]

More than half of us will live out our lives without developing cancer, although possibly that's because we'll die of heart disease, stroke or diabetes first.

Just call me Mike