Speaking of Dusty Death
... there are lots of new papers associating various sorts of dusts with cancer, pneumonia and cardiovascular disease. We've previously discussed the correlation between endotoxins and a reduced risk of lung cancer but how to square those studies with ones like "Occupational Exposure to Organic Dust Increases Lung Cancer Risk in the General Population" (which identifies exposure to dust from "microbial, plant or animal" sources)?
On the inorganic dust front there's "Increased Mortality From Infectious Pneumonia After Occupational Exposure to Inorganic Dust, Metal Fumes and Chemicals". It's a study of 320,143 workers in the construction industry that finds a fairly large increase in risk of death from pneumonia among those exposed to a mixture of inorganic dusts yet the opposite outcome for those exposed just to one sort of dust.
Finally, on the pm2.5 front there's "The Effect of Particle Size on Cardiovascular Disorders - The Smaller the Worse", focusing on, obviously, size rather than substance; "The Effects of Particulate Matter Sources on Daily Mortality: A Case-Crossover Study of Barcelona, Spain" finding again that the observed correlation is a matter of size over substance when it comes to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease; and, evidence that the observed association is not, perhaps, the result of confounding whereby people more prone to cardiovascular disease (for which socioeconomic status is a big risk factor) are more likely to live near sources of pm2.5 can be found in "Particulate Air Pollution and Socioeconomic Position in Rural and Urban Areas of the Northeastern United States".
