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Comment by lisper | Hacker News Reader

> The risk of cancer in Reserve, a community founded by freed slaves, is 800 times the national average

I stopped reading there because I could think of no interpretation of that statement where the claim was even remotely plausible. The overall risk of developing some kind of cancer at some point in your life in the U.S. is about 40% [1]. Life expectancy is just shy of 80 years, so the annual risk of cancer is 0.5%. For the risk in Reserve to be 800 times that, the entire population would have to come down with cancer every three months. If that happened, it would be a bigger story.

[1] https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-basics/lifetime-probabi...

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That's not how probability works, and the risk of developing cancer isn't stable throughout your life, it increases significantly with age.

Yes, I know that. That analysis was a bit of a straw man. Like I said, the real problem is that I couldn't think of any interpretation under which that claim was plausible. Maybe that's simply due to a lack of imagination on my part, but the way to argue that is to present a plausible interpretation, not to simply proclaim that "that's not how probability works."

https://www.epa.gov/la/laplace-louisiana-frequent-questions#...

It's 826 per million.

http://www.fox8live.com/story/33542135/air-of-uncertainty-ep...

The sum of the "point cancer risk" from local carcinogenic emissions, including chloroprene, is about 800x the national average.

Sorry, but I still don't see it. One of your links is to an EPA web site where the number "826" does not appear, and the other is to a local Fox News affiliate (not the most reliable source for environmental reporting IMHO) talking about "total cancer risk", whatever the hell that might mean.

Even if we take this 826 number at face value (and I don't see that number anywhere on the EPA page) then for that to be 800 times higher than the national average, then the national average would have to be 1 in a million -- over what time period? Annually? Life time? This whole discussion is a hopeless mess. But again, I can't think of any interpretation under which one in a million is a reasonable measure of anything. There are only 300 million people in the U.S. One in a million means there are 300 people who are affected. Three times that many people are diagnosed with cancer every day in the U.S.

> the entire population would have to come down with cancer every three months

The 40% risk of getting cancer doesn't mean 40% of the population will get cancer. Environmental factors increase the risk. I'm not quite sure how you're arriving at that conclusion.

> The 40% risk of getting cancer doesn't mean 40% of the population will get cancer.

Actually, that's exactly what it means. 42% will develop cancer at some point in their lives, and 22% will die of it. Follow the link I provided to see the details.

I stopped after Donald Trump was brought up in about the fourth paragraph. Like him or not, he has nothing to do with the state of Louisana or New Orleans specifically. New Orleans has been governed by Democrats exclusively while all of this environmental damage happened.

Further down:

"One can only imagine the zilch level of concern for a compound like chloroprene by President Trump, who had at his side when he signed an executive order in February stipulating the roll-back of government regulations the chief executive of Dow Chemical—“Andrew, I would like to thank you for…the fantastic job you’ve done,” Trump told Dow chief Andrew Liveris, then handed him his signing pen to keep as a souvenir."

Trump is the president. He should care.

The way the article brings up Trump is like this: "While it is fashionable to critique President Trump for his scientific ignorance, science was misdirected long before Trump laid hands on it."

New Orleans doesn't have many chemical plants. The metropolitan area does, and it's always been governed by pro-business conservatives.

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