"The authors used EPA’s own risk assessments to estimate the number of illnesses and early deaths prevented by clean air and water rules Trump is now trying to erase."

"Using the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's own numbers, two Harvard scientists have calculated that 80,000 more lives will be lost per decade if President Donald Trump's administration fulfills its plans to roll back clean air and water protections.

The researchers, terming their tally 'an extremely conservative estimate,' also estimated that the repeal of regulations will lead to respiratory problems for more than 1 million people. Their essay was published Tuesday in the authoritative Journal of the American Medical Association.

'We felt it was important to take a comprehensive view,' said Francesca Dominici, a biostatistician and co-director of the Data Science Initiative at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. 'Some people, when looking at one specific repealing of a rule, might not think it's important. We wanted to put some numbers on the whole systematic repeal of rule after rule.'"

Marianne Lavelle reports for InsideClimate News June 13, 2018. [2]