Pulmonologists (When the Fat Lady Sings)

On Monday night, via the public ARD network.....the Hart Aber Fair (Hard But Fair) public forum came on.  I didn't watch it.  But the subject came up the next day, and it's lit a fire on public conversation in Germany on diesel cars and the particle pollution chatter.

For the show, they invited noted folks to come on and discuss where the anti-diesel car business is going.  Oddly enough, they invited a pulmonologist to come on and talk the diesel particle effect on lungs.   Like a five-year old kid with a balloon.....the pulmonologist punctured the entire argument....basically saying that the diesel effect was marginal (if any).  Yep, it didn't matter.

So I opened up ARD news this morning, and there's article number one.....a long piece which features commentary by pulmonologists....in mostly agreement.  Some will suggest otherwise, but one noted pulmonologist put the argument into an argument that you can't have a balanced statistical display unless you account for people's lack of exercise, or their addiction to cigarette smoking. 

Even the numbers of deaths in Germany reported and how lack of exercise/smoking could explain those with lung disease in an entirely different way.....can be said to be 'lacking'.

This brings you to pause in the whole diesel car biased chatter, and how this mess really started.

This law being used to force the banning of diesel cars isn't a German law.....it's an EU creation.  Did the EU bring in pulmonologists in their creation of the law?  There's no real evidence to suggest that. The fact that no real public debate occurred in any EU country about this law prior to the EU legislative process passing it.....makes this a problem now.

If the pulmonologists are correct, and that lack of exercise and smoking are bigger contributors to death....using the EU logic, there should be a law to outlaw cigarettes and mandate exercise.  Go see how quick people get infuriated about that type of law.

But here's the thing which really stands out.  Ever since this ban chatter started up....going back to the fall of 2017....no one in the public TV spectrum went to pulmonologists and had a factual discussion.  They avoided them in every way possible.  You have to wonder, if they knew where the discussion would go if you ever dragged them into the debate. 

A bigger mess now?  Yes.  People with diesel cars and affected by the bans....likely will go the court route and force cities to undo their ban situations.  The EU?  They will go to court and force the bans back into place.  All of this leading to the simple fact....maybe diesel cars weren't that bad after all.