Health effects of the gas-aerosol complex. Report to Special Committee on Health and Ecological Effects of Increased Coal Utilization.

Combustion products derived from the burning of coal are definitely capable of producing adverse human health effects. No single component of the combustion product mixture is solely responsible. Rather, effects are due to a group of compounds, both gases and aerosols, in the effluents of stationary source combustion processes. Although incompletely defined, the individual components of the gas-aerosol complex appear to be capable of interacting both in terms of atmospheric chemistry and health effects. The three primary air quality standards pertinent to regulating coal combustion all represent to some extent indirect, although reasonable, measures of this gas-aerosol complex. As a group, these standards appear to be adequate to protect human health. Conventional toxicological considerations suggest that the adverse health effects of any necessary increase in coal combustion effluents would be greatest per unit of coal in those areas which are most heavily populated and have the highest preexisting levels of the gas-aerosol complex. In order to decrease the degree of uncertainty for future decisions of this type, it is important that prospective epidemiological and air monitoring studies be initiated in conjunction with any large scale introduction of coal use.