Childhood asthma. Another reason to quit carbon
Just in case the issues of global warming, energy independence or fuel price volatility were not reasons enough to put away the car keys when possible, consider the fact that we are giving our children asthma. Fact? Yes. According to a new study just published in the journal, Environmental Health Perspectives, childhood asthma could increase by 30 percent with increased exposure to traffic pollution. Of course, there has already been a boat load of work that shows pollution aggravates existing cases, but this new study shows that it can also cause it in children.
Although studies like these can often fly beneath the radar and have no societal impact, this particular flag-raising has not gone unnoticed. Members of California Air Resources Board (CARB) have been presented with this evidence and it should add impetus to efforts by that body to find ways to reduce pollution. Hopefully, they can find more effective means than banning cars of a certain color. Press release after the break.
[Source: California Environmental Protection Agency via Green Car Congress]
Photo: Creative Commons by biofriendly
PRESS RELEASE:
Traffic pollution linked to new cases of asthma
New findings substantiate efforts to reduce smog
SACRAMENTO: Today the California Air Resources Board heard the results of a study that found childhood asthma rates could increase as much as 30 percent with the exposure to higher levels of traffic-related air pollution.
The eight-year study followed 217 non-asthmatic children from a wide area of Southern California. Home air monitors allowed scientists to compare the children's exposure to air pollution and newly diagnosed cases of asthma. It was found that higher amounts of nitrogen dioxide, a constituent of smog, are associated with the development of childhood asthma.
"California's prosperity depends on the choices we make to protect our children," said ARB Chairman Mary D. Nichols. "This study underlines the need for clean air, giving us the benefits of a fully healthy population."
Published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, the study is the latest to come from the Southern California Children's Health Study, a project pioneered by the Air Resources Board in the early 1990s. This, the most extensive investigation into air pollution's impact on the young, has provided data that resulted in over 100 peer-reviewed articles with several ground breaking results.
One of these studies found that children exercising on days with high ozone concentrations also had an increased likelihood of developing asthma.
"Good air quality is fundamental to good health," added Nichols.
Recent studies have shown that the reduction of air pollution is also economically beneficial. It diminishes the costs associated with lost work and school days, medications to address illnesses, hospital visits and smog-related premature deaths."
The Air Resources Board is a department of the California Environmental Protection Agency. ARB's mission is to promote and protect public health, welfare, and ecological resources through effective reduction of air pollutants while recognizing and considering effects on the economy. The ARB oversees all air pollution control efforts in California to attain and maintain health based air quality standards.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Susan K 8:43PM (4/24/2009)
Asthma is a prime example of the "boiling frog" hypothesis - put a frog in boiling water: he'll hop right out, but gradually warm him to a boil and he'll just sit there and die. That's how the human race is with asthma.
As a child in the 1950's and 1960's nobody I knew had asthma.
Not one single person.
It is considered a commonplace now to have children sick with and die of asthma. But it was not always like this. It's getting warmer.....and it is getting harder to breathe.
Reply
Carney 11:42AM (4/25/2009)
The frog thing is a tired myth.
http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/frogboil.asp
Also, I'm skeptical that asthma has increased.
1) there are more children due to immigration and population growth;
2) there are fewer cases both absolute and per capita of more urgent diseases such as polio, diphtheria, rickets, cholera, TB, etc., so we can now focus more intently on less serious or more chronic ones;
I'm especially skeptical that is has increased due to "increased" pollution, because air quality is dramatically better than it was decades ago.
I still support getting off oil ASAP for national security and economic as well as environmental reasons, but let's do so for real reasons.
Mike Z 10:27PM (4/24/2009)
The amateur freakonomist in me wonders what impact living in a congested area (generally richer and more populated) has on children having access to specialists to diagnose these conditions?
Reply
Captain Morgan 11:01PM (4/24/2009)
I remember a study some years back that linked consumption of tomatoes to higher risk of cancer. Now, it's obvious that air pollution represents a health risk at some level, but one has to be careful not to take the results of a single study as undisputed fact. Did the study take into account other environmental factors? What about water quality, or diet and exercise? Perhaps our kids are turning up with increased incidence of asthma because they sit on their duffs in front of the television or the Wii eating processed foods and drinking carbonated sugar water, instead of going outside to exercise their minds and bodies.
Reply
Richard in FLA 1:24AM (4/25/2009)
Oh Sir Captain, I wanted to respond to this before anybody else. Yes, although one cannot rule our the pollution aspect (which by all means we should and must consider) the lack of good diet would be the main concern. When we were younger, and fast food wasn't so fast, asthma wasn't so prevalent. This lack of personal skills and therefore a lack of knowledge for personal care has caused a huge increase in bad personal health. Vegetables, as I was reading in a recent article to which i cannot remember where, showed a link between lack of vegetables in a routine diet to high occurrence of asthma. You can scream all you like, but I've been asking the relevance of this to all my friends and their diet since childhood, and it seems to coincide. I think there's more to it than pollution.
MT 11:29PM (4/24/2009)
Any research worth it's salt goes to great pains to design the study to rule out as many other factors as possible. We'd have to know some details of the actual study to know for sure.
That said, I don't know why this outcome would come as a suprise to anyone. Every summer many cities have ozone alert days where high pollution levels, combined with intense UV, creates unhealthy levels of ground-level ozone. The warnings always recommend that young children, elderly folks, and anybody with a respiratory condition minimize outdoor activity buring the peak pollution/ozone times.
More traffic pollution leading to more respiratory issues is not a big stretch.
Reply
Zeph 8:14AM (4/25/2009)
Problem: Kids with Asthma! Reaction: Fear! Solution: Tax on life (we are made of carbon, the link of carbon to asthma is problematic at best).
I'm not saying there aren't pollution problems, don't missunderstand me, I'm just pointing out that there is a corrupt power structure out there that does not solve any problem, mearly uses them to further their own elitist agendas.
I could live with ethanol related carbon emissions. What has to go, for any sane solution, is not the carbon, it's the petrochemical industry...
Reply
stevezilla 10:29AM (4/25/2009)
they show a correlation between asthma and nitrogen dioxide.
not carbon emissions.
rather than "quit" carbon, let's just reduce carbon emissions with higher MPG cars. Of course, that assumes that nitrogen dioxide emissions will be reduced at the same rate as carbon emissions. What if that link isn't direct? What if we curb NOx emissions some otherway?
Reply
jharlan 11:41AM (4/25/2009)
Not buying it. I don't believe it. Any atmospheric contamination may make asthma sufferers worse, but it is not likely the cause. Sorry. just more BS from the left. Would the last business to leave California please turn out the lights?
Reply
JDred 6:04PM (4/25/2009)
I agree. Now it has stooped to the "But, it's for the children!!!" level of propaganda and justifications. With all the hysteria over CO2 that has been parroted by the usual suspects here, I hope they don't find out about Dihydrogen Monoxide!
harlanx6 7:27PM (4/25/2009)
I almost fell for that one!
Charlie 12:22PM (4/25/2009)
If it gets hotter, of course pollution is to blame. If it gets colder, of course pollution is to blame. If it rains more, or if it rains less, if there are more winds, or less, there is just a huge group of people in the world right now who are part of a secular religion that believes that human overindulgence is to blame for all the evils of the world. And now pollution causes asthma.
I am very interested in the causes of asthma because I have it. From what I understand, scientists are not completely sure on what the causes of asthma are, but what is now considered the most significant factor is childhood UNDERexposure to certain types of bacteria and allergens. Essentially, with the spread of modern hygiene, antibacterial cleaning supplies, children are less likely to have to have the chance to build immunities.
Reply
Stephen 11:20AM (4/27/2009)
1 in 3 INFANTs Begin Life Fighting the Progression of their ( InHerited ) Allergy Disease.
Suggest Googling > Allergy MARCH > It speaks to the sequence of multiple Diseases / Health Conditions ( Alleric ASTHMA is one of the Major disease MilesStones ) that an INFANT follows > beginning at BIRTH > to Death > UnLess the Allergy Disease Source is Neutralized with Allergic ASTHMA.
Suggest visit > DropYourAllergies.com then Neutralize the Source of YOUR Allergy Disease with > DROP Your Allergies > immunoTherapy DROPs.
Best Health = Wealth Regards,
Stephen
frankbank 1:24PM (4/25/2009)
Wow!
Could the bold title be more misleading? "Quit Carbon"? and then go on to cite a report that indicates that Asthma is caused by Nitrous Oxides? Carbon is not pollution. Carbon dioxide is not pollution.
As for the Oxides of Nitrogen, NOx, carmakers have reduced the amount emitting from tailpipes by 10 fold since the 1960's, and the EPA and CARB will tell you that there is less than half of the NOx levels in the air today than back then. So if Asthma is caused by NOx, then there are fewer cases of ASthma caused by Nox today than back then. Most of the NOx in the air todya is from industrial sources, and not by autos.
Another case of unqualified or lazy blogging, with a hair trigger PC "blame cars first" drone behavior that defines "green" fashion today. Yes, green is the new black. Its getting so that you can't believe everything you read on the internet anymore.
Reply
m1hai 3:19PM (4/25/2009)
Tail pipe emissions are not only pure CO2, combustion produces a lot more harmful gases, and how many cars where there in the 60' compared to now?
Reply
Tohe 3:21PM (4/25/2009)
As much as I dislike CO2 I too haven't observed its direct link to asthma. Growing up my parents owned a high traffic gas station in Venezuela. I used to hangout there for a few hours at a time, so I probably have had a lot more exposure to CO2 than your average kid. I don't have asthma, nor do my siblings, but my mother is another story, she does have asthma. Perhaps it depends on a number of factors, carbons being one of them. I can attest to the pollution I perceived: I'd get migraines and sore throat from inhaling carbons, so sure it is counterproductive to ones health. How much? I don't know.
Reply
JDred 6:04PM (4/25/2009)
AS MUCH AS YOU DISLIKE CO2? then you'd better quit breathing!
Tohe 11:53AM (4/26/2009)
I meant to say excess of...
M1hai 3:29PM (4/25/2009)
Combustion produces a lot more harmful gases than just CO2 and in the 60' there where less cars than today. Other countries have more pollutant industry yet less asthma.
Reply
jharlan 7:47PM (4/25/2009)
Charlie has it right. Kids are getting asthma because parents no longer allow the little ones to eat dirt. It sounds too simple, but that seems to be it! At an early stage it seems to be important to be exposed to environmental allergens. Toddlers in the developed countries are no longer allowed to play in dirt.
Reply