Is there really any argument against the generally accepted reality that we need to do all we can to keep cleaning the air?
But as clear as they are, those arguments and those against smoking still haven’t stopped new smokers from emerging or some air staying dirty.
This is where the balance between laws restricting public behavior and the prerequisites of personal freedom clash, and where lawyers and courts must do their best work.
Editorial: Take a deep breath, and feel your lungs weaken
Published 12:00 am PST Sunday, February 4, 2007
Two recent studies make clear that controlling air pollution is more than just a good idea. It's a public health necessity. Both strongly suggest that clean air standards are not stringent enough to protect the most vulnerable populations.
In one study, researchers measured lung capacity -- the ability of airways to absorb oxygen and deliver it to the bloodstream -- for thousands of children living in smoggy and not so smoggy areas of Southern California.
Researchers tested the lungs of 3,677 children annually for 8 years as the children grew from 10 to 18, the years when lung development is most rapid. The youngsters tested lived in 12 different cities, from relatively clean Santa Maria and Lompoc to smoggier Long Beach and Riverside.
Scientists found significant differences in lung function, the ability of youngsters to take in a breath and expel it, between those who grew up near a freeway and those who didn't. By the time they reached 18, when lungs are fully developed, children who grew up within approximately a third of a mile of a freeway had 3 percent to 7 percent less lung capacity than those who were raised a mile or more away. Less lung function at 18 puts them at greater risk for heart attack, emphysema and other respiratory ailments when they reach 50. It means a less robust and shorter life.
In the second study, scientists followed 58,600 post-menopausal women from some 200 metropolitan areas across the country for seven years. They found that older women living in communities with high levels of fine particulate matter -- tiny bits of soot from cars, coal-fired power plants and diesel trucks, among other sources -- had a 150 percent greater risk of dying from heart disease and stroke than women who lived in areas with low levels of soot pollution.
Older women breathing air with the highest concentrations of soot, in places such as Riverside, faced the risk of dying from heart attack or stroke similar to that of an active cigarette smoker.
