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The Straight Story

(48,121 posts) Fri Oct 18, 2013, 04:53 PM Oct 2013

Air pollution causes lung cancer, World Health Organization says

It’s official: Breathing dirty air causes lung cancer.

The World Health Organization on Thursday declared air pollution a human carcinogen like tobacco smoke, asbestos and arsenic, calling it a leading cause of cancer deaths globally.

Health experts have known for years that air pollution increases the risk of a wide range of ailments, including respiratory problems and heart disease. Some compounds in the air we breathe, such as diesel exhaust, have already been deemed cancer-causing.

But this is the first time the organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified air pollution in its entirety as a cause of cancer.

The complex mixture of gases, fine particles and other pollutants in the air were labeled “carcinogenic to humans,” the highest of the agency’s four-level classification system.

A panel of experts convened by the WHO's cancer research arm made the finding after reviewing thousands of scientific papers.

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-air-pollution-causes-lung-cancer-20131017,0,981625.story

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Air pollution causes lung cancer, World Health Organization says (Original Post) The Straight Story Oct 2013 OP

Stop driving your car pintobean Oct 2013 #1

So...61 years ago..London Killer Smog..December. 1952...killed 4000 in a few weeks. Stuart G Oct 2013 #2

pintobean

(18,101 posts)

1. Stop driving your car

Reply to The Straight Story (Original post)

Fri Oct 18, 2013, 05:18 PM

Oct 2013

I don't want your second hand air pollution.

Stuart G

(38,434 posts)

2. So...61 years ago..London Killer Smog..December. 1952...killed 4000 in a few weeks.

Reply to The Straight Story (Original post)

Fri Oct 18, 2013, 05:30 PM

Oct 2013

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Smog

It resulted in changes in laws all over the United States. For example, sometime in the mid 50s, I recall, Chicago where I lived, passed a law that you could not heat your home with coal, it had to be oil or gas. Thousands of apartments and homes were forced to convert their heating systems at quite a cost. (Illinois was the leading producer of soft coal, used to heat at the time).. I was young and I did not know why, and they (my parents did not explain it ) I found out about this killer smog decades later when I was teaching. If you read the article, you will see that up to 12,000 may have died. This was really the beginning of the movement to clean the air up, clean up the cars, etc..1952....been a while eh?

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