Half of children living in the northern city of Turin are at increased risk of illness due to pollution, new research shows.
The high levels of air pollution lead to a mutation in DNA, according to the ‘Mapec Life’ study which studied the effects of pollution on children and was presented on Wednesday.
Researchers analyzed DNA samples from children aged between six and eight in Turin, Brescia, Lecce, Perugia and Pisa.
In Turin, 53 percent of these samples from students had at least one micronucleus – an indicator of a mutation in DNA.
While this does not present an immediate health risk and the mutation is not passed on to future generations, over time it can lead to tumours and other chronic diseases.
“We do not want to create anxiety, but we have done this work to understand the effects of smog on children’s biological systems,” explained Giorgio Gilli, one of the professors behind the study.
The development of pollution-induced diseases can be mitigated through other lifestyle changes, such as exercise and health eating, and aggravated through factors including passive smoking, the researchers found.
On Thursday, the headteacher of one of the schools where students participated in the study, told Repubblica “we all know that our children are breathing poor quality air” but added “it’s not Chernobyl”, referring to the Ukrainian city left uninhabitable by a nuclear disaster.
At the report’s presentation, Turin’s councillor for the environment, Stefania Giannuzzi, said the results “would be considered and evaluated” by city authorities.
“One of our jobs is to protect weaker sections of society, including children, from the effects of pollution.”
Recent days have seen high levels of smog in the city, which has reacted by introducing blocks on the most polluting vehicles. The clouds began to clear however with the first snowfall of the year on Monday.
Model of particulate-induced allergic inflammation in the lungs. Credit: Image courtesy of Osaka University
Scientists at the Immunology Frontier Research Center (IFReC) at Osaka University, Japan have pinpointed a specific molecular events that could explain allergic reactions to air pollution. These findings provide a new therapeutic candidate to treat asthma and related respiratory diseases.
Photos of cities darkened by pollution are becoming evermore common. These same cities are seeing a rise in cases of asthma and other respiratory ailments, marking a relationship between pollution and health costs. Nanoscopic particulates polluting the air enter the lungs to cause the allergic reactions. Which immune-related events in the lung lead to this response, however, are unclear.
“We found that particulates kill macrophages, which then go on to release interleukin-1a (IL-1α),” explains Etsushi Kuroda, who first-authored a new study in Immunity that indicates IL-1α triggers a series of events that causes respiratory illnesses. The release of IL-1α in mice primed the lungs for inflammation when the mice were later exposed to an allergen. Kuroda added, “Particulates that did not kill macrophages did not cause an allergic reaction.”
However, the vulnerability of macrophages to particulates remains unclear, which is why understanding the events following IL-1α secretion may be key to prevention and treatment.
“IL-1α secretion was followed by the formation of iBALTs. iBALTs are frequently found in infected or inflamed lungs and in patients with asthma,” said Osaka University Professor Ken J. Ishii, who led the study. The increase in iBALTs led to an increase in IgE antibodies, which intensified the immune response. On the other hand, mutant mice that were insensitive to IL-1α did not produce iBALTs and reduced IgE responses.
The presence of iBALTs would suggest that a human population could remain susceptible to high levels of asthma attacks even on clear days, as the iBALTs could form on days of high pollution, but the patient could then be exposed to the allergen much later.
This finding suggested that iBALTs could prime the lungs to an allergic reaction, which is why Ishii believes that iBALTs could make a promising therapeutic target to combat the rise of respiratory illnesses associated with air pollution. But first, he said, “we must identify the molecular signals and key chemicals that form these iBALTs.”
Limit re-set at 70 km/h on the M-30 and other main roads in Madrid
The Town Hall of Madrid announced on Wednesday evening that the level of air pollution has risen once more to higher than the established threshold, and that in consequence the maximum speed limit on the M-30 motorway and the main roads leading into the city centre was to be reduced from 90 to 70 km/h on Thursday.
The permitted amount of nitrogen dioxide was exceeded at the weather stations of Fernández Ladreda and Villaverde on Wednesday and the weather forecast is not favourable, according to the Town Hall press release, and while the speed restrictions are in place members of the public are requested to use public transport rather than private vehicles whenever possible. The restrictions will remain in place for as long as the level of nitrogen dioxide remains above 180 micrograms per cubic meter of air, and information regarding the situation on Friday is to be published Thursday morning.
China suffered its worst air pollution of the year recently.
More than 70 Chinese cities released warnings to citizens in the last few days about pollution reaching dangerous levels.
The poor air quality led the government to order factories, some power plants and schools to close. But there were reports that some local officials were not obeying the orders.
In one city in northern Hebei province, people wrote on social media that schools were kept open although the area had the highest pollution threat. Media reports in the central province of Henan also showed pictures of students completing school activities in the dirty open air.
State-run news agency Xinhua reported that an official in Henan province said factory production was continuing. The official said up to 4,000 factories had not stopped or limited production as ordered by the government. Records of power use at the factories showed little change in the amount of production.
The Ministry of Environmental Protection said in a statement Monday that only “a small number of businesses” had not taken the bans seriously and continued operations.
Driving restrictions were also put in effect and hundreds of flights were delayed or cancelled in Beijing because of poor visibility.
The ministry said more than 100,000 drivers in Beijing had been fined for violating the traffic bans.
The World Health Organization measures air quality by the amount of small, particles in it, known as PM2.5. Small particles of this size are easily breathed in and can damage the lungs.
The WHO identifies a safe level of air quality as containing 10-25 micrograms per cubic meter of PM2.5. Beijing reached dangerous levels of more than 400 micrograms per cubic meter this week.
Weather officials were predicting that nighttime winds could finally push out much of the pollution from Beijing and other cities by Thursday.
Ma Yongliang is a professor with Tsinghua University’s school of environment. He said temporary government restrictions will not solve the nation’s pollution problems over a long period of time.
“In the long run, the pollution problem can only be eased by adjusting the country’s industrial structure, or accelerating the upgrading of [polluting] industries, so as to cut down the emission sources of pollutants,” Ma said.
The professor praised the government’s efforts to reduce carbon-dioxide after an action plan was started in 2013.
But the increased use of coal in winter for heating homes is still a big problem. Reducing these emissions will remain difficult for China’s government as it attempts to find cleaner energy alternatives.
Winters in Beijing are grim. It’s not just the subzero temperatures and shortened days that feel so oppressive; the year-end chill means even more coal is burned for heating, blanketing the Chinese capital in thick smog.
City authorities this week issued their first pollution “red alert” of 2016 — the highest level of warning. It is forecast to last five days. Some of the city’s busiest roads have been closed and at least 273 flights were grounded at Beijing Capital International Airport, according to state media.
Those planes that did depart were packed, as Beijing’s more affluent residents fled the “airpocolypse” for China’s warmer, thus less smoggy, south. The unlucky majority who remained were forced to breath air clogged with more than 500 destructive PM2.5 particles per cubic meter. (The WHO ranks safe level as under 25.)
“I could hardly see the building opposite mine this morning,” Zhang Lin, 32, a stay-at-home mom with a 4-year-old girl, tells TIME. “My daughter often coughs this winter for no reason. The doctor said it’s because of the air pollution.”
Things were even worse in industrial zones outside the capital. On Monday, average PM2.5 levels in the steel-producing city of Handan reached 780. According to the environmental group Greenpeace, more than 460 million people across northern China experienced “heavy” or “hazardous” pollution — equivalent to the populations of the U.S., Canada and Mexico combined. Hospitals were packed with people suffering from breathing problems.
“The scale of the red-alert measures show that the Chinese government is taking air pollution seriously,” says Greenpeace climate and energy campaigner Dong Liansai. “However, the ongoing ‘airpocalypse’ is further evidence that China must implement far stricter limitations on coal consumption and accelerate the restructuring of the economy away from the heavily polluting sectors.”
There is also a political dimension to the “red alert,” evidenced by extensive domestic media coverage of efforts to curb its excesses (measures range from banning charcoal barbecues to prohibiting the use of spray paint). Officials walk a tightrope between playing down the problem and reassuring the public that it is being tackled.
Earlier this month, antipollution protesters staged a demonstration in the central Chinese city of Chengdu, gathering in the busy shopping district and hanging pollution face masks on statues. Riot police eventually shut down the city center and several people were detained.
The World Health Organization says China is the world’s deadliest country for air pollution, a scourge estimated to claim a million lives across the nation each year. Although the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has declared war on the issue, overcapacity in state industries such as coal and steel is the primary cause.
For the CCP, the unrest caused by pollution must be weighed against the potential strife sparked by millions of unemployed state workers. Many see the “red alert” as the authorities’ way of preempting further protests while giving the impression the problem is being addressed.
“My friends always make jokes about the air pollution, but I think it’s sad, it’s not right to get used to it,” adds Zhang. “I wish our government would be more concerned about people’s health rather than just economic growth.”
Air pollution in northern China including the capital city of Beijing reached hazardous levels for the fourth straight day on Tuesday, highlighting the fallout from resurgent coal production and related demand in the world’s second largest economy.
The world’s largest coal consumer, Beijing declared a “war on pollution” in 2014, but still faces hurdles in improving air quality after decades of breakneck growth.
“China was making very impressive progress towards cleaner air in 2014 and 2015 after it issued a national air pollution action plan to reduce coal consumption …. But unfortunately over the past nine months, government economic policies shifted toward stimulating some of the heavy industry sectors that are responsible for the heavy pollution in Beijing,” said Greenpeace’s senior global coal campaigner, Lauri Myllyvirta.
Myllyvirta said the current episode is the worst on record with some 460 million in China exposed to heavy or hazardous pollution from smog-causing coal used in power generation.
By Sunday, 24 cities in northern China had issued “red alerts” for pollution, China’s environment ministry said on its website. There were no further updates as of Tuesday in Asia.
Air pollution in China is a thorny social and political issue for the government as three decades of explosive industrial growth have contributed to the problem.
But China is moving to a consumption-led economy and authorities have acted to trim heavy industry overcapacity, including shutting down small coal boilers among other factories. But the loss of jobs and business opportunities has stirred social unrest.
China’s coal production fell 10.7 percent from a year ago in the first 10 months of the year, Goldman Sachs noted in a report on Friday, contributing to a price increase of 80 percent as domestic supplies tightened.
The price spike spurred the government to roll back on production curbs temporarily to help steelmakers deal with higher coal prices and also to secure winter power and heating supply. The move led to a 9 percent increase in coal production in November over October, according to official statistics.
“The transition both away from coal and to cleaner coal are both slow processes and also subject to briefer periods of interruption (such as now) which have been put in place to simulate the coal industry … (as) the price of coal got to unacceptable levels both economically and politically in China,” said CEF Holdings chairman and CEO, Warren Gilman.
“Such a vast number of people owe their livelihoods to coal and production of domestic coal (production) was falling too quickly for the government’s taste, so they have reversed the policy in the short-term to quickly bring consumption back, so it’s having a significant impact on air quality ,” he told CNBC’s Squawk Box.
Efforts towards cleaner coal—made through improved production processes—are so far modest, he added.
China’s environment ministry has put in emergency restrictions to deal with the current rash of air pollution, but some power plants and chemical producers in the region have not scaled back operations to meet the curbs, the ministry said in a post on its website. Some drivers in Beijing have also flouted traffic restrictions.
Current air quality is so bad in some cities that flights have been cancelled and schools closed, local media reported.
Study finds dirty air takes huge economic toll on poor countries and costs the world more than $5tn annually in lost work days and welfare costs
Air pollution costs the world trillions of dollars a year and severely impedes development in many countries, according to the World Bank.
In a major study (pdf) of the economic costs of indoor and outdoor pollution, the bank found that in 2013 – the year from which the latest available estimates date – China lost nearly 10% of its GDP, India 7.69% and Sri Lanka and Cambodia roughly 8%.
Rich countries are also losing tens of billions of dollars a year through lost work days and welfare costs from premature deaths. Dirty air was found to cost the UK $7.6bn (£5.6bn) a year, the US $45bn and Germany $18bn.
Zimbawe, Malawi and Central African Republic were among the world’s least polluted countries, but Liberia had the lowest lost labour costs among developing countries ($25m).
Uruguay lost just 0.03% of its GDP, costing it $17m, but Iceland – with only 400,000 people, little industry and costs of just $3m – emerged as the cleanest country in the world overall.
Drawing on data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, the bank said that air pollution now kills 5.5m people a year prematurely, or one in 10 people worldwide.
It is the fourth leading cause of premature deaths worldwide behind smoking, diet and obesity, and is known to lead to cancers and heart, lung and respiratory diseases. Air pollution is responsible for more than six times the number of deaths caused by malaria.
Without including the costs of treating illnesses linked to pollution, the bank calculated that in 2013 premature deaths alone cost the global economy about $225bn in lost work days.
But the cost to the world economy rose to more than $5tn when welfare costs, which are based on what people were prepared to pay to avoid dying from air pollution, were calculated.
Even these figures may not reflect the full cost of air pollution, said the bank.
“The figure could be very much more if it included health costs. We did not include the costs of [morbitity] illnesses caused by pollution,” said lead author Urvashi Narain, a senior environmental economist for the institution. “The scale of the problem is truly daunting. The poor are more likely to live in polluted areas and are less able to access healthcare.”
The report, entitled The Cost of Air Pollution: Strengthening the Economic Case for Action, stressed the toll on poor countries. “The health risk posed by air pollution is the greatest in developing countries,” said the authors. “In 2013 about 93% of deaths and non-fatal illnesses attributed to air pollution worldwide occurred in these countries, where 90% of the population was exposed to dangerous levels of air pollution.”
Outdoor air pollution was growing in many countries, said the report, reflecting the massive rise in car numbers. But it said billions of people in developing countries continue to depend on burning solid fuels such as wood, charcoal, coal and dung in their homes for cooking and heating.
“Air pollution is not just a health risk but also a drag on development. By causing illness and premature death, [it] reduces the quality of life. By causing a loss of productive labor, it also reduces incomes in these countries,” said the authors.
The study drew a link between economic development and air pollution. From 1990 to 2013, welfare losses nearly doubled and labour income losses increased by 40%, despite countries having made great gains in economic development and health outcomes.
In low-income countries, declining death rates were more than offset by population growth and greater total exposure to polluted air.
“Ambient air pollution is becoming a greater challenge,” said the report. “Since the 1990s, exposure to [it] has grown in most countries with some of the greatest increases in the heavily populated, fastest-growing regions, including south Asia and east Asia and the Pacific.”
By 2013, about 87% of the world’s population was living in areas that exceeded safe levels recommended by the World Health Organisation, added the authors, who warned that the poorest were most affected.
“Apart from the sheer magnitude of the costs, the disproportionate impacts on the poorest segments of the population make air pollution a threat to shared and inclusive prosperity. The poor are more likely to live and work in polluted environments, but they are less able to avoid exposure or self-protect,” said the report.
“In the US, research dating back to the 1970s has documented how toxic facilities and sources of air pollution have tended to be sited near poor minority communities.”
While pollution-related deaths mainly strike young children and the elderly, premature deaths also result in lost income for working-age men and women. The report found that annual work income losses cost the equivalent of almost 1% of GDP in south Asia. In east Asia and the Pacific, where the population is ageing, labour income losses represent 0.25% of GDP, while in sub-Saharan Africa, where air pollution impairs the earning potential of younger populations, such losses represent the equivalent of 0.61% of GDP.
When looking at fatalities across all age groups through the lens of “welfare losses” – an approach commonly used to evaluate the costs and benefits of environmental regulations in a given country context – the aggregate worldwide cost of premature deaths in 2013 was more than $5tn. In east and south Asia, welfare losses related to air pollution were the equivalent of about 7.5% of GDP.
“Air pollution is a challenge that threatens basic human welfare, damages natural and physical capital, and constrains economic growth,” said Laura Tuck, vice-president for sustainable development at the World Bank.
Idling vehicles puffed out exhaust, and a haze lingered around the Safeway grocery store parking lot Tuesday. Jan Kreischer, who sells crafts, held her breath as she dashed through the parking lot to get into the adjacent mall.
It was her only concession to polluted air in North Pole, where the official air quality monitor is reporting the nation’s highest episodic levels of fine particulate matter, more commonly referred to as PM 2.5.
During last week’s cold snap, North Pole had six uninterrupted days where the air was deemed unhealthy — a new record for consecutive bad air days, according to the Fairbanks North Star Borough air quality office.
Residents interviewed about the pollution Tuesday said they don’t dwell on it.
People were approached at random by the News-Miner in various parts of the city, and no one said they change their habits on bad air days. Seeing someone wearing breathing protection is uncommon, they said. When the air is bad in North Pole, life goes on like normal, they noted.
“I wake up. I get in my car. I drive to work,” said Kim Marie Hunter, a professional cook. “I choose to live here. It’s not something that I am overly stressed about.”
Decades of scientific research and hundreds of studies show a link between particulate pollution and a variety of heart and lungs illnesses, but for most, it’s a slow erosion of health from a nearly invisible threat.
The pollution is intermittent, usually occurring on cold winter days when the air is stagnant.
Theresa Katsaitis, director of Klondike Kids, a day care center, said she feels more affected by the cold than by the air pollution. She pays light attention to air quality alerts. It’s not something she hears people talking about around North Pole, she said.
“People just get on with their lives,” she said. “To me, the summers are worse when the fires are bad.”
She thinks too much attention is paid to wood smoke and too little attention is paid to vehicle exhaust. Either way, she has little hope the government can control it.
Jacque McKeown, who owns hair salon Head 2 Toe, said she notices air quality alerts when she passes the borough’s electronic message board parked by the Sourdough Fuel on Badger Road. She said she smells pockets of bad air as she drives from her home off Nordale Road to her salon in the city.
“There are certain areas off of Badger Road that are worse than others,” she said. “When I drive by certain areas off of Badger, it hurts to breathe.”
But she said she rarely notices bad air once she crosses the highway into the city of North Pole.
“I don’t really hear people talking about it,” McKeown said. “The wildfire smoke — people definitely talk more about that.”
Kayla Mountain, who suffers from asthma, lives kitty-corner from the North Pole air quality monitor on Hurst Road. She moved there from Fairbanks about a year ago.
Mountain described the air as “a little thick” sometimes but said it hasn’t aggravated her asthma.
“I don’t go outside a lot,” she said. “If I was out there, working, it would probably be bad.”
Brandon Phillips, who sells real estate, said he travels to Fairbanks from North Pole pretty much daily. The air he breathes in North Pole doesn’t seem any different than the air he breathes in Fairbanks, he said.
“I just don’t think it is as bad as what they are saying it is,” he said.
Phillips said he smells pockets of bad air around the borough — not just North Pole — but said that’s inevitable with low-lying areas in cold temperatures.
“Anywhere you have a low-lying area and it’s cold, you are going to see pockets of haze,” Phillips said. “In the Goldstream Valley, you see a lot out there.”
The real estate agent said he has never seen anyone in North Pole don a face mask for protection from air pollution. He doesn’t think people pay attention to regulations on wood burning.
Phillips said he thinks particulate pollution regulations are a form of government overreach.
“I think that PM 2.5 and the issues with controlling it are just another way for the government to control how I live my life on a regular basis,” he said.
Kreischer, the crafter who holds her breath while walking through parking lots, said she hears Phillips’ point of view often in North Pole.
“I have never heard anyone say it’s nice that they are worried about us,” she said. “It’s mostly complaints that they are controlling us.”
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