Smog Kills
Posted by: Kathie Brosemer (kathie) on January 14, 2003 at 14:06:34
from the who-didn't-know? dept.
The Ottawa Citizen, Monday 13 Jan 2003, Page: A13
Byline: Dr. Elliot Halparin, President, Ontario Medical Association
Medical experts agree: Smog does kill
TORONTO - The Ontario Medical Association is very concerned with the contention in your recent editorial ("Clearing the air," The Ottawa Citizen, Jan. 9) that "Canadians don't have much of an air pollution problem." Nothing could be further from the truth. (Full article below.)
The OMA's 2001 report on Ontario's air quality shows that, since 1995, emissions of the key smog pollutants (nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds and sulphur dioxide) have not decreased. It is also important to note that concentrations of ground-level ozone, the key smog gas responsible for most of our smog alerts, has been increasing steadily for the last 20 years. We know for a fact that the past two summers have been the smoggiest on record, which is why the OMA is so baffled by your suggestion that our air pollution problem has been solved.
We are especially worried about your confusion with regard to how many people die every year as a result of air pollution. The fact that smog kills has not been in doubt since 1952 when, in a period of one week, just under 4,000 people died in London, England as a result of a rapid temperature inversion that trapped pollution near the ground, elevating smog levels higher than ever before measured. That episode established for all time and for all people that smog does kill.
Studies of hospital admissions in Ontario's urban centres and studies of smog's impact on children at summer camp in rural communities all confirm the same thing: Every single one of us -- adults and children, well and unwell -- is affected by air pollution. Some of us are killed by it.
The doctors of Ontario need you to know that in the incidence of a smog fatality, the cause of death or the final event that actually ends a life, such as "heart failure" or "cardiac arrest," is what is written on the death certificate. But this is comparable to the common situation that occurs when the cause of death is recorded as "carcinoma of the lung," instead of "smoking."
The next time air pollution reaches the smog-alert level, every individual will experience a loss of lung function. Yet because of a healthy lung's large reserve, many people are unaware of this loss. However, people with emphysema or chronic lung disease may experience critical distress because of smog's added burden.
As doctors, our job is to care for people when they become ill from smog and to educate the public on the burden that we as a community suffer from this problem. It would be prudent, and it would be the OMA's strong suggestion, that in future when discussing in your paper the actual burden of illness from air pollution, that you ask a physician, not an economist.
Dr. Elliot Halparin is president of the Ontario Medical Association.
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