This has been an ongoing debate for years. Every time someone concludes a study showing the link between air-pollutants and health, someone else sponsors research to discredit it. A few studies in the UK circa 19190 showed the link between asthma and air pollution and showed that living near a major road increased the risks, thay are still putting out studies to say other factors can be involved. In the 80's when microparticulates were becoming the "in" thing for study they estimated that around 10,000 deaths per year in the UK could be arributed to transport related air-pollution, cue a flurry of sponsored studies to show this was "not necessarily" the case. The tobacco companies perfected these methods of denial during the decades they were denying the link between smoking and cancer (deep pull on ciggie) and the Union of Concerned Scientists among others try to document the distortion of science by companies scared of losing their bread and butter. It also makes it easy to blame certain communities who tend to live in inner cities for their own health problems if there is no link between the polluted environment they live in and health.
21 Sep 2005, 10:24 am
