This month
public health issues became policy for once. The Supreme Court in its judgement on moving
public vehicles to compressed natural gas (CNG) in Delhi made it clear that the concern of
the court in passing various orders on combating air pollution has been only one,
"namely to protect the health of the people."
Unusual also was that scientific research was considered to decide policy. I call this
unusual because a key failure in our country is that government decision-making and policy
setting is never based on recent scientific evidence. But this time the court looked at
studies from the US to Kolkata to understand the impact of air toxins on human health.
A key consideration was the recent study published in the Journal of American Medical
Association (JAMA) on tiny particles. The JAMA study – an amazing epidemiological
journey – taking 16 years, covering 116 cities and research on 500,000 people
presents stunning evidence that exposure to fine particles leads to lung cancer and other
related diseases and deaths. According to the study a mere increase of 10 microgramme per
cubic metre (µg/cum) of fine particles – smaller than 2.5 microns or PM 2.5 –
can increase the risk of lung cancer by 8 per cent, cardiopulmonary deaths by 6 per cent
and all deaths by 4 per cent. Co-author Arden Pope, who has been working on particulates
and pollution for many years now, says that the findings of this study provide the
strongest evidence to date that long-term exposure to air pollution is an important risk
factor for cardiopulmonary and lung cancer mortality.Consider also that the US annual
average standard for fine particulates is 15 µg/cum while in India the annual average
standard for
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FUTURE WAS
YESTERDAY |
| According to the World Health Organisation,
globally environmental hazards kill three million children under five every year |
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| Environmental health threats include inadequate
drinking water and sanitation, air pollution, accidents, injuries and poisonings |
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| In India, child mortality rates due to
environmental hazards and toxins are on the rise |
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| 55 per cent of child mortality
originates in the perinatal period |
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| Our children’s future depends on
our past. Grim, but true. |
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Environmental
degradation of the past impacts the very air that the children breathe, the water that
they drink and the food that they eat.
Children are humankind’s most treasured investment. In fact, sustainability (and
future) of any species depends on the quality of progeny it produces. However, the quality
of progeny is affected by the environment that they are born into and the environment in
which their parents lived in. Children, especially the |
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unborn,
are most vulnerable to any form of pollution. Even minor impact on health of the parent
particularly the mother threatens the health of the child, which manifests later as poor
health in adulthood. The recently concluded World Health Organisation (WHO) conference on
children’s health in Bangkok estimated that globally, environmental hazards kill
three million children under five every year. And this is a very conservative estimate.
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