The new peer-reviewed paper, authored by a team of prominent researchers led by Dr. Corrine Keet of John’s Hopkins Children’s Center, studied over 23,000 U.S. children and found no statistically significant difference in asthma rates between those who live in inner-city neighborhoods (and are thus subject to higher pollution levels) and those who do not (once controlling for other factors). Instead, researchers concluded that poverty was a greater predictor for higher asthma rates than outdoor air pollution.
The study still points to air pollution as a cause for asthma, only it’s indoor air pollution–think second hand smoke, rodents, mold, etc.–that may be the main culprit.
It’s a radical finding. The study upends more than half a century of research that assumed outdoor air pollution in cities was to blame for higher asthma rates–a hypothesis repeatedly used by EPA regulators to justify the agency’s regulations.
The study couldn’t come at a worse time for the agency. EPA is preparing to tighten national standards for ground-level ozone (the main ingredient in smog) by as much as 20 percent. To justify the move, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy argued she was “following science” to “protect those most at-risk–our children, our elderly, and people already suffering from lung diseases like asthma.”
Oh yes, for the children and the elderly. Such caring, such taxation.
Are indoor wall to wall carpets the culprit due to their propensity to harbour mould and dust mites?
Free Roombas for the masses!
Socialism explained.
Plug that into youtube……..
If yer priority is to fundamentally transform America into a 3rd world dictatorship…
The EPA is long past changing motives or direction due to evidence showing they may be wrong. They don’t care. They’re on a quest to save America from any and all pollution that may affect climate change (we know it as weather) or habitat of any and all creatures since God can not be located and they have chosen to act in his place. Like most government bureaucracies, what started with good intentions has turned into a destructive monster that thrives on ruining lives and industries. China’s greatest ally in so many ways.
science is rapidly becoming a four letter word.
Their witchcraft thesis is somewhat at odds with real world experience.
Eastern Europe in the years after WW2 until the collapse of the USSR
had a majority rural poverty stricken population which lived in close
proximity to their farm animals and all manner of microscopic living
things found in such “rich, smelly” environments.
Asthma was not very common.
But as these populations moved en masse to the cities and their living
standards rapidly improved, more CHILDREN BORN AND RAISED IN
THE CITIES began to show increasing signs of asthma symptoms but
their older farm raised siblings did not contribute in equal proportions
to the increase.
One plausible theory is that asthma is brought on not by polluted
environments but is a function of environments that do not provide
enough “work” for the human immune system because they are
TOO CLEAN.
I also believe that theory. All the years I was growing up I never met a single peer who had asthma or allergies. We played outside and were usually filthy when we came home. Both parents smoked and the house was usually filled with a blue haze. They both lived well into their 80’s with no medical problems until their last year. My sister and I have always had strong immune systems and no medical problems worth talking about. The health nut activists really don’t want to discuss this as it goes against their preconceived notions and could put a dent in their activism. Scare mongering and too many professional busybodies have made the simple act of going out to play a very toxic proposition that modern , over protective parents no longer see as normal.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2118871/How-keeping-children-clean-wreck-immune-systems.html
Google research will show dozens of articles similar to this, but it goes against the grain of what activists want to hear, so it’s largely ignored by supporters of the nanny state. Just no money in turfing the kids out and telling them to play.