Decades of air pollution undermine the immune system

https://www.cuimc.columbia.edu/news/decades-air-pollution-undermine-immune-system

by doener • 4 years ago

241 133 4 years ago

cuimc.columbia.edu

dagmx• 4 years ago

Anecdotally, moving from India to North America really helped my health. I know this study is about long term effects but I believe even short term , it’s quite noticeable.

It’s why I find it perplexing why so many people in the US want to do away with EPA regulations. Not only was pollution rampant in many Americans lifetimes, it’s completely observable how bad pollution is elsewhere in the world for people.

ldh00112• 4 years ago

On a tangentially related note, it confuses me why so many people seem to think that the only reason to do away with fossil fuels as much as possible is climate change. Millions die prematurely from air pollution every year. Even if climate change was fake we should still be trying to use cleaner energy.

jrussino• 4 years ago

"What if it's a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_if_it%27s_a_big_hoax_an...

newsclues3• 4 years ago

As a bike riding hippie in the age of video meetings and streaming, explain to me why the world elite need to fly all over the world in private jets to discuss climate change?

Can you tell me why my grocery store stopped giving out free plastic bags by charging for them, and now phasing them out for paper, but they still sell plastic garbage bags and I can't reuse the grocery store bag for my garbage bag now?

Can you tell me why bunker fuel for cargo ships which is a major driver for pollution isn't being stopped? Seems like there are a limited number of large ships creating a massive amount of emissions that would be go after.

Can you explain why the phrase "Climate Change" is a better mission that "reduce pollution", which seems easier to understand and get behind for everyone?

jodrellblank5• 4 years ago

There was a reply to this comment, now deleted, which said "Should have cars add something to exhaust so humans can see/smell it--even if just for demo purposes. Might help people to understand."

And I wanted to reply to that to say that we did used to be able to see exhaust fumes, and things were added so that we can't see them.

I have often thought that "the school run" would be different if everyone could see the cars pumping out exhaust outside the school, but history suggests that what would be different is people wouldn't want to see it, rather than being inconvenienced by getting rid of it. And that's a pattern which comes over from elderly care problems, homelessness and mental health problems, poverty problems, where the actions taken are often closer to sweeping under the rug than trying to solve the root causes.

"Millions die prematurely from air pollution every year."

Especially including the radiation in the emissions from coal burning power plants, which kills more people every year than any nuclear power plant accident.

CrypticShift• 4 years ago

Because major environmental actors (big NGOs...) are mostly engaging in a PR exercise to incite fear into our collective lizard brain. As Attenborough said: "saving our planet is now a communications challenge"

Linking Climate to life-threatening scenarios like Hurricanes (that hit you in-your-face) and food crisis, are more apt to rattle us into panicky action.

Slow, inconspicuous, decades-in-the-making ill-health (but not sudden death) inducing chemicals in our water, air and food will never make it through our current processes of media and political decision-making.

milesskorpen• 4 years ago

I think it is in large part because people don't appreciate how much worse it could be. The EPA has been so successful we've become complacent.

njarboe3• 4 years ago

Other would say, "The EPA has been so successful, to keep their budget growing, they have become overzealous."

warmwaffles3• 4 years ago

The other problem is, the EPA isn't also all sunshine and rainbows https://www.cnn.com/2015/08/09/us/colorado-epa-mine-river-sp...

VancouverMan2• 4 years ago

We too often see environmental regulations becoming pointless and costly burdens, or them even being used as bureaucratic weapons, rather than something that brings a net benefit to society.

Even minor construction and infrastructure projects can end up needing costly environmental assessments or studies prepared by "qualified experts", for example, even when the environmental impact is obviously negligible.

Activists and others opposed to development projects will sometimes raise specious environmental "concerns" to try to derail those developments by getting them tied up with red tape.

Even something as simple as trimming or cutting down a tree on private property can become a huge hassle in some municipalities, requiring permits and other bureaucratic headaches.

Of course reasonable people will push back against such regulation. The economic costs that are imposed often far outweigh the environmental benefits, if any benefits even actually exist.

black_puppydog• 4 years ago

... they commented on a thread about an article proving exactly that benefit... :|

mullingitover• 4 years ago

It’s why I find it perplexing why so many people in the US want to do away with EPA regulations

I don't think anyone in the US is pro-pollution. There are people who are against whatever the people they don't like are for, so if one side is for regulations controlling pollution, then by gosh they're against it.

At one point in the early to mid-1900s most of the working class was united politically in one party against the ownership class. Sometime around the Civil Rights Era, the two party system in the US executed a maneuver which split the working class vote against itself by pitting working class prejudices against working class self-interest. One party is the party of the ownership class, and this party throws red meat to the working class prejudices, while the other party espouses policies that benefit the working class economically while supporting socially progressive policies that the broad sections of the working class hold in disdain.

As a result we have big chunks of the working class enthusiastically voting against things that obviously serve them, like the right to clean air.

et-al• 4 years ago

Well there's also the basic issue of voting for a candidate that claims to provide job security by keeping certain industries (e.g. mining coal) running. A paycheck to put food on the table tomorrow is more important than avoiding the chance of black lung ten years from now.

How many software engineers are doing mental gymnastics justifying their work in adtech so they can afford to live in the SF Bay Area?

ch4s3• 4 years ago

At one point in the early to mid-1900s most of the working class was united politically

Working class white people were in the Democratic Party… mostly. This was because of the New Deal which was very pro white labor, and also pushed women, children, blacks, and immigrants out of the labor market.

The parties were slowly realigning after the new deal until the civil rights act finally cemented the realignment.

Reading the annual party platforms from about 1910 to roughly 1964 is fascinating.

TedDoesntTalk• 4 years ago

What?

ergonaught• 4 years ago

I think most people haven't directly experienced the problems so they've forgotten the justifications, and other assorted cognitive biases/distortions.

The city where I live was ranked the most polluted city in the USA a few decades ago, but people forget what it was like, and newer residents never knew what it was like, so they get very upset about Their Freedoms being encroached upon by EPA regulations and such.

superseeplus• 4 years ago

There was an interesting article in the NYT about how how very few people in India care about air quality enough to vote specifically for it even though poor air quality is a major contributor to mortality in India.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/22/world/asia/india-china-ai...

ahaucnx2• 4 years ago

We offer air quality monitoring solutions and I talk to customers and people interested in air quality monitoring every day from many different countries.

What I see is a very different knowledge on air pollution. For example there is a pretty high awareness on the dangers of PM2.5 in China and some South East Asian Countries (e.g. Singapore) but relatively low awareness in the Middle East and some Eastern European countries.

WalterBright8• 4 years ago

In Washington State, there was heavy wildfire smoke across the Seattle area for about a month in Sept/Oct. It was awful. I developed eye irritation, a sore throat, and a persistent cough. I stayed indoors as much as possible, and attached smoke filters to a box fan.

When the rain returned, all my symptoms disappeared.

As for the EPA regulations, they go about it the wrong way, using what in engineering we call "bang bang valves". Bang bang valves are full on or full off, nothing in between. EPA regulations are the same - 100ppm is dangerous and illegal, 99ppm is legal and safe.

This is just idiotic.

The regulations also target the rate of pollution, i.e. ppm, not the amount of pollution. A person can emit 99ppm all day and be golden to the EPA, while another can emit 100ppm for 5 minutes and be illegal.

The correct approach is to simply tax the total amount of pollution. For cars, this can be done with an annual emissions test. The rate of pollution in the test is multiplied by the number of miles driven in the last year, multiplied by the tax rate.

rayiner5• 4 years ago

It’s why I find it perplexing why so many people in the US want to do away with EPA regulations

By and large, they don’t. Trump’s efforts, for example, were focused on repealing incremental efforts during the Obama administration that hadn’t been in effect for long, and risked disproportionate impact on coal, oil, cars, and farms.

Very few people think we should get rid of rules that require factories to use emissions control technology. But rules that shut down coal plants in favor of renewables implicates a different set of political concerns: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia_v._EPA

Likewise, virtually nobody wants to go back to the days of factories dumping untreated waste into waterways. But many farmers are upset when they suddenly need an EPA permit because the EPA declared some pond on their property a protected water body: https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/more-widespread-support-epa...

vkou• 4 years ago

As of this decade, we need disproportionate impact on coal, oil, and cars to have any chance to get to net-zero emissions. A country completely built around single-passenger ICE vehicles and burning coal for electricity is what's disproportionate, not the response to them.

We wasted a decade in the 00s, we've mostly wasted a decade in the 10s, and we're starting off by wasting a decade in the 20s. You can keep ignoring late notices on your bills, but sooner or later, they do come due...

jodrellblank5• 4 years ago

This has been on HN before[1], https://dynomight.net/air/ arguing that "Better air quality is the easiest way not to die":

"While most things that clearly improve health are well known, one is insanely underrated: Fixing your air. I suspect this is often the most effective health intervention, period. Nothing else is so important while also being so easy to address."

[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

m463• 4 years ago

People in the US are not against pollution.

However I don't think people know where the pollution comes from. I personally think smog was ONLY tackled because people could SEE it. Nowadays I think there might be more harmful pollution from car tires and jets flying overhead than tailpipes.

also regulatory capture is a thing, and has a high ROI for big polluters.

jjtheblunt• 4 years ago

so many people in the US want to do away with EPA regulations

why do you say that?

cactusplant73742• 4 years ago

I have a friend who has this idea that because he grew up in a polluted environment that he is exempt from these things happening. There is no escape from air pollution.

While my friend is used to it, I have an acute response. I try not to visit places with even moderately high AQI.

pharmakom• 4 years ago

Future generations will look back in horror at our air quality in the same way that we look back at medieval sewer systems

mjamesaustin• 4 years ago

That is so spot on. We look back in abject horror at people dumping their waste into the streets, yet we do the very same with our air.

Syonyk3• 4 years ago

I expect their reactions to basically all of our modern society to be "disgust." Our air, our water, our environment, our attention ecosystems. All quite human-toxic.

borissk• 4 years ago

You're an optimist - if we end up with a nuclear war (which was avoided a few times by pure accident) or runaway global warming, future generations, if any, may think of current times as a golden age...

Syonyk3• 4 years ago

That's not how history typically works. The group that destroys the place is not regarded as heroes, they're regarded as a warning of things to be avoided.

If any of those things happen, there will be very strong taboos against anything that would begin to lead down the same roads again.

jodrellblank5• 4 years ago

The same way we look back in horror at the earlier air quality of London, when everyone burned cheap coal for home heating and 'pea-souper' fogs were a thing, before the Clean Air Act:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pea_soup_fog

acabal• 4 years ago

The pictures of those lymph nodes are shocking. In the Methods section, they state that

LN tissues were obtained from [...] LiveOnNY, the local organ procurement organization for the New York metropolitan area.

which makes it sound like the samples came from residents of NYC. NYC air quality probably isn't great, but those lymph nodes looked so bad that I assumed they must have come from a hyperpolluted megacity like Beijing or New Delhi!

Cars truly are the worst addiction our society has stooped to.

disantlor• 4 years ago

Not to mention drivers (in NYC at least) behaving like entitled psychopaths, honking like crazy the second they are delayed going down a side street at 7am

macNchz• 4 years ago

NYC air quality is quite good, especially considering the density. I agree in principle re society's addiction to cars and I'd love if there were fewer in NYC, but, interestingly, the subway system actually has orders of magnitude worse air than street level: https://www.curbed.com/2021/02/mta-subway-air-quality-pollut....

roflyear• 4 years ago

But we really fuck up Canada. Sorry Quebec.

ancientworldnow• 4 years ago

The awful subway air is an even better reason to wear a mask on the transit system than disease.

photon12• 4 years ago

I have a friend who lives in an apartment near a major, major artery in Seattle. It's 6 lanes wide looking out from the balcony directly down onto the street. It's what they can afford in a somewhat close commute to work by bus (they can't afford a car). I lived in an apartment a block from I-5 for 6 years. I've made enough money to buy a house in a neighborhood away from traffic pollution. It was a major part of my purchasing decision.

Zoning often puts more dense and therefore cheaper housing near busy roads. I think a lot about who can afford fresh air and who can't, and the compounding impacts of that quite often.

njarboe3• 4 years ago

It might be a bit because of the density, but housing is mainly cheaper near busy roads mainly because most people would prefer to live elsewhere, just like you.

giraffe_lady• 4 years ago

I think the unstated premise of that comment was that it's bad that we push the worst consequences of our societal choices onto the poorest people. Not that the mechanism by which we do it is mysterious.

celtain• 4 years ago

That would explain a difference in price per square foot, but it doesn't explain why there are fewer small homes built further from busy roads. If anything you'd expect the opposite if it were just a reflection of people's preferences.

cactusplant73742• 4 years ago

How much would it cost to lower the PM 2.5 in his house? Even cut it in half?

I don't know your friend but for some people they can afford air purifiers, running the A/C, and keeping the windows closed, but they feel it's not worth it. It's seen as a wasted expense. Especially true during Covid when many doctors could have retro-fitted their practices with HVAC filters. I think we really need an educational campaign.

aidenn02• 4 years ago

"running the A/C," presupposes that the house has A/C. When a wildfire is near, I close up the house and run air-filters, but it can hit 100F inside in the afternoons.

jodrellblank5• 4 years ago

"How much would it cost to lower the PM 2.5 in his house? Even cut it in half?"

In one room, plausibly reduce it by 99% for a one-off $70 air purifier and $30/year of electricity costs and replacement filters: https://dynomight.net/ikea-purifier/

agumonkey• 4 years ago

similarly people reported big changes after boston's big dig was completed

Syonyk3• 4 years ago

I'm not surprised. Our modern air is... poor, and that's before you get into fire season and such out west.

I've started being far more aggressive with air filtration in the house and my office. Get an air quality monitor that shows you PM2.5 and PM10, you'll be horrified by how high those levels are often enough. I've been using "filter boxes" for the most part (a 3-4 furnace filter box around a box fan or similar) and they do a great job of pulling the PM out of the air.

I can fairly regularly keep PM in the sub-5 ug/m^3 range, even during smoke season - though it's a lot of airflow through the filters.

acidburnNSA• 4 years ago

I just wish the health costs of air pollution were factored into fossil and renewable biofuel combustion power plants. Then people might stop saying nuclear was too expensive. Not to even mention a carbon tax.

jxramos• 4 years ago

I may have missed it, but where's the statement about what those black spots are in the micrographs and how that was determined. It seems like they're just declared as atmospheric particulates but where's that determined exactly? It would be great to purify them somehow and run the slurry under an electron microscope. Something along these lines of https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-04-02/the-micro... to see how such raw particulates accumulate in some tissue in the body.

nowyouknow444• 4 years ago

This is a map showing particulate pollution. Especially when fire season is on. The US is blanketed with a smoke layer. https://fire.airnow.gov/

toofy• 4 years ago

this site has been indispensable during wild fires.

but when watching air quality in my region, i’ve been finding myself more and more frustrated by a complete lack of explanation of what causes the plummeting air quality sometimes.

during wildfires the reasons are obvious, but outside of wildfire season i have fairly regularly seen the air quality just plummet and we’re just completely left in the dark why its happening.

drpgq• 4 years ago

So should one always run an air purifier in their office and bedroom?

brewdad• 4 years ago

I've started doing so. I bought a couple of large air purifiers for our living spaces and small ones for our bedrooms after the wildfires of 2020. At this pint, I run them 24/7. I've found my allergy symptoms are better and we don't have to dust as often.

gniv• 4 years ago

Yes. There is no downside. Air purifiers nowadays are cheap to run and very quiet.

NoPicklez• 4 years ago

Very interesting, I do remember in high school in the city it was well regarded that students who came from the country often had better cardiovascular performance.

Of course that isn't a great test, but may have some merit.

megablast2• 4 years ago

Keep driving though. Imagine not driving everywhere?? Insane.

ahaucnx2• 4 years ago

I am working with a lot of organisations to increase awareness on air pollution -especially among students.

The images of the dark lymph nodes by age remind me of the shocking images of lungs of smokers printed -by law- on cigarette boxes in certain countries. What they do is to make the hidden danger of the small partciles visible.

I will use the images from this study in some of my presentations in future.

It seems that the lung tissues analyzed come from an organisation in New York. So most likely people living in this area. Comparing pollution data of New York City [1] which -globally seen has relatively good air quality- to a very polluted city like New Delhi [2] makes me wonder how much worse this health effect is actually for people living in higher polluted countries.

Increasing awareness on air pollution is one of the key reasons why we offer a popular open-source / open-hardware version of our professional air quality monitor so that people can easily build am affordable and accurate monitor [3] themselves. Similar to above images, it is another way to make the invisible particles in the air visible and helping quantifying the risks from fine particles in the air.

[1] https://aqicn.org/city/usa/newyork/ [2] https://aqicn.org/city/delhi/ [3] https://www.airgradient.com/open-airgradient/kits/

xnx• 4 years ago

Even if excess CO2 in the atmosphere weren't a problem, there'd be a strong case to ban internal combustion engines for particulates and pollutants alone.

1letterunixname• 4 years ago

Why I run an expensive HEPA air filtration system 24/7 even though the air is relatively clean. Although I live near a busy highway, the air is effectively 0 ppm (undetectable) in each of 1.0, 2.5, and 10 um at home indoors. (BlueAir 680i with the better 2-part filters.)

germinalphrase• 4 years ago

Free standing unit or connected to central air?

lsllc• 4 years ago

During the pandemic, the air quality here in eastern Massachusetts was profoundly better. So much so that if you were outside and one of the very occasional cars drove by, the fumes were quite noticeable. Now that we're back to normal levels of traffic, I don't particularly notice the pollution anymore when I'm outside.

zeristor• 4 years ago

It’s a common anecdote from med students how black the lungs are from elderly city dwellers, but that doesn’t mean people should accept it.

Is there a way to test this when people are alive rather than waiting until an autopsy.

Is there any way to remove this? I assume this is a hypothesis, should this be conclusive can it be fixed? Yes cleaner air is the better way to go, but there’d be billions of people with a clogged up immune system, perhaps unaware that would benefit from getting this removed?

Are there animals that have mechanisms to overcome this issue? I doubt many live long enough for this to be an evolutionary driver, but some may have an inadvertent mechanism.

How big a role is smoking, or passive smoking in this?

I fear these questions are proffered to a waning post.

Decades of air pollution undermine the immune system

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