Tiny air pollution particles have been revealed in the brain stems of young people and are intimately associated with molecular damage linked to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
If the groundbreaking discovery is confirmed by future research, it would have worldwide implications because 90% of the global population live with unsafe air. Medical experts are cautious about the findings and said that while the nanoparticles are a likely cause of the damage, whether this leads to disease later in life remains to be seen.
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Photo credit: Nick Ansell/PA
Day: October 7, 2020
By: Mihir Vohra, Research Associate
Particulate matter (PM) is a form of air pollution composed of a mixture of dust, chemicals, and liquid droplets. PM is primarily released into the air by industrial facilities that perform mixing and combustion. When people inhale PM in the air, it gets into their lungs and bloodstream, worsening existing lung diseases and even causing lung disease, heart disease, and lung cancer. Very fine particulate matter less then 2.5 micrometers in diameter – called PM2.5 – is especially dangerous. The National Ambient Air Quality Standards has determined that the maximum safe concentration of PM2.5 in outdoor air to be 12 μg/m3, and while the national average measurement of PM2.5 is 8.4 μg/m3, there are some regions in the US where PM2.5 are above this standard. The EPA’s interactive air quality map that shows current PM pollution can be found here.
While our understanding of the COVID-19 virus is still limited, scientific research is already showing that exposure to PM2.5 increases the risk of death from COVID-19. A recent study from the Harvard School of Public Health determined that in the US there is a link between increased PM2.5 in the air and COVID-19 fatality. This link existed even when the researchers controlled for a host of other factors that influence COVID-19 death risk: an area’s population size and density, number of COVID-19 tests performed, number of hospital beds, smoking, body mass index, poverty, income, education, age, race, and weather. This means that the connection between PM2.5 and death from COVID-19 is likely to be real. More concerning than the fact that PM2.5 increases the risk of death from COVID-19 is that the magnitude of the increased risk is very high. The authors calculate that “an increase of only 1 μg/m3 in PM2.5 is associated with an 8% increase in the COVID-19 death rate”, ultimately concluding that “a small increase in long term PM2.5 exposure leads to a large increase in COVID-19 death rate.” Thus existing PM2.5 pollution, even at levels below national health standards, poses serious dangers to Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Research from outside the US seems to corroborate these findings. In Italy, COVID-19 infection and mortality peaked in the spring of 2020, with Northern Italy experiencing particularly high levels of mortality. A recent study discovered that the high level of air pollution in Northern Italy was a factor in causing the high level of mortality relative to the rest of the country. This demonstrates more generally that existing air pollution puts people at risk of death from COVID-19 all over the world.
In the US, COVID-19 fatality is particularly high for people of color. Black and Latinx people are twice as likely to die from COVID-19 as white people. Many factors contribute to this reality, including medical racism and inequities in access to healthcare. However, we should also consider that research shows that Black people disproportionately shoulder the burden of PM-emitting facilities. This means that existing inequities in the impact of pollution are being exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic, and that fights to keep communities safe and healthy must include fights to end racial injustice.
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Atlantic Coast Pipeline Canceled
WE DID IT. The Atlantic Coast Pipeline is CANCELED.
It was the grassroots effort from North Carolina to West Virginia that brought the Atlantic Coast Pipeline to a screeching halt.
CHEJ worked with the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League (BREDL) and a network of environmental activists and longtime African American residents who joined forces to stop the pipeline and the compressor station in several historically Black communities. One historically Black community of Union Hill, VA can trace their lineage to slave ancestors and freedmen who settled there after the Civil War. In this community CHEJ and others held a United Nations Human Rights Tribunal to provide the evidence to stop the destruction of the area.
In North Carolina, it was sweet potato farmers who stood together and said no to the pipeline and the compressor stations. Community leaders along a 367 mile stretch from North Carolina to West Virginia joined together using the same facts, narratives, information and networks, which was key to creating the pressure to stop the pipeline.
BREDL led the charge, organizing the tour of towns along the way. They educated, organized and connected small rural communities with one another to create a bond and powerful bridge to stop the pipeline proposals where ever they were suggested. Read More
In response to the COVID-19 virus, the Environmental Protection Agency suspended regulations requiring facilities to monitor and report emissions. CHEJ’s very own Lois Gibbs provided commentary on the impact this action could have on individuals living in sacrifice zones, or areas overburden by pollution from industrial facilities. Although the regulation change comes at a time during a global pandemic, it is not the first change to facility requirements. While families are required to stay at home to avoid risk of exposure to the virus, they are “sitting ducks” to the toxic chemicals they are exposed on a daily basis from polluting facilities. Read More.
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COVID-19 vs Past Pandemics
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Blog by: Joy Barua
COVID-19 has caused a major disruption in the entire world and have paused our daily life. It might even go down as the greatest challenge of its kind that we have faced in our lifetime. While the world is on pause and is unpredictable at the moment there is still hope that we will come out of this stronger than before.
As of this writing, there are 1,289,380 cases of COVID-19 in the world and a total of 70,590 deaths according to the John Hopkins Coronavirus resource center. That adds up to about a 5% case fatality rate (CFR). However, that 5% doesn’t paint the entire picture as to when looking at individual countries, the numbers shifts dramatically as for example, the CFR in Italy currently stands at 12%. It changes more for better or worse when dividing things up by regions or states in each country. For example, in our nation, the cases and CFR in New York are significantly higher than the rest of the country.
To provide a bit of background, COVID-19 is a single-stranded RNA virus. It is a zoonotic disease. Over the past 100 years or so, zoonotic diseases have become a major concern for the world of public health. Millions of people die each year due to some form of zoonotic diseases. Some of the deadliest zoonotic diseases includes Ebola, West Nile, Lyme Disease, Nipah Virus, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)and now COVID-19 which happens to be a strain of SARS or known as SARS-CoV-2. The first SARS outbreak took place in 2003 and also started in China. There are many more emerging zoonotic infectious diseases that are appearing in some of the lower-income countries. Most of the zoonotic diseases are considered to be RNA viruses. For those not aware, RNA viruses are considered more threatening than DNA viruses cause of their high mutation rate compared to DNA viruses. As a result, creating a vaccine for an RNA virus takes longer than it would for a DNA virus.
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The goal of this writing is not to give you information that you are already aware of but to provide in-context how COVID-19 compares to past pandemics. Going back to the 1918 pandemic of the H1N1 virus, known as the Spanish Flu, infected about 500 million people or at the time 1/3 of the population. It claimed 50 million lives. That works up to a 10% CFR which is much higher than the current CFR of COVID-19. But similar to COVID-19, mortality was higher among the under 5 and over 65 age groups.
There was a second strand of flu pandemic in 1957 known as H2N2 or the Asian flu that claimed 1.1 million lives. Not long after, a third strand of the flu pandemic took place in 1968 known as the H3N2 virus that claimed another million lives. Similarly, the mortality rate was higher among those ages 65 and higher. The latest flu pandemic took place in 2009 known as the swine flu pandemic of the H1N1 virus. While it infected nearly 1.5 billion people, the CFR was much lower compared to past pandemics with deaths of about half a million people. There have also been other pandemics such as the Ebola outbreak, Zika (still active), HIV/AIDS pandemic (still active).
With the emergence of every new pandemic, the mortality rate slowly decreases. While the statistics differentiate between DNA and an RNA viruses, with the advancement of modern technology and modern medicine we are better equipped to deal with these types of pandemics than ever before. As COVID-19 continues to progress and has yet to peak in certain areas, just know that while it is still deadly, there is still hope that we will come out of this stronger than before.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
Benzene is a federal regulated chemical that when exposed can cause blood disorders and cancer. A report released by the Environment Integrity Project examined the excessive release of Benzene from 10 facilities within the United States. The worst offending facilities were found in Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. All states included one facility with benzene emittance greater than the federal regulations, with the exception of Texas with a total of 6 refineries out of compliance. Read More.
Cumberland County is the latest to approve spending millions to provide public drinking water to two schools and an area with well contamination caused by the Chemours chemical company. Read more.