February 18, 2018

Outdoor air pollution is now leading cause of cancer, according to World Health Organization

Lines of cars are pictured during a rush hour traffic jam on Guomao Bridge in Beijing July 11, 2013. Eight more cities in China, the world's biggest auto market, are likely to announce policies restricting new vehicle purchases, an official at the automakers association said, as Beijing tries to control air pollution.
By Kate Kelland, Reuters

LONDON — The air we breathe is laced with cancer-causing substances and should now be classified as carcinogenic to humans, the World Health Organisation’s cancer agency said on Thursday.


The WHO is a Geneva-based agency of the United Nations focused on international public health matters.


Research suggests that in recent years, exposure levels have risen significantly in some parts of the world, particularly countries with large populations going through rapid industrialisation such as China.

“We now know that outdoor air pollution is not only a major risk to health in general, but also a leading environmental cause of cancer deaths,” said Kurt Straif, head of the IARC’s monographs section, which is tasked with ranking carcinogens.


In a statement released after a week-long meeting of experts reviewing the latest scientific literature, IARC said both outdoor air pollution and “particulate matter” — a major component of it — would now be classified among its Group 1 human carcinogens.


IARC’s monographs programme, sometimes known as the “encyclopaedia of carcinogens”, aims to be an authoritative source of scientific evidence on cancer-causing substances.


“Our task was to evaluate the air everyone breathes rather than focus on specific air pollutants,” said Dana Loomis, deputy head of the section. “The results from the reviewed studies point in the same direction: the risk of developing lung cancer is significantly increased in people exposed to air pollution.”


IARC’s director, Christopher Wild, said the agency’s decision to classify outdoor air pollution as carcinogenic to humans was an important step towards alerting governments to its dangers and potential costs.




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