Smog, Soot and Our Health - Environment Illinois

Brief Summary

The two most pervasive and harmful air contaminants are fine-particles, known as “soot” and ozone gas known as “smog.” Both are damaging to our respiratory systems, causing asthma attacks and loss of lung function, and both are byproducts of burning fossil fuels in primarily in power plants or in automobiles.

Ozone reduces lung function for anyone chronically exposed, including healthy adults who exercise outdoors in the summertime. For vulnerable populations, including children, the elderly, and people with asthma or other respiratory disease, high smog days often means staying indoors, missing work, or missing school, and in the worst cases, hospitalization. Smog triggers an estimated 6 million asthma attacks per year and sends 150,000 Americans to hospital emergency rooms just in the Eastern half of the nation.

Soot is also associated with serious heart damage and has been linked to heart attacks and premature death.

• One study found that babies in cities with high levels of particulate pollution had a 26 percent increased risk for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).

• Particles can trigger heart attacks in people with heart disease by causing changes in heart rhythms.

• Studies by the Harvard School of Public Health, the Health Effects Institute and others have confirmed that tens of thousands of people each year die prematurely due to fine particle pollution.

It is U.S. EPA’s job to set air quality standards, based on health data provided by scientists, to ensure that every American has safe, clean air to breathe. Unfortunately, the Bush administration’s EPA has proposed a new soot standard that is not protective of public health. Rather than listening to the scientists, the administration listened to the lobbyists for the coal, oil and chemical industries.

In March, they held a hearing in Chicago, at which more than 60 doctors, scientists, citizens expressed opposition to the EPA’s new soot standard. Below you can link to the testimony of Environment Illinois Director Rebecca Stanfield, and our press release.