The Dangers of Pollution
Every society and culture has been guilty of polluting their local areas of work and habitation, with some societies defiling more extensive regions or the world itself. As humanity has advanced scientifically, industrially and technologically, with more goods produced and longer lives, the amount of pollution has increased dramatically. Progress and pollution appear to go hand in hand. It is only recently that small numbers of people have realized the dangers of pollution and how the destruction of the environment and various ecosystems are bad for the planet and ultimately bad for humans. Some of these people have become organized into environmentally friendly groups who are ardently working to save endangered species and ecosystems and preserve the planet. The general public does not seem aware of how pollution and contamination can damage the world and affect them.
According to an American Lung Association report in 2022, over a third of United States residents were impacted by unhealthy air. However, this report was issued prior to the extensive Canadian and American wildfires in the spring and summer of 2023 which considerably downgraded air quality in much of America. It was noted that over 63 million Americans faced daily spikes in lethal particle pollution, the most in a decade, with California the hardest hit. Air pollution, like all pollution is rising annually in America and worldwide.
Poor air quality is a major factor in the causation of numerous illnesses, both from chemical pollution and wildfire smoke. The common pathway for many of the diseases is an increase in inflammation. Air pollution encompasses particles of varying sizes and from varying sources as well as a range of gases that serve as irritants when inhaled. While pulmonary, coronary and brain afflictions are most common, virtually every bodily organ can be affected, with rates of cancer also increased. Chronic exposure to atmospheric pollution is more frequently seen in impoverished neighborhoods, underdeveloped nations and in certain industries where pollutants are regular byproducts.
Several decades ago, the term ‘exposome’ was conceived to capture all the compounds to which we are exposed that can affect our health, whether dietary or environmental. Our genomes play a large role in determining our risk of many diseases or causing diseases, and exposomes are also involved. Scientists trying to calculate the impact of exosomes upon us, run blood and urine tests to look for chemicals or their breakdown products formed by the enzymes in our bodies. Special laboratories take blood samples and use techniques like gas chromatography, liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry to assess the samples and find any chemicals or byproducts present. However, finding these compounds is not enough to know their effects upon us. Many have to be investigated and the time one is exposed to these compounds may also be important. Discovering this may be difficult to ascertain and what the safe levels of these chemicals are.
New chemicals and compounds are constantly being invented and produced by industry, some of which may be harmful or toxic at low levels. In 2017, MIT started a collaborative project, one of roughly two dozen nationwide, labeled the Superfund Research Program (SRP) to learn the effect of carcinogens that originate from toxic sites. These teams study five areas, water, air, systems biology, mutations and genetic susceptibility, examining the environmental impacts of industrial processes. They are searching for contaminants or byproducts that may be carcinogenic. One chemical, NDMA, a manufacturing byproduct and probable carcinogen has been found in Zantac and other pharmaceuticals and can also show up in drinking water after municipal water treatment. Most of the Superfund sites are polluted with harmful compounds that are also carcinogenic, some of which have contaminated groundwater. At present, there are over 1300 Superfund sites in the U.S, of which 452 have supposedly been remediated. However, tiny amounts of many of these chemicals can impair human health in various ways, including cancer. One estimate has NDMA contaminating at least 1 percent of the U.S. water supply.
There are many old sites in the US of toxic contaminants that are not well known to the public and are continuing to cause disease and genetic damage to exposed humans. For instance, Indianapolis contains one of the largest dry cleaning Superfund sites in the nation. Tuchman Cleaners operated a number of cleaning stores throughout the city from 1952 to 2008. The company sent the clothes to a central site for dry cleaning using perchlorethylene or PERC. This highly toxic compound was kept in storage tanks under the building where the cleaning occurred. Leakage and spills from these tanks were noted first in 1989 and by 1994, the compound was discovered in a nearby aquifer. The EPA became involved in 2011 by which time the compound had seeped more than a mile beneath a residential neighborhood and had contaminated a well supplying drinking water to the city. Yet inhabitants of the city for the most part were unaware of their exposure to PERC which is a neurotoxin and possible carcinogen.
This is not an isolated story and similar events exposing people to dangerous chemicals, with or without their knowledge has happened in a number of areas throughout the country. Environmental damage often occurs slowly and out of sight which means the public may not recognize the dangers to which they have been subjected. City administrations may not want to publicize these hazards because of fears it may hurt investment in the city. And distance and time may keep many of these toxic legacies hidden. In the U.S. and other industrial nations, there appears to be a split among those alert to the threat of pollution and climate change, and those who want economic development full speed ahead no matter what the environmental cost may be. Many eyes are closed to the poisoning of the planet.
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Tags: air quality, diseases of pollution, pollution, toxic chemicals, water contamination
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