LYNN — A study conducted by Boston College’s Global Observatory on Planetary Health published in the journal Environmental Health on Monday found a link between Lynn’s air pollution and increased cases of pediatric asthma, death due to heart disease, death from cancer and stroke, and decreased IQ points.
The study was led by Pediatrician and Boston College Biology Professor Phil Landrigan, who along with his team used the Environmental Protection Agency’s Mapping and Analysis Software along with state data to quantify the impact of airborne fine particulate matter on disease, death, and IQ loss in each city and town in Massachusetts.
The study estimates that air pollution accounts for 269 pediatric asthma cases, 20 heart disease deaths, 31 cancer deaths, three stroke deaths, and seven low birth weight cases in Lynn each year. Additionally, Landrigan said that the study found air pollution to be responsible for the loss of an average of two IQ points in children and infants across the state.
Landrigan said that even though airborne fine particulate matter levels are at 6.3 μg/M3 in Massachusetts, below the EPA’s standard, but above the World Health Organization’s guidelines, the state and the country knows how to control air pollution because they have done it before.
“The good news is that here in Massachusetts, here in the United States, we know how to control air pollution. We’ve actually knocked down air pollution levels by 74 percent since we passed the Clean Air Act back in 1970, and the way we’ve done that is through a combination of laws, and policies, and monitoring, and enforcement, and incentives,” Landrigan said in an interview Monday afternoon. “We need to basically apply these tools to Massachusetts in the year 2022.”
According to Landrigan, roughly three-quarters of the air pollution in Massachusetts comes from motor vehicles, and the other quarter comes from stationary resources such as power plants, factories, and home heating units. He said that to mitigate pollution-caused health impacts, the federal government must consider raising its standard for “safe” air pollutant levels.
“What we have to do is we have to find ways to control emissions, air pollution, from those two sources: the mobile sources and the stationary sources,” Landrigan said. “The federal standard for how much pollution is allowed in the air is 12 micrograms of pollution for every cubic meter of air. That was set a long time ago based on studies that were done in the ’80s and ’90s. Well, the average level of pollution in Massachusetts is 6.2 micrograms, so it’s almost 50 percent lower than the federal standard, and yet we’re seeing 2,780 people die each year. What that says to me is that the federal standard is not strict enough and the feds need to tighten down that standard if we want to protect people’s lives.”
As a pediatrician, Landrigan said that he has seen the blood-lead levels in children drop over the years due to the steady lowering of the safe lead level standards on federal and state levels. He related the effectiveness of gradual lead regulation to an appropriate solution for air pollution mitigation.
“Each time we lowered the levels, we found that kids were still being damaged, so we had to lower them again, and then we had to lower them again and then we had to lower them again, and that’s protected a lot of kids from lead poisoning. We have to do exactly the same thing with air pollution,” Landigran said.
In the coming state election year, Landrigan said that he hopes to see an administration that takes air pollution, and the health risks it’s causing, seriously.
“We’ve got a new administration coming to Massachusetts in the State House in January, and we’re hoping that the new administration will pay attention to these findings, act on them, and take strong measures to protect the health of every woman and man and child across the state of Massachusetts,” he said.
Anthony Cammalleri can be reached at [email protected].
