Today the authoritative National Academy of Sciences issued a report, “Estimating Mortality Risk Reduction and Economic Benefits from Controlling Ozone Air Pollution.”

Frank O’Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, a Washington-based advocacy organization, called the report “…a rebuke of the Bush administration which has consistently tried to downplay the connection between smog and premature death.” Vickie Patton, deputy general counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund, said the Academy’s findings “refute the White House skepticism and denial” of a proven link between acute ozone exposure and premature deaths. Such arguments have been used to diminish the health benefits of reducing air pollution, she said. The report’s well worth reading. You can find it at http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12198.

To quote from its 165-page review of voluminous health-based evidence,

• “…short-term exposure to ambient ozone is likely to contribute to premature deaths.”

• “…long-term exposure to ozone on lung-function growth increases the plausibility of an effect of the same exposure on mortality.”

• “Recent studies have demonstrated ozone’s substantial impact on a variety of respiratory conditions in children, including the genesis of asthma in young people, which may have later effects on health and pollution-mediated responses. Furthermore, the response to ozone in children is clearly different from that in adults. Children spend more time outdoors, where ozone concentrations are highest, and have higher levels of activity, which contribute to greater ventilatory rates relative to body mass than observed in adults; these factors logically are associated with greater ozone doses in children than in adults. Those conditions, coupled with the fact that children have an immature immune system and are in the process of developing the capacity to metabolize a wide variety of xenobiotic compounds, accentuate their susceptibility to environmental injury.”

Download some very helpful information from the American Lung Association right here.
Download the report for the State of California right here.
Download the report for the entire U.S.A. right here.