For the third quarter of my book, I read chapters 11 through 16, which were pages 129-196. These chapters are much like the previous chapters I read in the second quarter, which have to do with pollution and the ozone.
In chapter 11, is about odor pollution. I thought it was a little odd, because I guess I never thought about odor as being a pollutant, depending on what kind of odor I suppose. Some of the people in the areas reported being bothered very much or moderately, on a scale of very much, moderately, a little, or not at all. Differences in this study between men and women were noticed for headache and nervousness.
Chapter 12 is basically a review of the previous pollution chapters. They showed that after a few minutes exposure to an odorous material in the lab, the awareness of the odor begins to diminish. They talked about pollution and the effects of new exposures, how, if detected early, it should be taken care of immediately, instead of waiting to see if any health risks come about from it.
Chapter 13 is about nitrate levels in drinking water and methemoglobin in infants. They discovered that infants whose formulas were made up with contaminated ground water would give them this disease of Methemoglobinemia. In adults, the stomach secretions are strongly acidic, and this can limit the types of bacteria that can survive mixture with the stomach's secretions; but in infants, the strongly acid secretion has not yet evolved, and so when bacteria are ingested they may colonize the entire intestinal tract. They found it obvious that babies that are breast fed are likely to have little tap water ingestion in relation to infants fed a dry or powdered milk formula.
Chapter 14 is about carbon monoxide exposures and survival from heart attacks. This chapter was really confusing to me because they used a bunch of numbers and figures that were hard for me to understand. They were trying to research the difference between carbon monoxide exposures to the survival rate of heart attacks. The conclusions found that in Los Angeles in 1958 in times and places of high exposures to carbon monoxide there is an increase in the case fatality rate for heart attacks.
Chapter 15 is about lead exposures in children. They used the teeth that children naturally lose to test for lead and then compare to their school performance and intelligence. The study provided powerful evidence of a possible role of lead exposures in early childhood in handicapping school performance and intelligence.
Chapter 16 is about photochemical pollutants and the long term health effects. In 1971, the published data supported these conslusions:
"At times and locations with increased photochemical pollution, eye irritation, respiratory irritaion, increased cough and sputum, and possible headache were observed; A fraction of the population with existing asthma was more likely to experience asthma attacks when pollution levels exceeded an hourly average of 0.20 ppm of ozone; Men with cronic bronchitis or emphysema and impaired lung function experienced further lung function impairment when levels of ozone were elevated from 0.10 to 0.30 ppm; Mortality from chronic respiratory conditions was showing a general upward trend, but effects of cigarette smoking, survival from tuberculosis and pneumonia, and occupational exposures were considered the predominant contributors; High school cross country teams had 'poorer' times when they exercised during smoggy weather than the same teams exercising when smog was less" (p. 182-183).
It's scary to think about all of these things and some of them have irreversible effects. Hopefully, we can keep making sure our water is clean, keep carbon monoxide reduced, and photochemical pollution reduced. So many of these things are detrimental to our health, as well as our environment's health. We need to make sure we take care of these new exposures as they are happening instead of waiting to find out years later that they cause serious medical problems, because that long into it, it would take years to figure out how to reduce it all again.
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Reflections Week 13 and 14
14 years ago
It's scary to think there is a high levels nitrate and other harmful things in some water.. also that children are being affected by it because it will affect them most likely for the rest of their lives.
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