From Investigate West, an investigative news site starter by some former P-I journalists:
by Robert McClure in Dateline Earth
Two recent studies suggest that air pollution at levels common in urban areas causes children to have higher rates of a potentially fatal lung infection and reduces the IQ levels of the kids exposed most heavily in the womb.
All this happens at air-pollution levels common in urban areas.
The finding about the dumber kids exposed in the womb comes out of the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health in New York City, where scientists equipped expectant mothers to wear air-pollution monitors as they went about their daily routine.
One finding, outlined in Scientific American this week and much earlier on a site called babycenter.com: Pregnant women who experienced the highest exposures to pollutants known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons had children with IQ scores four points lower on average than kids born to less-exposed mothers. SciAm’s Sunny Sea Gold’s story says there’s more from another study:
Read more
