A report published by The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) announced, for the first time, that air pollution causes lung cancer. <br /><br />It puts air pollution in the same category as tobacco smoke, UV radiation and plutonium. <br /><br />Previously only specific components of air pollution, such as diesel exhausts, were implicated in cancers.<br /><br />Sources of air pollution include car exhausts, power stations and factories – as well as heating in people’s homes.<br /><br />The World Health Organisation said the classification should act as a strong message to governments to take action. <br /><br />According to the Deputy Head of International Agency for Research of Cancer (IARC) Dana Loomis, the agency was tasked with evaluating the quality of today’s air. <br /><br />The group reviewed thousands of studies on air’s composition, and after examining decades worth of data, the IARC announced that both air pollution and “particulate matter” are now Group 1 carcinogens.<br /><br />He said: “There is a concentration of high pollution through Asia, but also in Africa, which may be surprising. In China and in India, much of what we see is due to coal burning – it’s industry and all the industrial development that’s taking place in those countries.<br /><br />`“Here in northern Africa of course it’s mostly desert with few people, and the particulate pollution that we see there is from wind-blown desert dust – so it’s quite different in character from the pollution that’s coming from industry.”<br /><br />The agency said the most recent data suggested 223,000 deaths from lung cancer around the world were caused by air pollution. <br /><br />More than half of the deaths were thought to be in China and other East Asian countries.
