Environment
The Most Widespread Environmental Carcinogen? The Air We Breathe
A ground-breaking new report finds that air pollution – not any one contaminant – is the "leading environmental cause of cancer deaths."
Depending on where you're reading this, the air you're breathing could be giving you cancer.
Outdoor air – not any one contaminant in particular – is "the most widespread environmental carcinogen," according to a brand-new report from the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer. "The air we breathe has become polluted with a mixture of cancer-causing substances," Dr. Kurt Straif, head of the IARC Monographs Section, said in a press release [PDF]. "We now know that outdoor air pollution is not only a major risk to health in general, but also a leading environmental cause of cancer deaths." Remarkably, it now ranks ahead of second-hand tobacco smoke as a danger.