Homes in Los Angeles with a refinery and oil storage tanks nearby. (Photo: trekandshoot, via Shutterstock)OPINION: The science is clear. There is no way to effectively protect the health of vulnerable and unserved communities without confronting how factors like race and income impact exposure to the air quality threats created by fossil fuels.
A helicopter sprays a field in the Salinas Valley. (Photo: Dwight Smith, via Shutterstock)Angela Mancuso had just dropped off her kids at Glenwood Elementary School when she started to smell something “funky.” She was driving back to her home just a mile away in Stockton and decided to roll down her window for some fresh air. She noticed too late that a helicopter applying pesticide to a nearby walnut grove that Tuesday morning in September 2016 kept flying back and forth across the road, spraying continuously.
Photo: Monticello, via ShutterstockThe California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) has issued shocking assertions about the dangers of Bisphenol-A (BPA). In one sense they are right, their research findings are shocking – but only because they contradict the published scientific literature on BPA safety as well as the opinions of credible global health experts, including our own United State Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
California motorists in a traffic jam. (Photo: Shutterstock)As a physician – especially a physician living in Los Angeles – I am deeply concerned about the effects of air pollution on lung health. Southern California is home to some of the most entrenched air pollution in our nation and it affects the millions of our residents living with asthma, heart and lung disease and other chronic health conditions.