Cars ‘boxes collecting toxic gases’ that may stunt growth
- Professor Sir David King is the former government chief scientific adviser
- He has said that parents should avoid driving their little ones to school
- Youngsters are most vulnerable because their bodies are still developing
Stephen Matthews For Mailonline
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Cars are ‘boxes collecting toxic gases’ that stunt the growth of children, a leading expert has warned.
Professor Sir David King said that parents should avoid driving their little ones to school and encourage them to walk instead.
Youngsters are most vulnerable to the effects of pollutants because their bodies are still developing, the former government chief scientific adviser added.
Vehicles provide hardly any protection from the deadly gases, while walking is already known to be beneficial to boosting health.
Professor Sir David King said that parents should avoid driving their little ones to school and encourage them to walk instead to avoid the dangers of air pollution
Leave your car behind
Sir David told The Guardian: ‘Children sitting in the backseat of vehicles are likely to be exposed to dangerous levels [of air pollution].
‘You may be driving a cleaner vehicle but your children are sitting in a box collecting toxic gases from all the vehicles around you.
‘The best thing for all our health is to leave our cars behind. It’s been shown that the health benefits of walking and cycling far outweigh the costs of breathing in pollution.’
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Sir David, who now works with the British Lung Foundation, added: ‘If more drivers knew the damage they could be doing to their children, I think they’d think twice about getting in the car.’
Alarming studies
His warning comes after recent research found that children’s brains slow down when they are exposed to high levels of air pollution.
SMOG IN BRITAIN’S CITIES
Air pollution claims more lives in Britain than in most other western European countries, a UN report in May warned.
Toxic emissions are responsible for an average of 25.7 deaths per 100,000 in the UK compared to just 0.4 in Sweden.
Our mortality rate is also twice as high as in the US and significantly worse than Brazil and Mexico.
Britain’s air was more deadly than in Spain (14.7 per 100,000 deaths), France (17.2) and the Netherlands (24). The figure was 12.1 in the US, 15.8 in Brazil and 23.5 in Mexico.
The Government recently published draft plans to tackle air pollution including reducing motorway speed limits to 60mph and offering cash incentives to scrap diesel cars.
But the proposals were branded a ‘cop-out’ by campaigners, who have called for the creation of clean air zones that ban polluting vehicles from urban areas.
The alarming study found pupils who breathed in toxic diesel fumes on the way to school struggled to perform as well as their peers.
Spanish researchers said their findings appeared to confirm that polluted air is poisoning youngsters’ brains as well as their lungs.
While another study found that teenagers exposed to high levels of traffic pollution show signs of premature ageing.
University of California, Berkeley, scientists found that fumes caused damage to the telomeres – protective caps at the end of DNA strands.
They shrink naturally with age, and research has hinted keeping them longer may help to improve life expectancy.
The dangers of toxic air
Toxic air is linked to 40,000 deaths a year in the UK – and Brussels has warned Britain it could face fines if it continued to breach EU safety limits.
The UK is notoriously bad at controlling air pollution, with 37 cities British cities persistently displaying ‘illegal’ levels of air pollution – which has seen the Government repeatedly hauled into court over the last few years.
More than 85 per cent of the country is exposed to illegal levels of air pollution over the course of a year, according to official figures.
The World Health Organization estimates that 92 per cent of the world’s population currently live in areas where pollution exceeds safety guidelines.
Previous research has shown there to be no ‘safe’ level for humans, and long-term exposure is known to reduce life expectancy.
Air pollution falls only behind cancer, obesity and heart disease in the biggest health risks to the nation, Prime Minister Theresa May recently said.
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