20160223_R4

Source: BBC Radio 4: Today

URL: N/A

Date: 23/02/2016

Event: Climate change a distraction from threat of air pollution

Credit: BBC Radio 4, also thanks to Paul Matthews for transcribing this

People:

• Professor Stephen Holgate: Professor of Immunopharmacology
• Justin Webb: Presenter, BBC Radio 4 Today programme

Justin Webb: We are being poisoned when we walk down busy roads. That much we have known for some time I suppose, but what we're being told today is that we poison ourselves indoors as well: that trendy wood-burning stove, the sprays to make the place smell nice, all of it doing us silent but pretty deadly harm. The report comes from two royal colleges, the College of Physicians and the College of Pediatrics and Child Health. Professor Stephen Holgate is an asthma expert at Southampton University and is actually author of the report and is here. Good morning to you.

Stephen Holgate: Good morning.

Justin Webb: Just start inside - what's happening to us in our homes?

Stephen Holgate: Well, air pollution of course is something we are very familiar with, all around us, but inside the home we're using multiple chemicals and as we improve the heat preservation in houses, we tend to accumulate these chemicals in the air. And we're breathing them in, just as we're breathing in the chemicals outside.

Justin Webb: And they're killing us.

Stephen Holgate: Well, they're contributing to a wide variety of diseases - our report is concentrating really on the development of the baby in the uterus, and what happens when the baby's born. And the fact that we've found that air pollution exposure increases risk of developing diseases such as asthma and even diabetes, and even a reduced intellectual capacity.

Justin Webb: And the answer that you come up with, in your report, is pretty simple. Indoor pollution - simply open the window.

Stephen Holgate: Well, that's right. It's amazing, isn't it, that we've got so used to, now, living in these tight sealed homes that we're frightened of opening the window and letting a bit of fresh air in.

Justin Webb: But we're frightened for quite good reasons, when it comes to the cost of heating, I suppose, and we do spend - I mean, people aren't doing this for fun, are they, they're doing it because they do want to seal in the heat. You're saying: open the window and then close it again and you're not going to lose it.

Stephen Holgate: That's right, and two or three times a day does no harm whatsoever. Of course, house building, of course, is important as well, and we're still building houses close to busy roads, and we're getting air pollution coming directly into the houses from there, as well.

Justin Webb: And that then takes us outside and to the roads, and obviously to diesel, which is a major contributor.

Stephen Holgate: Diesel is the real problem and it's the oxides of nitrogen from diesel. I mean 50% of the car fleet in the United Kingdom is now diesel engine run, compared to only 14% in 1995, so it's a massive increase really.

Justin Webb: Is it fair to say then that we have concentrated on the threat of climate change, on carbon emissions, and that has led to us obviously with diesel cars, with wood burning stoves actually as well, inside, that it has led us to take our eye off the more immediate problem, you could argue, of killing ourselves through pollution?

Stephen Holgate: Absolutely. I mean there's a ten-fold increase in vehicles on the roads since 1949 and when you can see these cars piling up on the way to school, taking their children, the fumes directly from the vehicle in front are being vented straight into the car and exposing the child, and yet we're ignoring this and this is quite incorrect really - as doctors we've got to speak out about this.

Justin Webb: And take action as well, or tell the local authorities and government to take action, in some cases quite drastic action - you're talking about closing roads?

Stephen Holgate: Indeed so, and thinking carefully about what happens when pollution goes acutely up as it does from time to time and local councils have got to take some responsibility in this.

Justin Webb: Do we measure enough, at the moment?

Stephen Holgate: We do not measure enough in terms of air pollution. There are new devices now that the public will be able to carry with them to measure their own pollution exposure, so that will produce some people pressure I think.

Justin Webb: So you're wanting, when someone measures, when you realise that a road is particularly harmful at a particular time, you're wanting that road then to be closed.

Stephen Holgate: Well at least to be built into planning, I mean some forward thinking here, not just completely ignoring it, which is the situation at the present time.

Justin Webb: Professor Stephen Holgate from Southampton University, thank you very much.