Since the year 2005, Southern Californian’s cancer rate has dropped by a titanic rate of 65 percent. While this number seems like a tremendous success and step in the right direction, regional air quality regulators still say this number is way too high. The recent 2015 analysis found that the constant exposure to toxic air contaminants in Southern California could result in 418 cancer cases for every 1 million people’s lifetimes. This number is down from the 1,194 cases per million found in the same study during 2005. Health experts conclude that 10 cases per every million qualifies healthy air.
The statistics presented in this article where very astonishing and disgusting in my opinion. The fact that over 1,000 people out of every million would obtain cancer from simply living in Southern California is horrendous and changes must continue to be made at a rapid pace. While health experts conclude that 10 cases per every million qualifies healthy air, that number still seems too high to me. However, if Southern California could make it to that number in the relatively near future it would be a tremendous success.
Nice article. I am glad the air in SoCal is improving. What can be done all together to eliminate the poor air quality in LA to prevent any cancer at all?
while I think it is unlikely that our air is ever going to become so clean that there will be a one in one hundred thousand chance of getting cancer we can still improve the quality and that we already have to this extent is impressive.
Kailen- You found an issue of env. justice. I wonder if all socioeconomic groups are affected equally with this, since it’s air. Not even the rich and famous can hide. It is good to hear we are improving, largely due to the Clean Air Act.
I hope you enjoyed following your topic this year. We like our air!
Thanks for posting!