Delhi Air Pollution: Health Expert Equates Breathing City Air To Smoking 30 Cigarettes Daily

2 days ago

In a discussion on the severe air pollution in the national capital, a health expert describes the situation as a 'health care emergency'. The expert highlights that the current Air Quality Index levels are equivalent to smoking 25 to 30 cigarettes a day for non-smokers and warns of risks like cancer and chromosomal defects. An environment expert adds that meteorological conditions are currently at their worst. The expert notes that emergency measures like the Graded Response Action Plan are insufficient to significantly improve air quality and calls for year-round solutions addressing all pollution sources across the region.

Transcript

00:00Now joining me now is the Dr. Sanjeev Bagai. He is a chairman at Nefron Clinics. Also with us is

00:06Chandra Bhushan, CEO, International Forum for Environment, Sustainability and Technology,

00:11iForest as it's called. Dr. Bagai, the first question really is to you. I don't know about

00:16your weekend, but the weekend that just went by got so many people sick, so many people run to

00:24the hospital. And what I am hearing at least is that the numbers when they crossed 1000,

00:30that's when you immediately saw an impact of emergency rooms. You immediately saw patients

00:36sort of trickling in. What was your experience? Good evening. I think this is a healthcare emergency

00:44in the national capital. There is no question about it. We have framed our rules of putting

00:50the Grap measures in different grades to suit our convenience. The international AQI, which

00:57is recommended by WHO is 15 and below. India has accepted 50. Okay, that's fine. But according to

01:03me, health hazards kick in anything more than 100 to 200. If you're going to wait for 400 to 500 to

01:09kick in and then bring in the measures, it's too little too late. Let me explain this in layman terms.

01:15This AQI is a reflection of various components of the air pollution, which is mainly PM2,

01:20PM5. But not to forget micro-nanoparticles of plastic, hydrofluorocarbons, volatile organic

01:27compounds, toxic gases like methane and so on, including ozone. These are filtered down in

01:33ultra-fine particles. They break through your lung barrier and enter the bloodstream and go to

01:38every body organ. There is almost an 80 to 100% increase in lung cancers, brain cancers, kidney cancers,

01:46liver cancers and so on in the last 10 years to 15 years. We've seen acute respiratory problems,

01:51including bronchitis, pneumonias. Children are more affected, especially because they breathe twice as

01:56fast as adults. That means they take in twice the volume of the pollutants. Apart from that, we must

02:03understand that 20% underestimation of the AQI is an accepted norm because the PM2.5 aggregate as larger

02:13or larger particles is called as an aggregating factor. So the real, if it is 500, the real is

02:19more than 6, 650. Also, the heavy metals are never being spoken about. The heavy metals, what they do is

02:26they catalyze the micro-nanoparticles of plastic, make them into super ions and these damage the body

02:33even more. So we need to look at this in a more holistic manner. I have recommended this for a very long

02:39time as a simple tax-paying citizen that we need a separate ministry of clean air. This is our

02:46fundamental right. If we want to reach the dream of being Viksit Bharat and a really strong nation

02:52by 2047 or earlier, we cannot achieve this if we are an unhealthy nation. Make no mistake about it.

02:59This is damaging the pregnancies, damaging the fetus, congenital birth defects, including absent limbs,

03:06cleft palate, congenital hearts, absent kidneys. It damages your DNA. That means your next generation

03:14is going to be born with more amount of chromosomal defects. This is all published data. There is some

03:20whispering in some corridors that all this is not correlated with Indian study. So just in 60 seconds,

03:27let me pan it out. I'm sorry for my cough. This is a gift from the air. That there is more than 7,000

03:35articles which have been published internationally out of which more than 250 are only India-based.

03:41Lancet July 24, Lancet Jan 21, Lancet December 22, Lancet December 22, Lancet July 22, BMJ, British Medical

03:51Journal Journal in November 23, New England Journal of Medicine, 1122. These are all published on

03:59India meta-analysis of 10 cities, 21 cities. Some are only based on Delhi. The fact is even a 10

04:07microgram increase in AQI of BM 2.5 gives you a 200% increased risk of either having a heart attack or a

04:15stroke, obesity, diabetes mellitus, metabolic disturbances. One notch higher of 22 AQI increase

04:24is equivalent to smoking one cigarette for a never smoker. That means with this AQI on a daily basis,

04:31people who never touched a cigarette are smoking up to 25 to 30 cigarettes a day. So in my language,

04:38it's called as welcome to the Marlborough country. Dr. Bagai, I hear you. I hear the cough,

04:45the pollution cough in your voice. I hear your frustration. I hear your almost breathless list

04:50of things that is going to happen to us and the generations that follow. But somehow,

04:56the politicians are not hearing you. Somehow, our ministers don't care enough about AQI. Somehow,

05:05they are in perhaps in, you know, filtered air and that's why it's not impacting them. And for some

05:11reason, this is just not knocking the right doors, which is really, really sad. But let me bring in

05:16Chaddar Bhushan at this point. Mr. Bhushan, the last weekend is where a lot of people who were saying,

05:26a lot of people who in India have now discounted air pollution as just another inconvenience

05:30that you live with, right? Like, like you live with bad traffic or you live with like bad water

05:36and you have to purify it at your own house. You just live with bad air like that's what a lot of

05:41people had sort of given up. And that's what they were living last weekend change something.

05:46Friday, Saturday, Sunday, when numbers went above 1000 something happened. First up, could you tell us

05:52what is your own analysis on forecast for the days and weeks to come? Remember, the days and weeks to

05:59come are going to be filled with Christmas parties and new year end parties. There'll be catch ups,

06:06there'll be weddings and receptions, there'll be a lot of gathering and also a lot of traffic on the road.

06:11So we are right now in one of the worst meteorological conditions that you can think about. The wind speed is

06:19very low, you have inversion, you have high moisture, therefore you have fog. And it is both because of

06:27local conditions as well as the conditions from western disturbance. So what you see today is one of the

06:33worst meteorological conditions, clubbed with major pollution sources from everything. Whether it is

06:42traffic, it is heating and cooking fuel, industries, dust, everything has come together. And therefore,

06:49you have such poor air quality. Next couple of days, the predictions are that the meteorological

06:57condition is not going to improve significantly. So you will have poor air quality for a couple of days.

07:03Let's now pray for gods to give us higher wind speed or maybe a rainfall to clear this up. No measure of

07:12grab can reduce this air quality, improve this air quality. I want to say it up front. You know,

07:20there's enforcement challenge of grab. I saw one of your reporters at Anand Bihar and how difficult it is

07:27to enforce. So one is enforcement challenge. Second is even if we are completely implementing grab, will it

07:35get us very clean air? Most likely not. It will reduce somehow, but not significantly. So air quality in

07:43Delhi will not be improved by such emergency measures as grab. We have to start thinking about air quality

07:50improvement year-round. And start thinking about all sources of pollution. Start thinking about the

07:57entire region. It is not Delhi's problem alone. You go to Noida, you go to Gurugram, you go to Aligarh,

08:05Mehrat. You think about... In fact, let me go beyond that. It's not just Delhi. NCR, it's 60% of the country.

08:1260% of the country has bad air. And that's the reality of the day. That's what we're dealing with.

08:18That's what we're dealing with. I really wish I had more time, Mr. Chandra Bhushan, but I promise I

08:24will not leave this issue. I promise we will come back to you and we will pick up different layers of

08:28this entire air pollution fiasco, emergency, you know, that we've been talking about. But I'm really

08:36sorry. That's all the time we have at the moment. Quick wrap and we will see you again tomorrow. Bye-bye.

Delhi Air Pollution: Health Expert Equates Breathing City Air To Smoking 30 Cigarettes Daily

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