It’s another clear (albeit bone-chilling) day and we should all be feeling rather festive – but it’s hard to muster up much holiday cheer reading news like this (VPN needed):
As doctors tended the patients snaking through the ground floor of Beijing Children’s Hospital last week, it wasn’t the raspy throats and watery eyes caused by the city’s acrid air that concerned Li Pu most. It was the potential for lifelong lung damage and behavioral changes. Li, a pediatrician focusing on early childhood development, is finding evidence of the cumulative toxic effect that pollution is having on children. It suggests that the acute sickness triggered this year by some of Beijing’s worst smog- cloaked days may be a prelude of chronic illnesses, such as heart disease, decades later. "Even if children are being exposed for a short period, it may still have a cumulative effect on them in the future," Li said in an interview. Beijing has seen a lot more days with serious smog since the start of January.
I really can’t think of what I could say to add anything insightful to this depressing news, save for a ‘ditto’ to @niubi’s tweet:
