Air pollution causes cancer

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), an agency within the World Health Organisation, has officially classified outdoor air pollution as carcinogenic. In a report it claims air pollution from traffic and industrial fumes was a cause of lung cancer and was linked to bladder cancer.

Dr Kurt Straif of the IARC said:

'The air we breathe has become polluted with a mixture of cancer-causing substances. We now know that outdoor air pollution is not only a major risk to health in general, but also a leading environmental cause of cancer deaths'.

In a report the Centre published in 2009 Professor Reece Walters estimated that 24,000 British residents die prematurely every year and thousands more are hospitalised, because of air pollution.

Read the IARC press release here, and The Guardian report here.