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Prenatal Exposure to Air Pollution May Hurt Baby's Brain

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Monday, December 16, 2024

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay ReporterMONDAY, Dec. 16, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Air pollution could be harming the brain development of children before they are even born, a new study warns.A 10 parts-per-billion increase in ozone exposure during the second trimester of pregnancy was associated with a 55% increased risk of intellectual disability among children compared to their siblings, researchers found.“Ozone exposure during pregnancy is a clear risk factor for intellectual disability,” said lead researcher Sara Grineski, a professor of sociology with the University of Utah.“We were particularly struck by the consistency of the findings across all trimesters and the strength of the sibling-based analysis,” Grineski added in a university news release.For the study, researchers analyzed data drawn from the Utah Population Database, a long-term research project into genetics and health among Utah residents. The team linked data on children with intellectual disabilities born between 2003 and 2013 to county-level daily estimates of ozone exposure gathered from the U.S. Environmental Protection AgencyIn particular, the data allowed researchers to compare siblings born with different levels of exposure to ozone pollution, researchers said.“Sibling designs allow us to control for some of these population factors that just would be really challenging to do,” said researcher Amanda Bakian, a research associate professor of psychiatry with the University of Utah’s Huntsman Mental Health Institute. “It just gives another layer of robustness of rigor to this study.”Ozone is a harmful air pollutant caused when sunshine prompts a chemical reaction in airborne nitrogen and volatile organic compounds emitted from cars, power plants, refineries and other sources, researchers explained in background notes.Ozone pollution is an increasing summertime hazard, particularly in the face of global warming, researchers said.The second trimester showed the strongest associations between ozone exposure in the womb and a child’s future brain development.During the second trimester, the fetal brain undergoes rapid growth, with neurons developing at a rate of 250,000 per minute, researchers said.Federal health standards for ozone exposure is 70 parts per billion, researchers noted.A 10 parts-per-billion increase in average ozone levels was associated with a 23% increased risk of intellectual disability when kids were compared to the population at large, and 55% higher when compared to their siblings, results show.“When it comes to intellectual disability, we have a prevalence estimate of about 1.3% or so, and that has been pretty consistent over time,” Bakian said.“That’s 1.3% of the kids that are born in any one year, and we still don’t have a great understanding of all the risk factors that are involved,” Bakian added. “What are the underlying mechanisms that drive this risk? Having intellectual disability has lifelong implications.”Given these findings, places with lots of ozone pollution have a higher risk of kids with intellectual disabilities, researchers said.“Salt Lake City ranks 10th for the most polluted cities in the U.S. in terms of ozone, and 2023 ozone levels were higher than 2022 levels,” Grineski noted.Reducing ozone levels will be critical to protecting the brains of children, researchers said. Clean car standards, transitioning to electric vehicles and improving manufacturing and agricultural processes will help lower air pollution.“We don’t want to neglect these issues related to ozone and cognitive health moving forward," Grineski said. "Our findings here for Utah suggest a troubling association. This is just one study in a sea of papers documenting the harmful effects of air pollution on health.”SOURCE: University of Utah, news release, Dec. 11, 2024Copyright © 2024 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay ReporterMONDAY, Dec. 16, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Air pollution could be harming the brain development of children...

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, Dec. 16, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Air pollution could be harming the brain development of children before they are even born, a new study warns.

A 10 parts-per-billion increase in ozone exposure during the second trimester of pregnancy was associated with a 55% increased risk of intellectual disability among children compared to their siblings, researchers found.

“Ozone exposure during pregnancy is a clear risk factor for intellectual disability,” said lead researcher Sara Grineski, a professor of sociology with the University of Utah.

“We were particularly struck by the consistency of the findings across all trimesters and the strength of the sibling-based analysis,” Grineski added in a university news release.

For the study, researchers analyzed data drawn from the Utah Population Database, a long-term research project into genetics and health among Utah residents.

The team linked data on children with intellectual disabilities born between 2003 and 2013 to county-level daily estimates of ozone exposure gathered from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

In particular, the data allowed researchers to compare siblings born with different levels of exposure to ozone pollution, researchers said.

“Sibling designs allow us to control for some of these population factors that just would be really challenging to do,” said researcher Amanda Bakian, a research associate professor of psychiatry with the University of Utah’s Huntsman Mental Health Institute. “It just gives another layer of robustness of rigor to this study.”

Ozone is a harmful air pollutant caused when sunshine prompts a chemical reaction in airborne nitrogen and volatile organic compounds emitted from cars, power plants, refineries and other sources, researchers explained in background notes.

Ozone pollution is an increasing summertime hazard, particularly in the face of global warming, researchers said.

The second trimester showed the strongest associations between ozone exposure in the womb and a child’s future brain development.

During the second trimester, the fetal brain undergoes rapid growth, with neurons developing at a rate of 250,000 per minute, researchers said.

Federal health standards for ozone exposure is 70 parts per billion, researchers noted.

A 10 parts-per-billion increase in average ozone levels was associated with a 23% increased risk of intellectual disability when kids were compared to the population at large, and 55% higher when compared to their siblings, results show.

“When it comes to intellectual disability, we have a prevalence estimate of about 1.3% or so, and that has been pretty consistent over time,” Bakian said.

“That’s 1.3% of the kids that are born in any one year, and we still don’t have a great understanding of all the risk factors that are involved,” Bakian added. “What are the underlying mechanisms that drive this risk? Having intellectual disability has lifelong implications.”

Given these findings, places with lots of ozone pollution have a higher risk of kids with intellectual disabilities, researchers said.

“Salt Lake City ranks 10th for the most polluted cities in the U.S. in terms of ozone, and 2023 ozone levels were higher than 2022 levels,” Grineski noted.

Reducing ozone levels will be critical to protecting the brains of children, researchers said. Clean car standards, transitioning to electric vehicles and improving manufacturing and agricultural processes will help lower air pollution.

“We don’t want to neglect these issues related to ozone and cognitive health moving forward," Grineski said. "Our findings here for Utah suggest a troubling association. This is just one study in a sea of papers documenting the harmful effects of air pollution on health.”

SOURCE: University of Utah, news release, Dec. 11, 2024

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Environmental Agency Denies Petition to Designate Big Hole River as Impaired by Nutrient Pollution

Montana’s environmental regulator has denied a petition to designate the Big Hole River as impaired by nitrogen and phosphorus

Montana’s environmental regulator has denied a petition to designate the Big Hole River as impaired by nitrogen and phosphorus, throwing a wrench in environmentalists’ efforts to put the blue-ribbon fishery on a “pollution diet.”Upper Missouri Waterkeeper and the Big Hole River Foundation contend that excess nutrients are creating regular summertime algal blooms that can stretch for more than a mile, robbing fish and the macroinvertebrate bugs they eat of the oxygen they need to thrive. The groups argue in the petition they sent to the Montana Department of Environmental Quality last month that an impairment designation would direct the agency to identify and work to reduce the river’s pollution sources in an effort to rebalance the river’s aquatic ecosystem.On April 14, about a month after receiving the 32-page petition, DEQ wrote that it “cannot grant” the group’s petition. The agency’s letter doesn’t quibble with the groups’ findings, which were detailed in a five-year data collection effort. Instead, the agency suggested that legislation passed in 2021 has tied its hands. “As a result of Senate Bill 358, passed during the 2021 Legislative Session … DEQ is unable to base nutrient assessment upon the numeric nutrient criteria,” the letter, signed by DEQ Director Sonja Nowakowski, reads. In an April 23 conversation with Montana Free Press, Upper Missouri Waterkeeper Executive Director Guy Alsentzer criticized the agency’s decision, arguing that it did not use the best available science and applied “illogical and disingenuous” reasoning in its denial. “EPA already took action and struck down Senate Bill 358 from the 2021 session,” Alsentzer said, referencing federal regulators’ oversight of state laws and rules governing water quality. “Numeric criteria are applicable.”A spokesperson for the EPA confirmed Alsentzer’s assertion, writing in an April 24 email to MTFP that numeric nutrient standards for nitrogen and phosphorus the agency approved a decade ago “remain in effect for Clean Water Act purposes” and will remain so “unless or until the EPA approves the removal of the currently applicable numeric nutrient criteria and approves revised water quality standards.”A DEQ spokesperson did not directly answer MTFP’s questions about what water quality standards DEQ is using to assess Montana waterways and determine whether permittees are complying with state and federal regulations.The agency wrote in an email that no permitted pollution sources under its regulatory oversight are discharging into the Big Hole, suggesting that its enforcement role is limited. The agency also wrote that an impairment designation is not required to implement water quality improvement projects such as creating riparian buffers, improving forest roads, or creating shaded areas. “Watershed partners may begin actively working on nonpoint source pollution reduction projects at any time,” DEQ spokesperson Madison McGeffers wrote to MTFP. “There is nothing standing in the way of starting work on these types of projects to improve water quality. In fact, the Big Hole River Watershed Committee is actively implementing its Watershed Restoration Plan with funds and support from DEQ Nonpoint Source & Wetland Section’s 319 program.”Alsentzer countered that a science-based cleanup plan and greater accountability will benefit the Big Hole regardless of whether nutrients are flowing into the river from a pipe or entering via more diffuse and harder-to-regulate channels.“You can’t get to that if you don’t recognize that you’ve got a problem we need to solve,” he said, adding that an impairment designation “unlocks pass-through funding to the tune of millions of dollars.”Addressing manmade threats to the Big Hole should be a priority for DEQ, given local communities’ economic reliance on a healthy river, he added.“It’s just a real tragic state of affairs when you have a blue-ribbon trout fishery in a very rural county that’s essentially having its livelihood flushed down the drain because we can’t get our agencies to actually implement baseline river protections (and) use science-based standards,” Alsentzer said. “When people try to do the work for the agency and help them, they’re getting told to go pound sand. I think that’s wrong.”Two years ago, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks biologists recorded historically low numbers of brown trout along some stretches of the Big Hole. Anglers and conservationists floated a number of possible contributing factors, ranging from pathogens and drought conditions to angling pressure and unmitigated pollution. Save Wild Trout, a nonprofit formed in 2023 to understand which factors merit further investigation, described the 2023 southwestern Montana fishery “collapse” as a “canary in the coal mine moment.”In response to the 2023 population slump, Gov. Greg Gianforte announced the launch of a multiyear research effort on Jefferson Basin rivers that FWP is coordinating with Montana State University. Narrative Standards For ‘Undesirable Aquatic Life’ DEQ’s letter to Upper Missouri Waterkeeper and the Big Hole River Foundation leaves open the possibility of a future impairment designation based on narrative water quality standards. After mentioning the 2021 legislation, Nowakowski wrote that the agency reviewed the submitted data “along with other readily available data, in consideration of the state’s established narrative criteria.”The letter goes on to outline the additional material petitioners would need to submit for the agency to evaluate an impairment designation using narrative criteria, which establish that surface waters must be “free from substances” that “create conditions which produce undesirable aquatic life.”In an April 22 letter, Upper Missouri Waterkeeper and the Big Hole River Foundation addressed the petition denial in two parts. First, the groups argued that numeric nutrient standards apply. Second, they resubmitted material — photos, emails, a macroinvertebrate report, and “Aquatic Plant Visual Assessment Forms” — to support an impairment designation under the looser narrative standards. “We encourage DEQ to do the right thing, use all available science to determine the Big Hole River impaired for nutrients, and commit to working with petitioners and other (stakeholders) in addressing the pollution sources undermining this world-class waterway and harming the diverse uses it supports,” the letter says. Alsentzer noted that he has set up a meeting with the EPA to discuss DEQ’s treatment of the petition and its description of applicable water quality standards.The dispute over numeric nutrient standards comes shortly after the Legislature passed another bill seeking to repeal them. Any day now, Gianforte is expected to sign House Bill 664, which bears a striking similarity to 2021’s Senate Bill 358. HB 664 has garnered support from Nowakowski, who described it as a “time travel” bill that will return the state to “individual, site-by-site” regulations in lieu of more broadly applicable numeric standards. This story was originally published by Montana Free Press and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Feb. 2025

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Behind the Scenes: Communities Around ‘Last-Mile Warehouses’ Struggle With Online Shopping Boom’s Pollution

Online shopping has reached epic proportions in the United States—and Manhattan is its beating heart. More than 2.4 million packages are delivered to New York City every weekday, and around 90 percent of goods are transported into or around the city by trucks. While shipping may be free for consumers on many of these orders, […]

A number of facilities have popped up around NYC to help accommodate the online shopping surge. Many environmental justice communities pay the toll of their pollution.By Kiley PriceOnline shopping has reached epic proportions in the United States—and Manhattan is its beating heart. More than 2.4 million packages are delivered to New York City every weekday, and around 90 percent of goods are transported into or around the city by trucks.

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Supreme Court justices consider reviving industry bid to ax California clean car rule

The Supreme Court on Wednesday heard oral arguments in a case that could revive a bid by fuel producers to ax California’s clean car standards. The court was not considering the legality of the standards themselves, which require car companies to sell new vehicles in the state that produce less pollution — including by mandating a significant share of cars sold to be electric or hybrid. Instead, the Supreme Court was considering whether the fuel industry had the authority to bring the lawsuit at all. A lower court determined that the producers, which include numerous biofuel companies and trade groups representing both them and the makers of gasoline, did not have standing to bring the case. Some of the justices were quiet, so it’s difficult to predict what the ultimate outcome of the case will be. However, others appeared critical of the federal government and California’s arguments that the fuel producers do not have the right to bring a suit. Justice Brett Kavanaugh in particular noted that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) itself did not initially try to have the case tossed on that basis. “Isn't that a tell here? I mean, EPA, as you, of course, know, routinely raises standing objections when there's even — even a hint of a question about it,” Kavanaugh said. The fuel producers argued that while it was technically the auto industry that was being regulated, the market was being “tilted” against them as well by California’s rule, which was also adopted by other states. The EPA and California have argued that the fuel producers are arguing on the basis of outdated facts and a market that has shifted since the rule was first approved by the EPA in 2013. The EPA needs to grant approval to California to issue such rules. The approval was revoked by the Trump administration and later reinstated in the Biden administration. If the justices revive the currently dismissed case, lower courts would then have to decide whether to uphold the California rule — though the underlying case could eventually make its way to the high court as well. Meanwhile, California has since passed subsequent standards that go even further — banning the sale of gas-powered cars in the state by 2035. That rule was approved by the Biden administration — though Congress may try to repeal it.

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Prenatal Exposure to Air Pollution May Hurt Baby's Brain

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Prenatal Exposure to Air Pollution May Hurt Baby's Brain

Related News

Environmental Agency Denies Petition to Designate Big Hole River as Impaired by Nutrient Pollution

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Supreme Court justices consider reviving industry bid to ax California clean car rule

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Join us to forgea sustainable future

sign up for our mailing list to stay informed on the latest films and environmental headlines.

Join us to forge
a sustainable future