People who live in areas with the most ozone pollution are 25 percent to 30 percent more likely to die from lung disease than those living in areas with the cleanest air, Reuters quoted researchers as reporting today. Michael Jerrett of the University of California, Berkeley, and colleagues studied nearly 500,000 people across the United States for 18 years and found that ozone played no role in heart disease deaths once air pollution consisting of very tiny particles was taken into account. But ozone, at ground level a corrosive form of oxygen that is the primary constituent of smog, was the key player in respiratory fatalities. "We now know that controlling ozone is not only beneficial for mitigating global warming, but that it could also have near-term benefits in the reduction of deaths from respiratory causes," Jerrett said in a statement. The study, published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, shows that long-term exposure increased mortality, said Jerrett.
