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At least 20 E. coli cases reported after Lake Anna visits, Va. health says

News Feed
Wednesday, June 12, 2024

Judy Inglett never dreamed her healthy 15-year-old daughter would end up on dialysis and undergo blood transfusions after swimming at Lake Anna State Park in Virginia over the Memorial Day weekend.Ava was there with family friends and neighbors who had invited her on their boat and rented a house, enjoying the festive recreation area as they have countless times before, her mother said.Within days of coming home, though, Ava developed diarrhea. By the next week, she was in renal failure, her mother said, prompting doctors to rush her to a children’s hospital, where she remained as of Wednesday.Ava is one of 20 people diagnosed with an E. coli infection — that for four children escalated to serious kidney complications — that investigators said triggered lake water testing that has left families second guessing their go-to summertime vacation spot.“Her kidneys took a very hard hit. If we hadn’t brought her in when we did, I could be planning a funeral at this point,” Inglett, of Fauquier County, said Tuesday night after swapping bedside roles with her husband at Inova L.J. Murphy Children’s Hospital.Everyone who reported becoming ill to the state swam or was otherwise exposed to lake water, but public health officials say they do not yet have enough information to know the lake is the culprit.The state has not put any special restrictions on using the lake and encouraged swimmers and boaters to follow regular safety precautions like showering after swimming to wash off possible contaminants, and never drinking untreated water.Escherichia coli, commonly known as E. coli, bacteria infections usually occur after someone ingests food or water contaminated with a small, often invisible, amount of animal or human feces, and symptoms typically develop in three to four days, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Of the people who came down with gastrointestinal symptoms typical of an E. coli infection after visiting Lake Anna, at least seven have been hospitalized, said Katherine G. McCombs, director of surveillance and investigation in the Virginia Department of Health Office of Epidemiology.More than half of those sickened are children who generally have more serious reactions to the bacteria than adults. Four children developed severe cases and a condition known as hemolytic uremic syndrome, or HUS, which can cause kidney failure, she said.Symptoms of an E. coli infection include stomach cramps and diarrhea that is often watery or bloody, vomiting, fever and chills. Health officials ask that anyone experiencing gastrointestinal illness after visiting the Lake Anna area during Memorial Day weekend or since contact their local health department and seek medical care if symptoms are ongoing.Lake Anna, a freshwater reservoir an hour from Richmond and Charlottesville, was created in the early ’70s to cool a nuclear power plant operated by Dominion Energy, which returns warmer water to the lake.Warmer water and nutrients can combine to make conditions favorable for algae growth — health officials say signs of algae activity have been detected at Lake Anna and are normal this time of year. The algae is not related to the current illnesses.Staff from the Department of Environmental Quality on Tuesday collected six samples from three areas at the lake to be tested for concentrations of bacteria, including E. coli, said agency spokeswoman Irina Calos. Results are expected by Thursday or Friday, she said.Samples were taken from the sandbar near the confluence of Goldmine Creek, water adjacent to the state park and the Cocktail Cove sandbar. A second round of samples will be collected on June 25, Calos said.Regular quarterly water quality samples taken by the Lake Anna Civic Association on June 4 did not show harmful levels of E. coli, said association president Greg Baker on Tuesday. He said he empathized with the families affected but believes there is no imminent risk to visiting the lake.“The lake is open for business,” he said. “It appears the lake has no E. coli occurrences at this moment but please everybody use common sense. It is a lake, don’t drink the lake water, avoid large gatherings in the lake and enjoy the lake.”Nate Hiner, whose 8-year-old twins were diagnosed with HUS and treated with blood transfusions at Children’s National Hospital, said he is skeptical of testing that shows the lake is safe.“Over 20 cases of this illness with the commonality being this lake. That’s irrefutable evidence that there’s something in that water,” said Hiner, who lives in Spotsylvania.He and his wife Jennifer, who are both paramedics, and their twins hopped on a friend’s boat on May 26 to visit the lake, as they have several times each summer for years. They stopped at a few spots where the children could get out and swim.A few days later their daughter Kinsley developed severe diarrhea that by Friday contained bright red blood, sending them to the emergency room and after a week’s hospital stay with no improvement, Children’s National Hospital. The same day their son Chase began developing similar symptoms and soon both children were receiving blood transfusions at the hospital in Northwest Washington.As of Tuesday, Chase was discharged and Kinsley was steadily improving after a brief transfer to intensive care for profuse bleeding.“It’s very terrifying because there’s nothing these kids can take or do,” Nate Hines said.Alexandra Yonts, a pediatric infectious-disease physician at Children’s National Hospital, said children under 5 are at highest risk for illness.“The biggest thing is good hand hygiene,” she said. “This is something that is transmitted through a fecal-oral route. Somehow you come into contact with feces from an infected human or animal and it makes its way into your mouth.”Other culprits include undercooked meat such as hamburger, petting zoos and especially land-grazing animals like cows. Bodies of water near farms where runoff can wash harmful bacteria into the water, like Lake Anna, should be avoided after a big rainfall, Yonts said.Most infections from harmful strains of E. coli bacteria cause diarrhea and vomiting that require hydration at home, but about 5 to 15 percent of children with this infection develop HUS. Treatments for this serious condition range from monitoring in the hospital to dialysis, or artificial filtration of the blood, and about a quarter of cases will require long-term dialysis or even a kidney transplant, she said.Inglett said her daughter Ava has had four rounds of dialysis and three blood transfusions. As of Tuesday night, doctors were taking a break from dialysis to give Ava’s kidneys a chance to function normally.“Right now, it’s a wait and see,” Inglett said through tears, wondering if her daughter will recover enough to play soccer and field hockey next school year.“Nobody knew this was going to happen,” she said. “She’s been down there so many times and she’s always been fine. It’s a helpless feeling as a parent when you want to fix it and I can’t fix it.”

At least seven people have been hospitalized after visiting Lake Anna, public health officials said.

Judy Inglett never dreamed her healthy 15-year-old daughter would end up on dialysis and undergo blood transfusions after swimming at Lake Anna State Park in Virginia over the Memorial Day weekend.

Ava was there with family friends and neighbors who had invited her on their boat and rented a house, enjoying the festive recreation area as they have countless times before, her mother said.

Within days of coming home, though, Ava developed diarrhea. By the next week, she was in renal failure, her mother said, prompting doctors to rush her to a children’s hospital, where she remained as of Wednesday.

Ava is one of 20 people diagnosed with an E. coli infection — that for four children escalated to serious kidney complications — that investigators said triggered lake water testing that has left families second guessing their go-to summertime vacation spot.

“Her kidneys took a very hard hit. If we hadn’t brought her in when we did, I could be planning a funeral at this point,” Inglett, of Fauquier County, said Tuesday night after swapping bedside roles with her husband at Inova L.J. Murphy Children’s Hospital.

Everyone who reported becoming ill to the state swam or was otherwise exposed to lake water, but public health officials say they do not yet have enough information to know the lake is the culprit.

The state has not put any special restrictions on using the lake and encouraged swimmers and boaters to follow regular safety precautions like showering after swimming to wash off possible contaminants, and never drinking untreated water.

Escherichia coli, commonly known as E. coli, bacteria infections usually occur after someone ingests food or water contaminated with a small, often invisible, amount of animal or human feces, and symptoms typically develop in three to four days, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Of the people who came down with gastrointestinal symptoms typical of an E. coli infection after visiting Lake Anna, at least seven have been hospitalized, said Katherine G. McCombs, director of surveillance and investigation in the Virginia Department of Health Office of Epidemiology.

More than half of those sickened are children who generally have more serious reactions to the bacteria than adults. Four children developed severe cases and a condition known as hemolytic uremic syndrome, or HUS, which can cause kidney failure, she said.

Symptoms of an E. coli infection include stomach cramps and diarrhea that is often watery or bloody, vomiting, fever and chills. Health officials ask that anyone experiencing gastrointestinal illness after visiting the Lake Anna area during Memorial Day weekend or since contact their local health department and seek medical care if symptoms are ongoing.

Lake Anna, a freshwater reservoir an hour from Richmond and Charlottesville, was created in the early ’70s to cool a nuclear power plant operated by Dominion Energy, which returns warmer water to the lake.

Warmer water and nutrients can combine to make conditions favorable for algae growth — health officials say signs of algae activity have been detected at Lake Anna and are normal this time of year. The algae is not related to the current illnesses.

Staff from the Department of Environmental Quality on Tuesday collected six samples from three areas at the lake to be tested for concentrations of bacteria, including E. coli, said agency spokeswoman Irina Calos. Results are expected by Thursday or Friday, she said.

Samples were taken from the sandbar near the confluence of Goldmine Creek, water adjacent to the state park and the Cocktail Cove sandbar. A second round of samples will be collected on June 25, Calos said.

Regular quarterly water quality samples taken by the Lake Anna Civic Association on June 4 did not show harmful levels of E. coli, said association president Greg Baker on Tuesday. He said he empathized with the families affected but believes there is no imminent risk to visiting the lake.

“The lake is open for business,” he said. “It appears the lake has no E. coli occurrences at this moment but please everybody use common sense. It is a lake, don’t drink the lake water, avoid large gatherings in the lake and enjoy the lake.”

Nate Hiner, whose 8-year-old twins were diagnosed with HUS and treated with blood transfusions at Children’s National Hospital, said he is skeptical of testing that shows the lake is safe.

“Over 20 cases of this illness with the commonality being this lake. That’s irrefutable evidence that there’s something in that water,” said Hiner, who lives in Spotsylvania.

He and his wife Jennifer, who are both paramedics, and their twins hopped on a friend’s boat on May 26 to visit the lake, as they have several times each summer for years. They stopped at a few spots where the children could get out and swim.

A few days later their daughter Kinsley developed severe diarrhea that by Friday contained bright red blood, sending them to the emergency room and after a week’s hospital stay with no improvement, Children’s National Hospital. The same day their son Chase began developing similar symptoms and soon both children were receiving blood transfusions at the hospital in Northwest Washington.

As of Tuesday, Chase was discharged and Kinsley was steadily improving after a brief transfer to intensive care for profuse bleeding.

“It’s very terrifying because there’s nothing these kids can take or do,” Nate Hines said.

Alexandra Yonts, a pediatric infectious-disease physician at Children’s National Hospital, said children under 5 are at highest risk for illness.

“The biggest thing is good hand hygiene,” she said. “This is something that is transmitted through a fecal-oral route. Somehow you come into contact with feces from an infected human or animal and it makes its way into your mouth.”

Other culprits include undercooked meat such as hamburger, petting zoos and especially land-grazing animals like cows. Bodies of water near farms where runoff can wash harmful bacteria into the water, like Lake Anna, should be avoided after a big rainfall, Yonts said.

Most infections from harmful strains of E. coli bacteria cause diarrhea and vomiting that require hydration at home, but about 5 to 15 percent of children with this infection develop HUS. Treatments for this serious condition range from monitoring in the hospital to dialysis, or artificial filtration of the blood, and about a quarter of cases will require long-term dialysis or even a kidney transplant, she said.

Inglett said her daughter Ava has had four rounds of dialysis and three blood transfusions. As of Tuesday night, doctors were taking a break from dialysis to give Ava’s kidneys a chance to function normally.

“Right now, it’s a wait and see,” Inglett said through tears, wondering if her daughter will recover enough to play soccer and field hockey next school year.

“Nobody knew this was going to happen,” she said. “She’s been down there so many times and she’s always been fine. It’s a helpless feeling as a parent when you want to fix it and I can’t fix it.”

Read the full story here.
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Disposable Vapes Release Toxic Metals, Lab Study Says

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay ReporterFRIDAY, July 11, 2025 (HealthDay News) — People using cheap disposable vape devices are likely inhaling high...

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay ReporterFRIDAY, July 11, 2025 (HealthDay News) — People using cheap disposable vape devices are likely inhaling high levels of toxic metals with every puff, a recent study says.After a few hundred puffs, some disposable vapes start releasing levels of toxic metals higher than found in either last-generation refillable e-cigarettes or traditional tobacco smokes, researchers reported in the journal ACS Central Science.These metals can increase a person’s risk of cancer, lung disease and nerve damage, researchers said.“Our study highlights the hidden risk of these new and popular disposable electronic cigarettes — with hazardous levels of neurotoxic lead and carcinogenic nickel and antimony — which stresses the need for urgency in enforcement,” senior researcher Brett Poulin, an assistant professor of environmental toxicology at the University of California-Davis, said in a news release.Earlier studies found that the heating elements of refillable vapes could release metals like chromium and nickel into the vapor people breathe.For this study, researchers analyzed seven disposable devices from three well-known vape brands: ELF Bars, Flum Pebbles and Esco Bar.Before they were even used, some of the devices had surprisingly high levels of lead and antimony, researchers reported. The lead appears to have come from leaded copper alloys used in the devices, which leach into the e-liquid.The team then activated the disposable vapes, creating between 500 and 1,500 puffs for each device, to see whether their heating elements would release more metals.Analysis of the vapor revealed that:Levels of metals like chromium, nickel and antimony increased as the number of puffs increased, while concentrations of zinc, copper and lead were elevated at the start. Most of the tested disposables released higher amounts of metals than older refillable vapes. One disposable released more lead during a day’s use than one would get from nearly 20 packs of tobacco cigarettes. Nickel in three devices and antimony in two devices exceeded cancer risk limits. Four devices had nickel and lead emissions that surpassed health risk thresholds for diseases other than cancer. These results reflect only three of the nearly 100 disposable vape brands now available on store shelves, researchers noted.“Coupling the high element exposures and health risks associated with these devices and their prevalent use among the underage population, there is an urgent need for regulators to investigate this issue further and exercise regulatory enforcement accordingly,” researchers wrote.SOURCES: American Chemical Society, news release, June 20, 2025; ACS Central Science, June 25, 2025Copyright © 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Trying to Quit Smoking? These Expert-Backed Tips Can Help

By David Hill, MD, Chair, Board of Directors, American Lung Association HealthDay ReporterTHURSDAY, July 10, 2025 (HealthDay News) — According to...

THURSDAY, July 10, 2025 (HealthDay News) — According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2022, the majority of the 28.8 million U.S. adults who smoked cigarettes wanted to quit; approximately half had tried to quit, but fewer than 10% were successful.Many folks say quitting smoking was the hardest thing they have ever done. This includes people who have climbed mountains, corporate ladders, tackled childbirth and raised families.Successfully overcoming tobacco addiction is a process, and it takes time. It can’t be done at once. Individuals taught themselves how to smoke, vape or chew tobacco products and practiced for so long that the behavior became as automatic as breathing, eating or sleeping.Quitting, then, is a process of overcoming addiction and learned behaviors. Individuals must learn to manage nicotine addiction, unlearn their automatic behavior of tobacco use, and replace it with healthy new alternatives.Because tobacco dependence is a chronic relapsing condition, Freedom From Smoking® identifies quitting tobacco use and maintaining abstinence as a process in which a person may cycle through multiple periods of relapse and remission before experiencing long-term lifestyle and behavior change.The CDC suggests that it takes eight to 11 attempts before quitting permanently.It’s essential to understand three challenges associated with quitting and create a plan to address each with proven-effective strategies:1. Psychological Link of Nicotine Addiction Over time, using tobacco products becomes an automatic behavior that needs to be unlearned.  After quitting, emotions can overwhelm a person.  Grief can also play an important role in the quitting process.  Create support systems through counseling classes, and among family, friends and co-workers. Mark a calendar for every day you are tobacco-free and reward yourself for days you avoid use. Use positive self-talk when cravings arise, such as “the urge will pass whether I smoke or not” or “smoking is not an option for me.”2. Sociocultural Link of Nicotine AddictionCertain activities and environmental cues can trigger the urge to smoke. As people mature, social factors or cues play a role in continuing use.  People who use tobacco may be reluctant to give up those connections or routines.  Identify your triggers and use replacements such as cinnamon sticks, doodling on a notepad or finding another activity to keep your hands busy. Create change and break routine by using the 3 A’s — AVOID (the situation), ALTER (the situation) or ALTERNATIVE (substitute something else). Keep a quit kit/survival kit with you at all times with items you can use to replace tobacco product use when the urge comes.3. Biological (Physical) Link of Nicotine AddictionAddiction occurs when a substance — like nicotine, alcohol or cocaine — enters the brain and activates the brain’s receptors for that substance, producing pleasure.  When a person quits, the brain’s nicotine receptors activate, creating cravings and withdrawal symptoms.  Over time, the receptors become inactive, and the withdrawal symptoms and urges to use fade away. Use cessation medications approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (prescription or over-the-counter) in the proper doses for the full time period recommended by a clinician. Do not stop treatment early. Exercise alternative ways to release dopamine such as physical activity or listening to music.  Use stress management techniques, including deep breathing and relaxation exercises, daily if possible.Nearly 2 in 3 adults who have ever smoked cigarettes have successfully quit, according to the CDC You can, too! To learn more about strategies for countering the challenges associated with the three-link chain of nicotine addiction, visit Quit Smoking & Vaping | American Lung Association.Dr. David Hill is a member of the Lung Association's National Board of Directors and is the immediate past chair of the Northeast Regional Board of the American Lung Association. He serves on the Leadership Board of the American Lung Association in Connecticut and is a former chair of that board. He is a practicing pulmonary and critical care physician with Waterbury Pulmonary Associates and serves as their director of clinical research. He is an assistant clinical professor of medicine at the Yale University School of Medicine, an assistant clinical professor at the Frank Netter School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University, and a clinical instructor at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine.Copyright © 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Lead Exposure Can Harm Kids' Memory, Study Says

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay ReporterTHURSDAY, July 10, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Even low levels of lead exposure can harm kids' working memory,...

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay ReporterTHURSDAY, July 10, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Even low levels of lead exposure can harm kids' working memory, potentially affecting their education and development, according to a new study.Exposure to lead in the womb or during early childhood appears to increase kids' risk of memory decay, accelerating the rate at which they forget information, researchers reported July 9 in the journal Science Advances.“There may be no more important a trait than the ability to form memories. Memories define who we are and how we learn,” said senior researcher Dr. Robert Wright, chair of environmental medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.“This paper breaks new ground by showing how environmental chemicals can interfere with the rate of memory formation,” Wright said in a news release.For the study, researchers took blood lead measurements from the mothers of 576 children in Mexico during the second and third trimester of pregnancy. Later, the team took samples directly from the kids themselves, at ages 4 to 6.Between 6 and 8 years of age, the kids took a test called the delayed matching-to-sample task, or DMST, to measure their rate of forgetting.In the test, kids had to remember a simple shape for up to 32 seconds after it had been briefly shown to them, and then choose it from three offered options.The test lasted for 15 minutes, with correct responses rewarding the child with tokens that could be exchanged for a toy at the end of the experiment.“Children with higher levels of blood lead forgot the test stimulus faster than those with low blood lead levels,” Wright said.Researchers noted that the Mexican children in the study had higher median blood lead levels than those typically found in U.S. kids 6 to 10 years old – 1.7 Ug/dL versus 0.5 Ug/dL. (Median means half were higher, half were lower.)Children in Mexico are exposed to lead through commonly used lead-glazed ceramics used to cook, store and serve food, researchers said.However, the Mexican kids’ blood lead levels were still lower than the 3.5 Ug/dL level used by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to identify kids in the United States with more lead exposure than others, researchers added.“In the U.S., the reduction of environmental exposures to lead, such as lead-based paint in homes, lead pipes, and lead in foods such as spices, is still of continued importance as even low levels of lead can have detrimental effects on children’s cognitive function and development,” researchers wrote in their paper.This study also shows that the DMST test can be used to help test the effect of other environmental hazards on kids’ memory, researchers said.“Children are exposed to many environmental chemicals, and this model provides a validated method to further assess the effect of additional environmental exposures, such as heavy metals, air pollution, or endocrine disruptors, on children’s working memory,” co-lead researcher Katherine Svensson, a postdoctoral fellow in environmental medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, said in a news release.SOURCES: Mount Sinai, news release, July 9, 2025; Science Advances, July 9, 2025Copyright © 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Nearly Half of Americans Still Live With High Levels of Air Pollution, Posing Serious Health Risks, Report Finds

The most recent State of the Air report by the American Lung Association found that more than 150 million Americans breathe air with unhealthy levels of ozone or particle pollution

Nearly Half of Americans Still Live With High Levels of Air Pollution, Posing Serious Health Risks, Report Finds The most recent State of the Air report by the American Lung Association found that more than 150 million Americans breathe air with unhealthy levels of ozone or particle pollution Lillian Ali - Staff Contributor April 25, 2025 12:50 p.m. For 25 of the 26 years the American Lung Association has reported State of the Air, Los Angeles—pictured here in smog—has been declared the city with the worst ozone pollution in the United States. David Iliff via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 3.0 Since 2000, the American Lung Association has released an annual State of the Air report analyzing air quality data across the United States. This year’s report, released on Wednesday, found the highest number of people exposed to unhealthy levels of air pollution in a decade. According to the findings, 156 million Americans—or 46 percent of the U.S. population—live with levels of particle or ozone pollution that received a failing grade. “Both these types of pollution cause people to die,” Mary Rice, a pulmonologist at Harvard University, tells NPR’s Alejandra Borunda. “They shorten life expectancy and drive increases in asthma rates.” Particle pollution, also called soot pollution, is made up of minuscule solid and liquid particles that hang in the air. They’re often emitted by fuel combustion, like diesel- and gasoline-powered cars or the burning of wood. Ozone pollution occurs when polluting gases are hit by sunlight, leading to a reaction that forms ozone smog. Breathing in ozone can irritate your lungs, causing shortness of breath, coughing or asthma attacks. The 2025 State of the Air report, which analyzed air quality data from 2021 to 2023, found 25 million more people breathing polluted air compared to the 2024 report. The authors link this rise to climate change. “There’s definitely a worsening trend that’s driven largely by climate change,” Katherine Pruitt, the lead author of the report and national senior director for policy at the American Lung Association, tells USA Today’s Ignacio Calderon. “Every year seems to be a bit hotter globally, resulting in more extreme weather events, more droughts, more extreme heat and more wildfires.” Those wildfires produce the sooty particles that contribute to particulate pollution, while extreme heat creates more favorable conditions for ozone formation, producing smog. While climate change is contributing to heavy air pollution, it used to be much worse. Smog has covered cities like Los Angeles since the early 20th century. At one point, these “hellish clouds” of smog were so thick that, in the middle of World War II, residents thought the city was under attack. The Optimist Club of Highland Park, a neighborhood in northeast Los Angleles, wore gas masks at a 1954 banquet to highlight air pollution in the city. Los Angeles Daily News via Wikimedia Commons under CC-BY 4.0 The passage of the Clean Air Act and the creation of the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1970 marked a turning point in air quality, empowering the government to regulate pollution and promote public health. Now, six key air pollutants have dropped by about 80 percent since the law’s passage, according to this year’s report. But some researchers see climate change as halting—or even reversing—this improvement. “Since the act passed, the air pollution has gone down overall,” Laura Kate Bender, an assistant vice president at the American Lung Association, tells CBS News’ Kiki Intarasuwan. “The challenge is that over the last few years, we’re starting to see it tick back up again, and that’s because of climate change, in part.” At the same time, federal action against climate change appears to be slowing. On March 12, EPA administrator Lee Zeldin announced significant rollbacks and re-evaluations, declaring it “the greatest day of deregulation our nation has seen.” Zeldin argued that his deregulation will drive “a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion.” Included in Zeldin’s push for deregulation is a re-evaluation of Biden-era air quality standards, including those for particulate pollution and greenhouse gases. The EPA provided a list of 31 regulations it plans to scale back or eliminate, including limits on air pollution, mercury emissions and vehicles. This week, the EPA sent termination notices to nearly 200 employees at the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights. “Unfortunately, we see that everything that makes our air quality better is at risk,” Kate Bender tells CBS News, citing the regulation rollbacks and cuts to staff and funding at the EPA. “If we see all those cuts become reality, it’s gonna have a real impact on people’s health by making the air they breathe dirtier.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Nearly Half of Americans Breathe Unhealthy Air, New Report Finds

By I. Edwards HealthDay ReporterFRIDAY, April 25, 2025 (HealthDay News) —Breathing the air in nearly half of the United States could be putting...

FRIDAY, April 25, 2025 (HealthDay News) —Breathing the air in nearly half of the United States could be putting your health at risk.A new American Lung Association report shows that 156 million people live in areas with unhealthy air.The group’s annual "State of the Air" report found that smog and soot pollution are getting worse, not better. The report looked at air quality data from 2021 to 2023. It found that 25 million more people than in the group's last report were breathing "unhealthy levels of air pollution." That's more than in any other "State of the Air" report in the last decade, the association said.Since the Clean Air Act became law in 1970, air pollution has gone down overall, said Laura Kate Bender, an assistant vice president at the lung association, told CBS News."The challenge is that over the last few years, we're starting to see it tick back up again and that's because of climate change, in part," she said. "Climate change is making some of those conditions for wildfires and extreme heat that drive ozone pollution worse for a lot of the country."The city with the worst year-round and short-term particle pollution? Bakersfield, California, for the sixth year in a row.What's more, it was ranked third worst for high ozone days. In contrast, Casper, Wyoming, was listed as the cleanest city for year-round particle pollution, CBS News said.Here are the top 10 cities with the worst year-round particle pollution, according to the association:Bakersfield-Delano, Calif. Visalia, Calif. Fresno-Hanford-Corcoran, Calif. Eugene-Springfield, Ore. Los Angeles-Long Beach, Calif. Detroit-Warren-Ann Arbor, Mich. San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland, Calif. Houston-Pasadena, Texas Cleveland-Akron-Canton, Ohio Fairbanks-College, Ark. The report warned that pollution isn't just an issue in the west. Extreme heat and wildfires are spreading pollution across the country.In fact, smoke from Canada's wildfires in 2023 caused unhealthy air quality even in the eastern parts of the U.S., the report pointed out.Some of the findings came as a surprise, according to Kevin Stewart, the association’s environmental health director."I think we knew that the wildfire smoke would have an impact on air quality in the United States," he told CBS News. "I think we were surprised at the Lung Association by how strong the effect was, especially in the northeastern quadrant of the continental United States." Last month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it will roll back 31 environmental rules, including ones pertaining to vehicle emissions, CBS News reported.Bender said that puts decades of progress at risk."Unfortunately, we see that everything that makes our air quality better is at risk," she said. "The EPA is at risk — the agency that is protecting our health — through staff cuts, funding cuts. The regulations that have cleaned up our air over time are at risk of being cut. If we see all those cuts become reality, it's gonna have a real impact on people's health by making the air they breathe dirtier."Lee Zeldin, the EPA administrator, argued that, instead, the deregulation will drive "a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the U.S. and more," according to CBS News."This air pollution is causing kids to have asthma attacks, making people who work outdoors sick and unable to work, and leading to low birth weight in babies," Kezia Ofosu Atta, the Lung Association’s advocacy director, told CBS News.The report also found that Black Americans are more likely to suffer serious health problems from air pollution.SOURCE: CBS News, April 23, 2025Copyright © 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

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