China’s Indoor Air PollutionCould Kill Tens of Millions, Study Warns

Cigarette smoking and heating homes with coal and other dirty fuels have created a huge indoor air pollution problem in China that, if left unsolved, will cause the deaths of 83 million Chinese from lung cancer and respiratory ailments over the next 25 years. That’s the conclusion of a report from Harvard University’s School of Public Health, which found that air inside Chinese homes is up to 10 times as dirty as the notoriously polluted air outside. The study, published in the medical journal, Lancet, recommended that the Chinese launch a major campaign to cut the use of heavily-polluting home-heating fuels and to combat what it called an “epidemic” of smoking by 250 million Chinese. The study noted that lung cancer and respiratory ailments account for nearly a third of all deaths in China.