Quote:Sick and tired? It's the pollution

Those who have complained of feeling below par or under the weather in recent weeks have not had a round of golf or any change of season in mind.

They were almost certainly referring to an unpleasant syndrome making the rounds of offices and high-rise homes that is far removed from the worlds of golf and meteorology. The main symptoms are a persistent cough and mild sore throat. Escaping from the big city and staying in the provinces for a few days can relieve it, although similar symptoms have been reported from Chiang Mai and elsewhere. Many doctors are quick to put the blame where it belongs and condemn the cloud of air pollution, visible from any tall building, which hangs over our capital and contaminates our lungs. Wearers of protective white masks no longer attract a second glance.

Avoiding the streets does not mean escaping pollution. Many people spend as much as 80% of their lives indoors, working, studying, eating and sleeping in sealed environments where air circulation is restricted. Ventilation is often poor and dependent on stale air recycled through conditioners mixed with fumes from cooking and other irritants such as dust, insecticide sprays, building materials, sporadic and unwanted tobacco smoke, furniture polish and all the other ingredients which lead to pollution inside buildings. And contaminated air seeping in from outside makes ''sick'' buildings'' even less healthy.

Soisuda Kesornthong of the Disease Control Department is on record as expressing alarm at this gradual deterioration of our living environment. She has warned that this sick building syndrome (SBS) and the pollution that is a major cause of it can be identified by headaches, drowsiness, skin diseases and allergic responses. She says this can be a major concern with some people spending up to four-fifths of their day inside SBS-afflicted buildings and fears that the prognosis is not good, given the growing number of high-rise structures sprouting on Bangkok's skyline. At the same time, she warns, more people are choosing to live in condominiums, which are also prone to the disorder.

One of the most alarming side-effects of SBS in particular and other symptoms of pollution poisoning in general, is the lucrative business it creates for conveniently-located pharmacies which are usually only too eager to sell sufferers what they think they need without question, even if it means they end up sicker than before because of the harmful side-effects of mixing medications. Taking "quick fix" symptom-management drugs must rank as the least effective and perhaps most dangerous way of trying to deal with dirty air.

In combating contaminated air or sick building syndrome, people would obtain greater satisfaction if they made basic lifestyle changes instead of contributing to the 50 billion baht which health researchers say Thais spend on medicines each year.

So, given that we know that Bangkok's air is badly polluted, that pollution causes illness, and that these illnesses cause suffering, misery and death, what are we doing about it? The simple answer is: not very much and certainly not enough.

We need a determined clean air campaign which takes the form of an onslaught on all older and poorly maintained buses, cars, pick-up trucks, huge lorries and motorcycles to get them off the roads for good. It is time to stop treating symptoms and concentrate on the root cause of most of Bangkok's pollution and that is the motor vehicle itself. We can, and have, banned cigarettes from public places but ignored the far larger problem of the internal-combustion engine and the urgent need for stricter emission standards to limit pollution.

Achieving this will require a change of mindset and lifestyle, but we can do it. If people can be weaned onto healthier alternatives, the reward will be cleaner air and better health for all. Then we can properly enjoy the nine new public parks Governor Apirak Kosayodhin has promised us by 2009 and, hopefully, cure sick buildings and those who stay in them.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/24Feb2007_news16.php Bangkok Post Feb. 24, 2007
________________________________________

Korat Info - Korat Forum - Korat Photo Album - ......

Anyone see the Documentary on Australian tv about the 'Cluster' of women workers in ABC Brisbanes Studio, who got Breast Cancer?

Nobody knows why it happened, but eventually they had to abandon the site!