Children Face Asthma Risk If Mothers Exposed to Pollutants - Essay Example

Chong Yang RW6 Summary Brian Bienkowski and Environmental Health Newss article "Children Face Asthma Risk If Mothers Exposed to Pollutants" is published on the website of the Scientific American magazine. The article is based on research from Denmark which states that children exposed to chlorinated chemicals before their mothers gave birth to them are more likely to have asthma before they are 20 years old. The author describes the Danish research and comes to the conclusion that polychlorinated biphenyls is directly linked with asthma in children.

Five other PCB compounds apparently have a weak relationship with asthma. The article describes how these pollutants are usually found in fish and other marine species and in pesticides. The author also points out that some PCBs were widely used in the 1960s and 1970s but now are banned. They have a tendency to linger in human cells, however, and this means that babies can be affected through their mothers. They can suffer wheezing and asthma because of these chemicals. After reading this article I realized that environmental pollution can have very long term effects.

If people are using harmful products today, then it is possible that they will also harm the children of the future. This is an invisible danger which is hidden within the world around us and inside human bodies.  What we need to do is read more articles about the environment and spread this kind of information across the world. If we ignore this problem, then our children and our children’s children will suffer in the future. It is our responsibility to think about the results of our actions.

It is also our responsibility to take action when evidence like this is found. It is time that we banned more of these products in order to protect the environment and the future of all the species on the planet.