According to unprecedented data from the European Environment Agency (AEE), air pollution is responsible for 1% of cases and around 2% of deaths, a share that rises to 9% for lung cancers.
Le Monde with AFP
Almost 10% of cancers in Europe are linked to pollution in various forms, warned the AEE on Tuesday, June 28, which stresses that the majority of cases are avoidable. “Exposure to air pollution, passive smoking, ultraviolet rays, asbestos, certain chemicals and other pollutants are at the origin of more than 10% of cases of cancer in Europe “, notes the agency in a press release.
This figure could however drastically decrease if existing policies were the subject of rigorous implementation, especially in the fight against pollution, according to the organization. “All environmental and professional carcinogenic risks can be reduced,” said Gerardo Sanchez, an AEE expert, upstream of the report of the report, the first of the agency on the link between cancer and environment.
“Cancers determined by the environment and due to radiation or chemical carcinogens can be reduced to an almost negligible level,” he said during a press point. Recent studies have also detected “a correlation between long -term exposure to particles, a major air pollutant, and leukemia in adults and children”, underlines the European organization.
of figures disturbing in Europe
The radon, a natural radioactive gas likely to be inhaled, especially in low -ventilated accommodation, is considered to be responsible for 2% of cancers on the continent.
According to the European agency, ultraviolet, mainly solar but also artificial, are responsible for almost 4% of all cancer cases, especially melanoma, a serious form of skin cancer that has Strongly increased in Europe in recent decades.
Some chemical substances used in workplaces and released in the environment are also carcinogenic. Lead, arsenic, chrome, pesticides, bisphenol a and the alkylated and polyfluoré (PFAS) substances are among the most dangerous for the health of Europeans, in the same way as asbestos, prohibited since 2005 in the EU but still present in some buildings. In the EU, 2.7 million people are diagnosed with cancer each year and 1.3 million of them die. The continent, which represents barely 10% of the world’s population, has 23% of new cases and 20% of deaths.