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American Morning

State of Smog in America

Aired May 01, 2003 - 08:46   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: We're paging Dr. Gupta about the state of smog in America. The American Lung Association is out with its yearly report on air quality in the nation's cities. Sanjay is here to tell us where people can breathe easier and what that report means to your health.
Good morning again, Sanjay.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

It actually means quite a bit, there's no question about it.

Let's first talk first about pollution, because that's sort of a generic term. But there are actually different sorts of pollution when you're talking about it. There is something called particulate matter, and that's something you actually see coming out of tailpipes of cars, you see them coming out of the steampipes in big factories, things like that.

You can see the pictures there.

But there's also something known as ozone. That's a term most people more commonly associate with pollution, ozone or smog, and there's pictures of that as well. But that's a really specific thing. That's when certain chemicals actually interact with the sunlight. That creates what's known as the ozone layer, or the smog layer, which you see pictures there as well.

The report that you're talking about does come out from the American Lung Association. It's the fourth annual report. This data is actually based on actual ozone monitors that are placed in cities all across America.

And some of this data is from a couple of years ago. They actually collect the data, and then analyze it over a couple of years.

Let's take a look at the list, starting from the 10th worst city to the number one. Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill. That's the 10th city. After that Knoxville, Tennessee. And then number eight, Atlanta, Georgia. Number seven, Merced, California. Number six, Sacramento-Yollo, California. Houston is after that. Vissalia, Bakersfield, Fresno and Los Angeles. We're catching up there with the list.

Yes, no surprises there, no surprises with a lot of those cities being in California. But also a little bit of a surprise. Some of those cities aren't cities that you'd probably expect. They're not big metropolitan areas.

COSTELLO: Yes, like Knoxville, Tennessee.

GUPTA: Right, and what we're starting to see, and starting to see a lot more of this, is that you get a lot of blowdown from some of the big metropolitan areas that are actually blowing some of the smog, blowing some of this particulate matter to some of the smaller cities around it. So that's what you're seeing as well.

COSTELLO: So tell us how it can harm us.

GUPTA: Yes, and that's the big concern here. Chad Myers should probably be doing this particular segment, except for the fact this can be a real problem in terms of your health.

If you look at some specific things. Having all this ozone, having all these particulate matters can be particularly problematic to people with preexisting respiratory disease, lung disease and things like that, people who are particularly high risk for this sort of thing. You can take a look, those with respiratory disease. That means people with asthma, people with bronchitis . Again, this is common sense. Senior citizens, between May and October, it can be a real problem.

And then people who work or exercise outdoors routinely, and then of course children, because children, you know, you think children will be playing outside most of that time of year. If you have a high ozone alert, it may not be such a good idea.

Let me just really quick have them put up the best cities to live in as well. and this is in alphabetical order. The ten best around the United States to live in in terms of ozone. You can read the list when they put it up there, but everything from Bellingham, Washington to Honolulu, Hawaii.

COSTELLO: That's expected. No surprise there. Let me ask you quickly hot to protect yourself, because I exercise outdoors all of the time. So if you live in a city like Atlanta, do you have to go out and wear one of those masks? Will that protect you? I mean, how dangerous is this really to your health?

GUPTA: Well, you know, it is a problem. We could take a step back and say just creating the ozone layer, creating the smog layer, has been really problematic. But since it's here, we say we have to accept the fact that it's here; what can we do about it? Well, there are certain times of the day and certain times of the year that are worse than other times. Certainly, you should check with Chad Myers, check with the weather guy, or your daily sort of hot zone alert in terms of figuring out what the air quality index will be during the day, in terms of figure you how much you want to be outside.

Between May and October, it's going to be the worst, and hot times of the day, it's going to be the worst. Again, it is the sunlight actually mixing with these chemicals. If you're filling your gas during the middle of the day, you will get more ozone around you at that point. COSTELLO: To keep you really safe, you should just move to Honolulu.

GUPTA: That's right, why don't we do that.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired May 1, 2003 - 08:46   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: We're paging Dr. Gupta about the state of smog in America. The American Lung Association is out with its yearly report on air quality in the nation's cities. Sanjay is here to tell us where people can breathe easier and what that report means to your health.
Good morning again, Sanjay.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

It actually means quite a bit, there's no question about it.

Let's first talk first about pollution, because that's sort of a generic term. But there are actually different sorts of pollution when you're talking about it. There is something called particulate matter, and that's something you actually see coming out of tailpipes of cars, you see them coming out of the steampipes in big factories, things like that.

You can see the pictures there.

But there's also something known as ozone. That's a term most people more commonly associate with pollution, ozone or smog, and there's pictures of that as well. But that's a really specific thing. That's when certain chemicals actually interact with the sunlight. That creates what's known as the ozone layer, or the smog layer, which you see pictures there as well.

The report that you're talking about does come out from the American Lung Association. It's the fourth annual report. This data is actually based on actual ozone monitors that are placed in cities all across America.

And some of this data is from a couple of years ago. They actually collect the data, and then analyze it over a couple of years.

Let's take a look at the list, starting from the 10th worst city to the number one. Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill. That's the 10th city. After that Knoxville, Tennessee. And then number eight, Atlanta, Georgia. Number seven, Merced, California. Number six, Sacramento-Yollo, California. Houston is after that. Vissalia, Bakersfield, Fresno and Los Angeles. We're catching up there with the list.

Yes, no surprises there, no surprises with a lot of those cities being in California. But also a little bit of a surprise. Some of those cities aren't cities that you'd probably expect. They're not big metropolitan areas.

COSTELLO: Yes, like Knoxville, Tennessee.

GUPTA: Right, and what we're starting to see, and starting to see a lot more of this, is that you get a lot of blowdown from some of the big metropolitan areas that are actually blowing some of the smog, blowing some of this particulate matter to some of the smaller cities around it. So that's what you're seeing as well.

COSTELLO: So tell us how it can harm us.

GUPTA: Yes, and that's the big concern here. Chad Myers should probably be doing this particular segment, except for the fact this can be a real problem in terms of your health.

If you look at some specific things. Having all this ozone, having all these particulate matters can be particularly problematic to people with preexisting respiratory disease, lung disease and things like that, people who are particularly high risk for this sort of thing. You can take a look, those with respiratory disease. That means people with asthma, people with bronchitis . Again, this is common sense. Senior citizens, between May and October, it can be a real problem.

And then people who work or exercise outdoors routinely, and then of course children, because children, you know, you think children will be playing outside most of that time of year. If you have a high ozone alert, it may not be such a good idea.

Let me just really quick have them put up the best cities to live in as well. and this is in alphabetical order. The ten best around the United States to live in in terms of ozone. You can read the list when they put it up there, but everything from Bellingham, Washington to Honolulu, Hawaii.

COSTELLO: That's expected. No surprise there. Let me ask you quickly hot to protect yourself, because I exercise outdoors all of the time. So if you live in a city like Atlanta, do you have to go out and wear one of those masks? Will that protect you? I mean, how dangerous is this really to your health?

GUPTA: Well, you know, it is a problem. We could take a step back and say just creating the ozone layer, creating the smog layer, has been really problematic. But since it's here, we say we have to accept the fact that it's here; what can we do about it? Well, there are certain times of the day and certain times of the year that are worse than other times. Certainly, you should check with Chad Myers, check with the weather guy, or your daily sort of hot zone alert in terms of figuring out what the air quality index will be during the day, in terms of figure you how much you want to be outside.

Between May and October, it's going to be the worst, and hot times of the day, it's going to be the worst. Again, it is the sunlight actually mixing with these chemicals. If you're filling your gas during the middle of the day, you will get more ozone around you at that point. COSTELLO: To keep you really safe, you should just move to Honolulu.

GUPTA: That's right, why don't we do that.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com