Health: The Global Killer

Pollution
Health
Medicine
Sustainability
Edward Hessler

On October 19, 2017, the British Medical Journal, The Lancet published results of a major study on global disease and premature death. The Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health summary is another wake-up call on us and our relationship to the planet and to each other. It reads:

Pollution is the largest environmental cause of disease and premature death in the world today. Diseases caused by pollution were responsible for an estimated 9 million premature deaths in 2015—16% of all deaths worldwide—three times more deaths than from AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria combined and 15 times more than from all wars and other forms of violence. In the most severely affected countries, pollution-related disease is responsible for more than one death in four.

The full article is available free of charge. It is worth taking a look. Some of the numbers are numbing.

The Wiki entry on The Lancet includes the following information about this very well-known and highly regarded medical journal. It "was founded in 1823 by Thomas Wakley, an English surgeon who named it after the surgical instrument called a lancet, as well as after the architectural term 'lancet arch' a window with a sharp pointed arch, to indicate the 'light of wisdom' or 'to let in light.'" 

Wiki describes the various lancets (instruments).