DUST kicked up by traffic could be a major cause of allergies and asthma,
even in rural areas.
To examine the link between traffic and respiratory disease, Glen Cass of the
California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and his colleagues suspended road
dust in air, as though stirred up by car tyres, and analysed how well the
particles bound to antibodies from the blood of allergy sufferers. As the
researchers will report in Environmental Science & Technology, the
dust may account for 12 per cent of the air鈥檚 allergenic activity in and around
Los Angeles, and may be even higher in areas with more vegetation.
The dust contains plant fragments, pollen, mould, car exhaust particles 鈥渁nd
just about anything else that you can imagine鈥�, says Cass.
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