Jennifer Whitney: The air we breathe; what's it doing it to us? Researchers are trying to figure that out. Studies are currently underway to determine what kind of toll pollution is taking on our lungs and asthma.
Female Speaker: Ground level or bad ozone, it's a familiar term but what does it mean?
Dallas Hyde: Ozone is a very reactive molecule that's formed in the atmosphere by sunlight hitting smog, and creating out of the smog, this very reactive molecule called ozone.
Female Speaker: At ground level, ozone is extremely harmful especially in summer months when strong sunlight and hot weather combine and severely pollute the air we breathe. Again we live in a valley that collects pollution, pollen, and other irritants that can trigger asthma. Dr. Dallas Hyde is the Director of the California National Primate Research Center and a professor at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.
Dallas Hyde: My hope is that we can find a therapeutic intervention to counteract the development of ozone and allergen early in life to spare our children, the suffering that they go through with asthma. Because I believe that sets them up for a life time of suffering. I think what we are learning is why asthma is increasing exponentially in our population and certainly in California, where asthma is having a great toll especially on children.
Female Speaker: The Primate Center is located in Davis and is the only one in all of California. There Dr. Hyde is doing groundbreaking research with rhesus monkeys to better understand the relationship between air pollution, allergies, and asthma.
Dallas Hyde: Many of the animals at our center that are out in the breeding grounds some of them will live their entire lifespan there and they will live up to probably the early 30s. In the wild, they seldom live past 18 years of age. What we have found is that simply ambient levels of ozone that exceed the National Air Quality standard is adequate to cause injury in the lung and it's that injury in the lung that sets up a situation where an allergen has greater access to cause an immune response that then becomes an allergic response in the airways that damages the lung. And normally when you think of asthma, you think of something that's reversible. What we are seeing with ozone exposure is that we're getting abnormal airway growth in infants but then doesn't appear to be reversible. So the air we breathe indeed is playing a role. I think the future is in our hands and it's a great responsibility.
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