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Health

California plan aims to protect kids from air pollution

kids playing January 16, 1999
Web posted at: 10:57 a.m. EST (1557 GMT)

From Correspondent Charles Feldman

LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- Air pollution is a hazard for everyone, but children are particularly vulnerable. With this fact in mind, California's South Coast Air Quality Management District has adopted a plan to better educate children about the dangers of air pollution.

"[Children] are exposed more to the air and its various contaminants than many adults," said epidemiologist Dr. Henry Gong. "One reason is children breathe about twice as much as adults under the same conditions and as a result, they breathe in twice as much contaminants."

The goal of the district is to increase lung and asthma testing of children and to encourage the conversion of school buses from diesel fuel to low emission clean fuel vehicles.

"It's a very unpleasant experience when all of a sudden the buses start leaving and you have all of the fumes to contend with," said Los Angeles school principal Lloyd Houske.

Bill Burke, chairman of the air quality district, said he believes the newly adopted initiatives are cutting edge.

"I think this is another item which will be copied throughout the world," he said. "It's just too important. Children are our greatest resource, so we can't afford not to protect them."

With eyes -- and lungs -- toward the future, the program will also set up an intern program that will train the air quality scientists of the 21st century.

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