Just don’t breath…

Ξ July 17th, 2005 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Costa Rica |

The contamination in San José is double of what is breathed in most cities in Europe.

ML and I have talked about this so many times. In my years of living in the USA, I believe I knew maybe 2-3 people who died from cancer, including my mother who was in her 70’s. Since I have been in Costa Rica (4 years), I have met 5-6 people who died, and all were under 40. I know 4 or 5 more who currently have cancer… one is a teenager. Just yesterday, ML had some friends over, one of whom was a twenty something young man recovering from cancer surgery. ML husband died from brain cancer in his 30s and he is one of three others I know here, all in their 30s, also suffering from the same thing!

The air, especially in San José, is incredibly bad… yet nobody seems to care.

Maybe they will now… but given the astounishingly poor leadership here under this administration, I have doubts.

Using data from 2001, during a 365 day period, they found that 475 people died of the effects of contamination in the air in Costa Rica.

The study took into account all areas of the country and experts say that the numbers in following years, including 2005, won’t vary much. (Bullshit alert)

The study took into account 1,617,459 people. The study reports that 31,000 case of bronchitis in children and 13,000 case of chronic bronchitis were reported. The report also cited 19,000 cases of asthma, 550 cases of respiratory disease, 266 cases of cardiovascular damage, all as a direct result of contaminated air.

Authorities say that the cost of the illness and deaths reported are around ¢9 billion colones (us$192 million dollars). For a country like Costa Rica, this is an astonishing amount of money.

(Duh alert) The solution, according to the study is for the government to continually monitor the contamination in the air, at a cost that would be around us$1.5 million dollars and approve laws that would reduce the contamination.

Sadly, I believe there are three chances that this will happen here… slim, fat and none!

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