Pediatric aspects of air pollution.

I realize that all aspects of air pollution could not be covered in the report Pediatric Aspects of Air Pollution by the Committee on Environmental Hazards (Pediatrics, 46:637). The material presented suggests that there is an established clinical cause and effect relationship between air pollutants and disease; unfortunately this is not so. We have some statistics which indicate that air pollution affects patients with myocardial infarctions, and that mortality in the aged increased during air polution catastrophies (Meuse Valley, 1930; Donora, Pennsylvania, 1948; and London, 1952 and 1962).