A lone seeker
At a time when hardly any government agency in India studies and publicises the harm that filthy air can cause to human health, one man is trying to come up with some scientific data to understand this crucial issue of survival. He is H Parmesh, director of the Lakeside Medical Centre and Hospital.
After I moved into Bangalore in 1978 and started my practise, I began noticing an increasing trend in the occurrence of lung diseases and other kind of pulmonary diseases,' says he. He launched a systematic study of the trends of lung diseases and asthma.
In 1979, the prevalence of asthma was 9 per cent among children below 18 years. In 1984, the figure has risen to 10.5 per cent. In the subsequent five years it was a dramatic increase to 18.5 per cent (see graph: Fruits of vehicle boom). "During this period the government invited a lot of industries to boost the economy of the state. This created more factories, vehicles and people. The demography of the city underwent a tremendous change,' he points out. In 1999, he found that the figure had increased to 29.5 per cent.
Although it was very clear that growing air pollution was to blame for this, I wanted to be sure. I started calculating along the lines of the theory of elimination,' says Parmesh. Asthma is caused by various factors: pollen or fungi in the air, change in the rainfall, humidity or temperature, among others. But the pollen count in the air decreased with fewer trees, while the incidence of asthma kept rising. "The indicators point very strongly towards air pollution,' Parmesh explains.
He started his study among schoolchildren and other sections likely to be affected by air pollution. The results were astounding, making clear the health hazards of air pollution. "Nobody bought my statements when I first came out with the results. Only when I presented my papers in Australia did people here acknowledge my data,' Parmesh rues. Since then, he has been giving lectures in educational institutions on different occasions. "People do respond. However, they lack scientific data,' he says.