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"Switching to electric vehicles would be fantastic for kids’ health / Fewer asthma attacks, less bronchitis, and healthier lives for millions of kids.
By Andrew J. Hawkins, transportation editor with 10+ years of experience who covers EVs, public transportation, and aviation. His work has appeared in The New York Daily News and City & State.

Feb 21, 2024, 4:01 PM GMT+11
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Image: Hugo Herrera / The Verge
A wholesale switch to electric vehicles would be a tremendous boon to the health of many people around the world. But a new report from the American Lung Association highlights the particular advantages for children, especially those vulnerable to respiratory illness.

Based on a model in which all new vehicles sold by 2035 are zero-tailpipe emission, the group concludes that there would be 2.7 million fewer asthma attacks among children, as well as 147,000 fewer acute case of bronchitis. The transition to EV-only sales would also prevent 2.67 million cases of upper respiratory symptoms and 1.87 million cases of lower respiratory symptoms in children. And there would be 508 fewer cases of infant mortality.


Highlighting the specific impact switching to EVs would have on kids was important because children’s bodies develop at a different rate than adults’, said Laura Kate Bender, national assistant vice president for Healthy Air at the American Lung Association

“Kids are at greater risk of air pollution, their lungs are still growing.”

“Kids are at greater risk of air pollution, their lungs are still growing,” she said in an interview. “I can say that as a person growing up with asthma, [it] put me in the ER more often than I think my parents would have liked.”

Combustion engine vehicles are huge drivers of climate change, accounting for over a quarter of all global emissions. That’s why governments around the world are attempting to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles, which emit far fewer pollutants in the atmosphere. Children stand to gain a lot from this switch, especially kids at particular risk for respiratory illness."
https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/21/...Switching to electric,for respiratory illness.