Smoggy Beijing to reveal more pollution data

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FILE - In this Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011 file photo, Tan Liang carries a PM2.5 detector while walking towards a garbage-burning facility located near his apartment to check levels of fine particles in the air in Beijing, China. A bureau in charge of monitoring China's frequently smog-choked capital will release more detailed reports, state media said Friday, Jan. 6, 2012, following a public outcry over the hazards of fine particle pollution. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File) FILE - In this Saturday, Dec. 3, 2011 file photo, Tan Liang carries a PM2.5 detector while walking towards a garbage-burning facility located near his apartment to check levels of fine particles in the air in Beijing, China. A bureau in charge of monitoring China's frequently smog-choked capital will release more detailed reports, state media said Friday, Jan. 6, 2012, following a public outcry over the hazards of fine particle pollution. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)eval("var currentItemd57851005a80479aaeeb90a12c70b9ff = 1;");eval("var nextd57851005a80479aaeeb90a12c70b9ff = 0;");eval("var previousd57851005a80479aaeeb90a12c70b9ff = 0;"); BEIJING (AP) — A bureau in charge of monitoring China's frequently smog-choked capital will release more detailed reports, state media said Friday, following a public outcry over the hazards of fine particle pollution.

Beijing's decision to publish the data appeared aimed at appeasing residents' anger over the pollution and a lack of government transparency.

Frustration over the issue has been fueled by a Twitter feed set up by the U.S. Embassy in Beijing that reports air quality as measured by a monitor on the embassy roof and publishes it online every hour. Those readings include levels of fine particulate matter, or PM2.5 — a type of pollution that Beijing authorities also measure but keep secret from the public.

China's environmental ministry has said it will factor PM2.5 into national air quality standards, but not until 2016.

The official Xinhua News Agency said Beijing's environmental protection bureau will also now post hourly online readings for PM2.5 before Chinese New Year, which begins later this month. The city already has six monitoring stations measuring PM2.5 and will add more before the end of the year, Xinhua said.

Beijing is frequently cloaked in yellow haze. Buildings a couple of blocks away are barely visible. Still, Beijing's official air quality index records the pollution as "light" — a reading at odds with what many people experience.

Sometimes seen as soot or smoke, PM2.5 is tiny particulate matter — less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, or approximately 1/30th the average width of a human hair — that can result from the burning of fuels in vehicles, power plants and agriculture. Breathing such fine particles causes respiratory problems and can lead to death.

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Study: Traffic Pollution May Boost Your Risk of Heart Attack

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Exposure to high levels of traffic pollution may boost your risk of heart attack, according to a new study published on BMJ.com.

But the study found that the risk was transient, lasting one to six hours, and that rather than increasing overall risk of heart attack, exposure to pollution appeared to precipitate cardiac events in people who were already at higher-than-average risk.

Researchers in epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine analyzed data on 79,288 patients who had a heart attack between 2003 and 2006 in 15 urban areas of England and Wales. To determine patients' exposure to ambient air pollution, the team compared the recorded hour of each heart attack with regional air pollution information from the U.K. National Air Quality Archive. That data offered information about pollutant particles, ozone, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide levels.

After controlling for environmental factors like air temperature, humidity and viral infection rates, along with social factors like holidays and day of the week, the researchers found that exposure to high levels of certain components of air pollution — pollutant particles and nitrogen dioxide, which are a byproduct of car traffic — was associated with a greater risk of heart attack. The heavier the traffic pollution, the higher the risk of heart attack.

The researchers looked at heart attack risk for 72 hours after exposure to pollution, but found that the risk remained elevated for only six hours. The findings are in line with previous research that has also found air pollution to have an immediate, negative impact on heart health.

Although the overall heart risk of air pollution is short-lived and likely most dangerous to those who are already at risk of heart attack, there's still good reason to reduce traffic pollution as much as possible. "Given other evidence that exposure to air pollution increases overall mortality and morbidity, the case for stringent controls on pollutant levels remains strong," wrote epidemiologists Prof. Richard Edwards and Dr. Simon Hales from the University of Otago in New Zealand in an editorial accompanying the study.

Meredith Melnick is a reporter at TIME. Find her on Twitter at @MeredithCM. You can also continue the discussion on TIME's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.

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