New in EHP: Harmful constituents of bituminous coal smoke

At long last a news story I filed late last year for Environmental Health Perspectives about an interesting September 2019 study published in the journal has seen the light of day! Here's the gist and -- whaddya know! -- the first graf:

"The adjacent counties of Xuanwei and Fuyuan in southwestern China have long had some of the world’s highest lung cancer rates, particularly among nonsmoking women. For more than three decades, researchers in China and around the world have sought to understand why. Epidemiological and experimental studies to date suggest that the use of local bituminous coal for household cooking and heating is responsible for the region’s elevated cancer risk and mortality rates. A study recently published in Environmental Health Perspectives identified specific constituents of smoke from the implicated coal that might be especially harmful—with potential significance far beyond rural China."

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