Instead, she tries to empower herself. She avoids walking through exhaust, doesn’t use pesticides, buys organic foods, shuts her windows to keep air pollution outdoors and uses air filters in her home.

“Maybe this study will potentially change the way we see the environment and treat it in the future,” she said. “Individually and in small groups we can invoke change.”

This article originally ran at Environmental Health News, a news source published by Environmental Health Sciences, a nonprofit media company.

6 Comments

1. 1. jtdwyer 07:00 PM 7/26/10

   Yes, developing and raising babies and children and adults in polluted areas is bad. Not to dispute this at all, however...
   
   Statistically, there are many other reasons why people living in polluted areas might have already been destined to have lower IQs than people living in non-polluted areas.
   
   Not to discount the implications of this report, but any adequate statistical analysis should at least mention such uncontrolled factors and preferably attempt to control for them. I'm presuming that if this study had controlled for other potential causation factors they would have been mentioned - I didn't find any.

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2. 2. EagleMenace 09:31 AM 7/27/10

   Those backpacks carried by women for 48 hours must be major cause for reduce in IQ Level. LOL

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3. 3. Idealogue100 11:16 AM 7/27/10

   I don't think we can trust the study. Has anyone compared the IQ's of parents that live in high pollution to those in below-average pollution areas?

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4. 4. Philip Nolan 03:15 PM 7/27/10

   I am not a scientist, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night -- and I can actually think.
   First, what and where was the control group? Nowhere does it say in the article.
   Second, other factors were not held constant. What about the factors of poverty, culture, social environment, etc.. The study group was of African Americans and Dominicans in NYC. While Krakow has a strong economy in Poland, the per capita GDP in Poland is $18,000 compared to $46,000 in the U.S.
   This is not science, it is politics.

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5. 5. Marc Lévesque in reply to Philip Nolan 06:06 PM 7/27/10

   I agree, comprehensive factor analysis would be nice
   
   About it being politics...
   
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_sciences

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6. 6. Charles Martel 06:30 PM 7/27/10

   These studies are suggestive, but ultimately worthless without controlling for the IQ of the parents. It's akin to the studies demonstrating having books in the home raises offspring IQ - which is like saying the presence of size 13 mens shoes in the home leads to greater offspring height.

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