Death- By-Air in Beijing

As smog grounded hundreds of flights from Beijing last week, emergency doctors at Peking University People’s Hospital faced a rush of patients. Lungs weren’t the problem, says Ding Rongjing, the hospital’s deputy head of cardiology. Five people were admitted for heart attacks from Dec. 4 to 6, compared with one or two a week typically. One 60-year-old male patient died. The illnesses are an unwanted consequence of the economic growth that helped spur a 32 percent jump in China’s car sales last year. Outdoor air pollution kills 1.3 million people globally each year, the World Health Organization estimates. A growing body of evidence shows dirty air not only triggers asthma and other respiratory conditions, over time it may the damage heart and blood vessels, and even cause birth defects. “Whenever we have days with bad pollution, we get significantly more patients with symptoms like high blood pressure, feeling of suffocation, and chest pains,” Ding said in an interview at the hospital, where she’s worked since 1996. On days of extreme pollution, heart and stroke cases at the 1,450-bed center can increase as much as 40 percent to 280 patients, she said.