Everything You Need to Know About Eyelid Bumps

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I have a weird bump on my eyelid. What is it?

Eyelid bumps are nothing to blink at! Fortunately, they often go away on their own. The most common type is a stye, a pimplelike bump on your lash line. The inside of your eyelids are lined with special oil glands that keep your eyes lubricated. Styes form when bacteria get into these glands, giving you a painful, sometimes pus-filled bump. They may also arise from an infection of a hair follicle. The best move is to wait it out, but you can speed up the draining process by doing warm compresses with a washcloth for 10 minutes four times a day. Styes that stick around for longer than several days may need to be drained by a doc. Just don’t try to squeeze it yourself, which could spread the infection.

RELATED: 9 Worst Eye Care Mistakes You’re Making

If the bump is more like a hard lump under the skin, it’s probably a chalazion, which develops when the oil gland gets blocked with thicker than normal oil secretions or by a stye that wouldn’t heal. Chalazia are often painless but can persist for months. Warm compresses are a good remedy here, too, but if it doesn’t go away or if it becomes painful (a sign it’s infected), your ophthalmologist can drain it.

Another culprit: milia, or small white bumps caused by trapped keratin (a protein produced by the skin) under your eyelid. These can appear anywhere but often show up around your eyes. Milia typically clear up on their own, but your doctor can scrape them away if they’re bothersome.

RELATED: Should You See an Eye Doctor?

A lump that bleeds or doesn’t go away with treatment could be a skin cancer. Removing eyelid skin cancers can be tricky, but your derm can refer you to a surgeon trained in Mohs micrographic surgery, in which skin is removed layer by layer until you‘re cancer-free. Good news: This is highly effective and minimizes scarring.

RELATED: How to Perform a Self-Exam for Skin Cancer

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Steer Clear of Cold Meds for Babies, FDA Advises

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 26, 2014 (HealthDay News) — Most babies and young children don’t need medicines if they have a cold, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration says.

Over-the-counter (OTC) cold and cough medicine should not be given to children younger than 2 because they could cause serious and potentially deadly side effects, the agency warned.

American adults average about three colds a year, but children get them more often. When children get a cold, parents might want to give them pain relievers, decongestants and other medicines, but often the best approach is rest and care, the FDA said in a news release.

“A cold is self-limited, and patients will get better on their own in a week or two without any need for medications. For older children, some OTC medicines can help relieve the symptoms — but won’t change the natural course of the cold or make it go away faster,” Dr. Amy Taylor, a medical officer in FDA’s Division of Pediatric and Maternal Health, said in the news release.

Antibiotics are useless because they treat bacterial infections, while colds are usually caused by viruses.

Coughs are a normal symptom of a cold and actually provide some benefits, Taylor noted.

“Coughs help the body clear the mucus out of the airway and protect the lungs; so you don’t want to suppress all coughs,” she said.

Non-drug treatments to ease coughs in children with colds include giving them plenty of fluids, especially warm drinks to soothe the throat.

While most children with colds do not need to see a doctor, Taylor said parents should call the doctor if they see any of these symptoms:

• A fever in an infant aged 2 months or younger, or a fever of 102 Fahrenheit or higher at any age.


• Signs of breathing problems, including nostrils widening with each breath, wheezing, fast breathing or the ribs showing with each breath.


• Blue lips, ear pain, not eating or drinking, signs of dehydration.


• Excessive crankiness or sleepiness, a cough that lasts for more than three weeks, or worsening condition.

“You have to know your child,” Taylor said. “With small infants, fever is a major concern, and you need medical advice. If you are worried about your child’s symptoms, at any age, call your pediatrician for advice.”

More information

The American Lung Association has more about the common cold.

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Early Trial Promising for Ebola Vaccine

By Dennis Thompson

HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 26, 2014 (HealthDay News) — An experimental Ebola vaccine appears to be safe and produces an immune system response that could protect people against the deadly virus, according to early clinical trial results reported by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

The success of the phase I clinical trial for the vaccine paves the way for field-testing it in the Ebola-stricken West African nations of Liberia and Sierra Leone as early as January, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

The genetically engineered vaccine caused no major side effects in 20 healthy adults who received a dose in September at the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, Md., the researchers report in the Nov. 26 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

The vaccine also created an immune system response in humans very similar to that of monkeys who, once inoculated, survived lab tests that exposed them to potentially fatal doses of Ebola, Fauci said.

“All in all, one can say this is a successful vaccine, from the standpoint of phase I,” Fauci said. “Now the critical question is, will it work?”

Ebola has killed more than 5,450 people during the West African epidemic, according to the World Health Organization. In response, international efforts to develop a preventive vaccine have accelerated.

The current vaccine, developed by the Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and GlaxoSmithKline, is based on a virus called chimpanzee-derived adenovirus, which causes a common cold in chimps but has no effect on humans.

Researchers have spliced portions of Ebola’s genetic material into the chimp virus, to trick the immune system into creating Ebola-attacking antibodies without exposing the body to the virus itself.

The clinical trial enrolled volunteers aged 18 to 50. Ten volunteers received a low-dose injection of the vaccine, while another 10 received the same vaccine at a higher dose.

Within a day of vaccination, two people who got the higher dose developed a fever, which was “short-lived and easily handled,” Fauci said.

“There were no real red flags when it comes to safety,” he said.

At two weeks and four weeks following vaccination, the researchers tested the volunteers’ blood to determine if anti-Ebola antibodies were generated. All 20 volunteers developed such antibodies within four weeks of receiving the vaccine, but antibody levels were higher in those who received the higher-dose vaccine.

“The results of the vaccine trial are promising and show that this particular vaccine is able to induce protective levels of immunity,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior associate with the Center for Health Security at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. “The trial also begins to provide a basis for selecting the optimal dose needed to achieve protection against Ebola.”

Two other phase I trials for the vaccine are ongoing in the United Kingdom and Mali, with results expected by year-end, the NIH said.

But based on the success of the Bethesda trial, researchers hope to begin delivering the experimental vaccine to people in Liberia and Sierra Leone within a couple of months, Fauci said.

Fauci could not say how many people would receive the vaccine in the field trials. “We don’t have the exact number,” he said. “In order to determine efficacy, you’ll have to vaccinate thousands of people, not just hundreds of people.”

The vaccine in question is one of two experimental Ebola vaccines that experts have said could be ready in time to combat the current epidemic.

The second vaccine, also genetically engineered, is based on a virus common to cattle and horses called vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV). This is in the same family as the rabies virus but causes only flu-like symptoms in infected humans.

Produced by the Public Health Agency of Canada based on research by NewLink Genetics of Iowa — the second vaccine is also being tested in phase I trials.

Thomas Geisbert, an Ebola expert and a professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Texas Medical Branch, believes the VSV-based Ebola vaccine may be the way to go.

Although clinical trial results for the NIH/GlaxoSmithKline vaccine are “promising,” other experimental Ebola vaccines based on chimp adenovirus have not provided protection against more aggressive strains of the virus, he said.

Geisbert believes the vaccine pursued by Canadian researchers could be more effective and produce longer-lasting protection.

“It remains to be seen if they are equally or nearly equally as safe,” Geisbert said. “If it turns out that they are, then I think the VSV-based vaccines will be the front runners.”

More information

For more on Ebola virus, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Harm From Baseball Concussions May Linger, Study Finds

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 26, 2014 (HealthDay News) — Even after they’re cleared to play following a concussion, baseball players’ batting skills are worse than normal, which suggests they may not be fully recovered, a new study suggests.

“Although players who sustain a concussion may be symptom-free and cleared by MLB [Major League Baseball] protocol to return to play, the residual effects of concussion on the complex motor skills required for batting may still be a problem,” said principal investigator Dr. Jeffrey Bazarian, an associate professor of emergency medicine at the University of Rochester in New York.

Researchers looked at 59 MLB players who suffered a concussion between 2007 and 2013. During their first two weeks back in action, the players’ batting performances were much poorer than those of 63 players who had been away from the game due to the birth of a child or death of a family member.

The batting averages of the two groups were .234 vs. .264. Their slugging percentages were .359 vs. .420 and their on-base plus slugging percentages were .654 vs. .747, according to the study presented at the recent annual meeting of the American Public Health Association in New Orleans.

A batter’s brain and neural networks have to be in top condition to achieve the hand-eye coordination, reaction time, body stability and balance, and swing control needed to hit a ball that takes about 400 milliseconds to travel from pitcher to batter, Bazarian said in a university news release.

After a concussion, brain function can be impaired for weeks or months. Learning more about how concussions affect batting performance can assist in determining when a concussed player is ready to return to the lineup, the study said.

After strains and bruises, concussions are the most common injuries in professional baseball, accounting for about 2 percent of all injuries that result in loss of playing time. Concussions among high school and college baseball players are rising by about 14 percent a year, the researchers said.

Data and conclusions presented at meetings are usually considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about sports concussions.

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Too Few Americans Undergo Dementia Screening

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 26, 2014 (HealthDay News) — More than half of Americans with dementia have never undergone screening of their thinking and memory skills, a new study suggests.

As reported online Nov. 26 in Neurology, “approximately 1.8 million Americans over the age of 70 with dementia have never had an evaluation of their cognitive [mental] abilities,” study author Dr. Vikas Kotagal, of the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor, said in a journal news release.

The finding is important because “early evaluation and identification of people with dementia may help them receive care earlier,” he said.

The new study included almost 300 people with dementia, aged 70 and older, who were taking part in the national Health and Retirement Study. According to the researchers, 55 percent had never had their thinking and memory abilities evaluated by a doctor.

With an early diagnosis of dementia, families can watch loved ones for problems, help them with day-to-day tasks, and make plans for care, Kotagal said. These types of interventions can greatly improve the quality of life for people with dementia, he added.

The study also found that married people were twice as likely to have undergone dementia screening compared to single people.

“It’s possible that spouses feel more comfortable than children raising concerns with their spouse or a health care provider,” Kotagal said. “Another possibility could be that unmarried elderly people may be more reluctant to share their concerns with their doctor if they are worried about the impact it could have on their independence.”

The study also found that people with more severe thinking and memory problems were more likely to have been evaluated by a doctor than those with less severe signs of dementia.

Factors such as race, socioeconomic status, number of children, and whether children lived close to their parents did not affect whether or not people with dementia had been checked for memory and thinking problems, the study authors noted.

One expert agreed that more must be done to boost dementia screening rates.

“Dementia affects one in eight persons over the age of 65 in the United States and one in three persons over the age of 80,” said Dr. Gayatri Devi, a neurologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.

“Despite this, there are no established guidelines for screening procedures,” Devi said. “As a result, many adults with dementia do not get diagnosed and are not given access to available treatments,” she explained.

“Early diagnosis and treatment are crucial for maintaining quality of life in this debilitating condition,” Devi said. “There are economic benefits to society as well.”

More information

The American Academy of Family Physicians has more about dementia.

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Some People May Be Pre-Wired to Be Bilingual

By Randy Dotinga

HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 26, 2014 (HealthDay News) — Some people’s brains seem pre-wired to acquire a second language, new research suggests. But anyone who tries to move beyond their mother tongue will likely gain a brain boost, the small study finds.

The brain “becomes more connected and integrated after learning,” said study co-author Ping Li, co-director of the Center for Brain, Behavior and Cognition at Pennsylvania State University. But it’s even more interesting, Li said, that “the brain networks of the more successful learners are better connected even before learning takes place.”

Li’s team is studying how brain wiring relates to the development of second-language skills. “We know that if the learning of a new language is successful, key brain regions responsible for handling languages will become activated. But we don’t know how these different regions are connected with each other as a network,” Li said.

In the new study, recently published in the Journal of Neurolinguistics, the researchers hoped to identify the changes that occur in the brain network after learning. They also wanted “to make predictions as to what network changes might or might not occur so as to predict individual differences,” Li explained.

To find the answers, they recruited 39 native English speakers and asked 23 of them to study Chinese vocabulary over six weeks. The researchers scanned their brains with MRI machines before and after the language course.

Participants who were the most successful at learning Chinese also had the best-connected brains in terms of links between brain regions that handle certain thinking and language skills, the researchers said.

It’s not clear how many people are pre-wired to do better at learning a second language, Li said, and it’s not known if training can improve this kind of brain wiring. Nor is it clear how these brain connections fit in with factors such as stress and motivation that may also affect the ability to master a second language, Li said.

Still, these connections could be helpful in the long run. Researchers do know that bilingual speakers seem to take longer to reach dementia, on average, than people who speak just one language, Li noted.

“This could be due to the constant everyday uses of multiple languages, which involves efforts from a lot of brain regions and their connections,” Li said.

The research suggests that studying a new language even for a brief period of time can have benefits, said Kara Morgan-Short, director of the Cognition of Second Language Acquisition Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

“The results reviewed in this article are seen across groups of learners, so even learners who are not particularly talented may show these benefits as well,” said Morgan-Short, who wasn’t involved with the study.

Not everyone who’d like to improve their brain has the time to pick up Spanish, French or Chinese. Fortunately, there are alternatives. “If you can’t learn a new language, doing other cognitively challenging activities could be equally useful to the brain,” Li said, “although they may train only one or a few parts of your brain, unlike language learning.” Specialists often point to board games, card games, puzzles and educational classes as examples of brain-stretching activities.

As for the idea of priming your brain to acquire a new language, Morgan-Short said that’s not possible at this time.

“However, there is some research that suggests that bilinguals are better than monolinguals at learning subsequent languages,” she said. So learning a second language “in the first place may prepare one’s brain to learn language better. Also, there is some evidence that people with a significant amount of music experience are able to learn aspects of language more easily.”

More information

For more about how the brain works, see Harvard Medical School’s Whole Brain Atlas.

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Don’t Let High Altitude Ruin Your Holiday Trip

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 26, 2014 (HealthDay News) — When you’re planning your holiday get-away, don’t forget to factor high altitude into your vacation sports — such as skiing or hiking, a sports medicine specialist cautions.

Outdoor explorers may fail to take altitude into account when visiting high-altitude recreation areas, which puts them at risk of developing fatigue and other symptoms related to being high above sea level, according to Dr. Melissa Tabor, an assistant professor of sports medicine and osteopathic principles and practice at Nova Southeastern University College of Osteopathic Medicine in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

“No matter how great of an athlete you are, if you are coming from sea level or lower altitudes to a higher altitude area, you need to prepare,” Tabor said in a news release provided by the American Osteopathic Association. Tabor recently gave a presentation on preparing for high-altitude activities at the Osteopathic Medical Conference in Seattle.

People under 50 more likely to get altitude sickness, Tabor said.

Folks should be on the lookout for signs of altitude sickness: nausea, vomiting, dizziness, fatigue, sleep disturbances and poor eating. Other more serious symptoms include confusion, inability to walk, shortness of breath and coughing blood. In extreme cases, altitude sickness can even cause death, according to Tabor.

Fortunately, treatment is often simple — move to a lower altitude, she noted.

To lower your risk of developing altitude sickness, Tabor suggests these cautions:

• Acclimate to higher altitude by spending days — or weeks, if possible — at a higher altitude before any strenuous activity.


• Plan ahead and get information about the location where you’re traveling. You may be able to find websites created by mountain resorts and local governments with details about ascending and descending.


• Climb slowly and check guidelines from the Wilderness Medical Society.


• Listen to your body and don’t climb any more if you feel lightheaded or have a headache. Descend within two to four hours if the symptoms don’t go away.


• Stay hydrated and drink before you’re thirsty.


• Consider renting a portable hyperbaric chamber to help you adjust to altitude.


• Talk to a doctor for advice and possible prescriptions for medications that may help you adjust to altitude.

More information

For details about preparing for traveling to high altitude, try the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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U.S. Adult Smoking Rate Drops to New Low: CDC

By Steven Reinberg

HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 26, 2014 (HealthDay News) — Fewer American adults are smoking cigarettes than ever, health officials said.

In fact, the rate of cigarette smoking has dropped from about 21 percent in 2005 to 18 percent in 2013. That means the number of cigarette smokers dropped from 45.1 million to 42.1 million, despite the increasing population, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

However,”we still have a long way to go, and if we don’t bend the curve down faster, over 5.5 million kids who are alive today will die prematurely from tobacco-related disease,” said Dr. Tim McAfee, director of the CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health.

Smoking is a major — and modifiable — risk factor for death and disease, he said.

“Smoking has a major impact on people’s lives,” McAfee said. “If you’re a smoker you’re at risk of dying 11 to 12 years earlier than if you are not a smoker,” he said.

Although cigarette smoking is at a 50-year low, in some groups the proportion of smokers is higher than the average, McAfee said.

“Leading the pack, cigarette use is highest among those below the poverty level at almost 30 percent, compared to 17.8 percent in the general population,” he said.

Other groups that continue to smoke at higher than average levels are the less educated, American Indians/Alaska Natives, men, people who live in the South or Midwest, people who have a disability, people with mental health issues, those who abuse drugs or alcohol, and people who are lesbian, gay or bisexual, McAfee said.

Tobacco companies target some of these groups, he said.

“Particularly among the lesbian/gay/bisexual community and people with substance abuse, there is evidence that, for decades, the tobacco industry has consciously pursued marketing campaigns aimed at these vulnerable populations,” he said.

McAfee said effective strategies that reduce smoking include increasing the cost of cigarettes, increasing taxes on cigarettes and passing more smoke-free laws. In addition, education, anti-smoking media campaigns and providing better access to tobacco cessation programs are essential, he said.

The bulk of the burden to cut smoking falls on states, but they spend less than 2 percent (about $500 million) of the $25 billion they get from tobacco taxes and the tobacco settlement on anti-smoking programs, he said.

The report was published online on Nov. 26 in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Susan Liss, executive director for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said, “It’s not surprising that there has not been more recent progress. States have cut and severely underfunded tobacco prevention and cessation programs. In addition, progress at the state level in enacting higher tobacco taxes and smoke-free laws has slowed greatly.”

Still, most of the news from the new report was good. According to the data, not only has the number of smokers decreased, but those who smoke, smoke less.

The researchers found that the proportion of those who smoke every day decreased from 81 percent in 2005 to 77 percent in 2013. In addition, the number of smokers who smoke only on some days increased from 19 percent in 2005 to 23 percent in 2013.

The average number of cigarettes smoked each day also decreased from 17 in 2005 to 14 in 2013, the report said.

Moreover, the number of smokers who smoked 20 to 29 cigarettes per day dropped from 35 percent in 2005 to 29 percent in 2013. And, the number who smoked fewer than 10 cigarettes per day increased from 16 percent in 2005 to 23 percent in 2013, the researchers found.

Dr. Norman Edelman, a senior consultant for scientific affairs at the American Lung Association, said it is significant that smokers are smoking less.

“That means that we are not left with hardcore smokers who have to have their pack a day or more,” he said. “This suggests that there is still room to decrease the smoking rates.”

More information

For more information on smoking, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Spotting Hearing Problems in Infancy May Boost Reading Skills in Deaf Teens

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 26, 2014 (HealthDay News) — Deaf teens have stronger language and reading skills if their hearing problems were detected at an early age, a new study suggests.

Researchers looked at a group of deaf children in England who were diagnosed with permanent hearing loss through an infant screening program conducted in the 1990s.

A follow-up of the children at age 8 found that those who were screened by the time they were 9 months old had better language and reading skills than deaf children who weren’t screened as infants.

This new study assessed the children at age 17, and found the gap in language and reading skills between the screened and unscreened groups had doubled since age 8.

The findings are published Nov. 25 in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.

“Our previous work has shown that children exposed to newborn hearing screening had, on average, better language and reading abilities at age 8 years. We are now able to show that this screening program can benefit these children into their teenage years,” study leader Dr. Colin Kennedy, a professor of neurology and pediatrics at the University of Southampton in England, said in a university news release.

“We believe that the early superiority in the reading skills of the children who were screened may have enabled them to read more demanding material more frequently than their peers with later confirmed hearing difficulties, thus increasing the skill gap between the two groups,” he explained.

“Screening all babies for hearing impairment at birth enables families to have the information they need to support their baby’s development, leads to benefits of practical importance at primary school and now, secondary school and further education,” Kennedy concluded.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about hearing loss in children.

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Your Dog Really Is Listening to You

By Amy Norton

HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 26, 2014 (HealthDay News) — While people have long believed their dogs understand what they’re saying, a new study suggests they are processing the meaning and emotion of words in a human-like way.

Past research has shown that dogs respond to different parts of human speech — including the actual content and the emotional tone, said study author Victoria Ratcliffe.

But her team’s findings give a deeper insight into the canine brain, according to Ratcliffe, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom.

For one, the study found, dogs seem to process multiple components of human speech all at once. What’s more, their brains are human-like in the way they distinguish the information in words from the emotional tone.

That does not mean dogs are actually understanding all the words people say, Ratcliffe stressed.

But, she said, the findings do suggest that “dogs may dissociate and process speech components in a way that is broadly comparable to humans.”

Ratcliffe and colleague David Reby report their findings in the Nov. 26 issue of Current Biology.

The results probably won’t shock dog owners, noted Nicholas Dodman, a professor of animal behavior at the Tufts University Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine in North Grafton, Mass.

“No, dogs are not going to read books or compose sonnets,” said Dodman, who was not involved in the study. “But they can take quite a bit out of what we’re saying. They are picking up certain sounds that have meaning for them. They’re also picking up the tenor of what we’re saying,” he explained.

“I’d say it’s a testament to their abilities as sentient beings,” Dodman added.

For the study, Ratcliffe and Reby had dogs listen to human speech from two speakers placed on either side of the animal. The speech either had meaning to the dog (the very British command, “Come on then”) or no meaning.

The quality of the speech was also manipulated: Sometimes it was stripped of the trappings of the human voice, to emphasize the meaning of the words; sometimes the emotional tone was exaggerated.

The researchers found that when they broadcast “come on then” with the meaning emphasized, the dogs typically turned their heads to the right-side speaker. That, according to Ratcliffe, indicates they were processing the words with a bias toward the left hemisphere of the brain — which in humans is the half that picks up the sound and syntax of words.

On the other hand, when the emotional tone of the speech was exaggerated, the dogs turned to the left — which indicates that the brain’s right hemisphere was dominant. And in humans, the right hemisphere processes the intonation and emotional quality of speech.

“To me,” Dodman said, “this is another step in our realization that dogs are more attuned to us than we’ve previously recognized.”

That’s important for a few reasons, according to Ratcliffe. “Developing our understanding of how dogs perceive human speech is obviously beneficial in improving our communication with them,” she said.

But there are also implications for understanding humans and other mammals. “In evolutionary terms,” Ratcliffe said, “we can directly compare humans and dogs to see which attributes of speech perception are uniquely human, or part of a shared mammalian history that encompasses dogs as well.”

For people who live with dogs, the findings probably just validate what they’ve already “intuitively known,” according to Dodman. But he said scientific studies of canine behavior are important.

And as these findings suggest, he said, “dogs have been studying us for a long time.”

More information

The ASPCA has tips for understanding your dog.

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EPA Issues Tougher Rules on Ozone Emissions

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 26, 2014 (HealthDay News) — New regulations to reduce emissions of the smog-causing pollutant ozone from power plants and factories were issued Wednesday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Ozone has been linked to asthma, heart disease and premature death.

The new rules would lower the current limit for ozone pollution from 75 parts per billion to between 65 to 70 parts per billion, the EPA said.

“Bringing ozone pollution standards in line with the latest science will clean up our air, improve access to crucial air quality information and protect those most at risk,” EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said in an agency news release.

According to the New York Times, the latest ozone emission limits are still less of a reduction than the 60 parts per billion limit sought by environmental groups. However, the EPA proposal will also ask for public comment on a 60-parts-per-billion limit, which means the final regulation could be lower than what is being proposed, the Times reported.

Reductions in ozone emissions have been sought by public health groups for years.

“The EPA’s proposal to strengthen the standard is a step forward in the fight to protect all Americans from the dangers of breathing ozone pollution, especially to protect our children, our older adults and those living with lung or heart disease,” Harold Wimmer, president of the American Lung Association, said in a statement.

However, Wimmer believes the new rules don’t go far enough. “We are concerned that EPA did not include 60 parts per billion in the range, though it was the clear recommendation of independent scientists as well as health and medical societies, including the American Lung Association,” he said.

“The scientific record clearly shows that a standard of 60 parts per billion would provide the most public health protection,” Wimmer added. “We will continue to push the agency to adopt standards based on the scientific evidence.”

However, industry groups claim the new limits would harm the economy and provide little public health benefit.

“Air quality has improved dramatically over the past decades, and air quality will continue to improve under the existing standards,” Howard Feldman, director of regulatory affairs for the American Petroleum Institute, which lobbies for the oil industry, told the Times.

“The current review of health studies has not identified compelling evidence for more stringent standards, and current standards are protective of public health,” he said.

But two lung health experts agreed with the ALA that the new standards are long overdue.

“It is welcome news that air pollution will be lessened by this legislation,” said Dr. Len Horovitz, a pulmonary specialist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. “It is well known that asthma is linked to ozone. Even atherosclerosis [hardening of the arteries] has been linked to air pollution in urban environments.”

Dr. Marc Wilkenfeld is chief of the division of occupational and environmental medicine at Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola, N.Y. He agreed that, “a reduction in ozone levels is a critical factor in improving public health. The reduction will ultimately save lives.”

The new ozone standards are the latest in a series of EPA moves to reduce air pollution. Next year, the agency is expected to finalize two new rules meant to reduce climate change-causing greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants, the Times reported.

More information

There’s more on air pollution at the American Lung Association.

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