The study also underlines the urgency of evacuating the petrochemical industry from the site.
Published: AUGUST 2, 2022
A new environmental study provides evidence that exposure to industrial air pollution in Haifa Bay at a young age is associated with cancer incidence between 1967 and 2012.
The research was supported and funded by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and carried out by researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Hadassah Medical Organization, the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, the Israel Defense Forces Medical Corps and the National Center for Disease Control.
It examined the years before the Environmental Protection Ministry’s national plan for Haifa Bay, the implementation of which resulted in a significant reduction in pollutant emissions in Haifa Bay. The ministry said it continues to work to promote the government’s decision to evacuate the petrochemical industry from the site.
Environmental Protection Minister Tamar Zandberg said the study “points to the urgent need to evacuate the petrochemical industry from Haifa Bay and provide the residents of the city and nearby towns northward with clean air, health and a better quality of life. The government’s decision to evacuate the factories that we reached this year is a step in the right direction, and its implementation must be accelerated to create an era of zero fossil fuel.”
The results of the research are published as part of a call for proposals by the Office of the Chief Scientist of the Environmental Protection Ministry.
Haifa Chemicals’ ammonia tank, Israel’s largest ammonia tank, is seen in the Haifa bay area (credit: REUTERS/BAZ RATNER)
The study provides evidence that living in areas exposed to industrial air pollution in Haifa Bay is linked to cancer incidence between 1967 and 2012.
The study found that between these years, exposure to industrial air pollution in Haifa Bay was associated with a higher risk of contracting cancer of between 7% and 16% (after adjusting for gender, year of birth, type of settlement, country of origin, exposure to nitrogen oxides and cognitive score), depending on the extent of exposure to the industrial air pollution. This includes breast cancer in women, cancer of the brain and spinal cord, head and neck cancer, leukemia, melanoma and thyroid cancer.
“The government’s decision to evacuate the factories that we reached this year is a step in the right direction, and its implementation must be accelerated to create an era of zero fossil fuel.”
Tamar Zandberg
The study also found that in the years examined, there was excess morbidity of asthma and other allergic diseases in Haifa Bay compared to a control group of subjects outside the bay. However, unlike cancer, the study did not find that this excess sickness from allergic diseases was linked to exposure to industrial air pollution. Yet, the study does not rule out the possible effects of the industrial air pollution in Haifa on asthma attacks in children or the effect of this pollution on other health outcomes.
This study shows that the age-standardized rate of cancer reported by the Health Ministry in periodic reports for more than a decade may be related to exposure to air pollution from industrial sources.
This study provides additional scientific reinforcement for the need to move the petrochemical industry away from Haifa Bay’s residents. In March 2022, the Israeli government approved a decision to end petrochemical activity in the Haifa Bay within a decade and promote a plan to develop infrastructure and economic growth engines in the bay.
Air quality
Over the years, there has been a significant improvement in the air quality in the area – a 56% reduction in emissions of volatile organic pollutants that include carcinogenic substances. There was also a transition from mined coal to natural gas, which significantly lowered the number of nitrogen oxides, that harmed public health.
The cancer follow-up in the study included a follow-up of 41,696,278 person-years. Over 45 years, 47,129 participants were diagnosed with cancer, with a gross incidence rate of 142.8 cases per 100,000 person-years in a non-exposed group living in the rest of the country and 171.5, 171.7 and 174.8 cases per 100,000 person-years in the low, medium and high exposure groups in Haifa Bay, respectively.
The most common cancer in the entire population, as well as in the Haifa Bay population, was breast cancer in women, followed by melanoma, the most serious kind of skin cancer. Among men, the most common cancer was in the reproductive organs.
https://www.jpost.com/environment-and-climate-change/article-713729