141: Don’t Light Things on Fire and Breathe Them Into Your Lungs with Dr. Erika Moseson - a podcast by Dr. Donnica Moore

Dr. Erika Moseson is a pulmonary and critical care medicine physician aka a lung and ICU doctor. She’s a graduate of Cornell Medical School. She’s the founder of Air Health Our Health, an educational resource regarding the intersection of breathing healthy air and the well-being and weals of our communities. She hosts the Air Health Our Health podcast where she interviews experts on everything from tobacco and vaping to policy options to improve public health. She is one of the American Lung Association’s Health Professionals for clear air and climate action.

 

Erika and Donnica talk about clean air. Erika believes in the motto “don’t light things on fire and breathe them into your lungs”. This pertains to tobacco, marijuana, diesel, fire, and more. When you light something on fire, the particles that are generated hang in the air. Even though you can’t see them, they are there and you are breathing them in. This year we’ve seen an unprecedented number of wildfires in California. Californians are now having to check the air particles before they can walk outside to know if the air is safe to breathe. The particles that you inhale go into your blood veins and can stay there and lead to heart attacks, strokes, and other diseases.

 

Erika goes over what needs to be done policy-wise to create cleaner air. A lot of companies rely on transportation methods that are terrible for the environment and finding cleaner solutions are key to cleaner air. They discuss how smoking and tobacco sales should change to support the environment and people who are looking to quit smoking. Tobacco companies target lower-income communities and people of color in their advertising. This is directly impacting the health of those communities at a disproportionate rate. Now kids are being introduced to vaping, which has an insanely high amount of nicotine compared to smoking cigarettes for something that is flavored like bubblegum.

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