How is this even news? I'd think that century-old health data would make it bleedin' obvious that heavy air pollution increases the incidence of lung cancer.
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if you have data supporting that, please share it; it would be interesting (morbidly).
i think that's inaccurate because, while Romans knew of it (Pliny wrote of slaves getting breathing disease who worked with it), mining of it, largely for military uses didn't go crazy until the world wars, and surpluses from mining post wars was insidiously repurposed into the commercial sector particularly in california and in random other regions.