Air Quality Paris, France

Between the auto exhaust, subway air, and all the cigarette smoke, the air quality in Paris leaves a lot to be desired. Rodney hasn’t stopped coughing since we got here. You hear people sneeze so often it catches your attention b/c it’s oddly common. Makes you wonder how the air quality in Paris compares to U.S. cities.

Did a little research and found according to the CDC and Web in France, Lung Cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in both the U.S. and France. However, though the rates of cancer in France have gone up, the deaths caused by cancer have dropped 25%.

As interesting as that may be, I find it a little confusing though. In the U.S. clearly we smoke less and yet lung cancer is still the leading cancer for both countries. Now, I do think these stats are hard to discern because they are by country and while you can easily find stats broken down by city and state for the U.S., I couldn’t find stats for Paris alone. That means the stats of the large cities are combined with the probable healthier stats of the small cities out in the country.

It’s like combining stats for New York City with Jackson Hole, Wyoming, taking the average and saying “here’s our country’s lung cancer death rate." Don’t mean to sound like a pessimist but perhaps it’s best to leave the stats to the statisticians and go play tennis, run a mile, or walk the steps of Montmarte. Coming Honey...