The government announced Sunday that it will halt research linking Haifa Bay deaths and industrial pollution, saying the efforts had not supplied the appropriate tools to assess the problem.
Last year the researchers said babies in Haifa’s most polluted areas were being born with substantially lower weights and smaller heads than in cleaner parts of the city. The incidence of lung cancer and lymphoma among adults in these areas was up to five times the national average, it added.
On Sunday, the Environmental Protection Ministry announced that its chief, Zeev Elkin, and Health Minister Yaakov Litzman had accepted the recommendations of the scientific committee supervising the research.
The panel recommended halting the parts of the study examining the risk of cancer and asthma in children including teenagers. Only the part of the research linked to the biological monitoring of subjects would continue to be funded by the government.
The committee said the researchers used methods with significant disadvantages in examining cancer morbidity and pollution’s effects on child growth.
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