is the headline based on a press release by the EEA that went online only this morning after having been already taken up by news outlets like the Guardian, DW and Tagesschau.
Fortunately many newspaper did not respond. Was this just a small experiment which news desk can discriminate fake and real news?
When asking the EEA now about the source of their information, they responded by an automated reply. Is this a scientific hoax just like the recent news of 6000 deaths by NO2?
I cannot find any scientific study that support this claim. There are 200 children dying from asthma in the US every year but 1200? My estimate for Germany is not higher than 10 deaths and less than 100 children in Europe (see below). The only source given in the press release is leading to a page listing the EEA member countries.
Another reference in the text is made to the GBD Collaborative Network 2020, probably https://ghdx.healthdata.org
As a research institute, we rely primarily on data collected by others, or secondary data…. If a newly-discovered dataset is publicly available, we download it straight from the source. If not, we request access to the data, which may involve entering into a data use agreement with the collector.
But also here deaths by asthma do not exceed 30.
Even if we add any upper or lower respiratory disease, we are still at less than 1000.
No method is given by the agency so we will never know how they arrived at the conclusion that air pollution is causing over 1,200 premature deaths every year among those under the age of 18.
Maybe the topic is too serious for EU policy makers like Hans Bruyninckx. Until proven otherwise this press release contains fake news.