Wendy Zuckerman

They're so small that they can just sneak inside us.

Here's Stephen again.

Really?

All parts of the body?

And Stephen says air pollution is now being linked to all sorts of diseases.

Blindness?

Yeah, it's thought that tiny bits of pollution can mess with our retina, increasing our risk of eye disease.

And some of these bits of pollution are so small that they can actually cross the placenta, potentially affecting fetuses.

They can even get into our brains.

We're still working out exactly what all of this means, but some of the other effects of pollution are more clear.

Like, besides fouling up our lungs, we've known for years that crap in the air increases our risk of getting heart disease.

For example, a study of around half a million older folks found that those living near a highway or busy street were 30% more likely to die from coronary heart disease than those living further away.

And that's why, for years, places like the World Health Organization and the EPA had been lowering what a safe level of pollution is.

But the truth is that almost nowhere in the world actually meets those standards every day.

And actually, this big report just came out last month from the American Lung Association.

And it says that nearly 50% of U.S.

kids now live in a place with unhealthy levels of air pollution.

So even though it's really rare to get sick like Ella did from pollution, to Stephen, he sees what happened to her as an extreme example of what's happening to all of us.

And so Rosamund hatched a plan.

She wanted to get air pollution listed on Ella's death certificate.