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Last week some experts played down the World Health Organization’s announcement that it was “very concerned” about the potential health effects of inhaled ash from the Iceland volcano. But we wanted to follow up on that point: can it really be safe to breathe in the same stuff that threatens to destroy jet engines?

Ronald Crystal, chief of pulmonary medicine at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, tells the Health Blog it’s all in the context. He knows of which he speaks: when Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980, he was then chief of the pulmonary branch of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, and briefed President Carter on potential health consequences.

There weren’t a lot of studies specific to volcano eruptions to consult, says Crystal. Instead, he looked at the known impact of inhaling silica. For miners, inhaling silica over many years, at high concentrations, has a definite negative impact: lung diseases including silicosis, also known as pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicavolcanoconiosis (famous for being the longest word in the English language).

Crystal says there weren’t any data to suggest that Mount St. Helens produced a comparable threat, and widespread evacuations solely to prevent ash inhalation didn’t take place. After the fact, the population within breathing range of the volcano when it erupted were studied, including kids with still-developing lungs and loggers who were close to the eruption. “The bottom line,” he says, “is that there was a little bit of exacerbation of chronic illnesses like bronchitis or asthma.” However, researchers found no long-term effects.

We breathe in particles all day long, Crystal says, and our lungs have a “very efficient mechanism for getting rid of them” called the mucociliary escalator. Mucus catches the particles, and tiny, hairlike cilia move it along so that you either cough up or swallow them.

That mucociliary escalator is what’s keeping Europeans’ lungs clear of silica, even where ash is falling to ground level. As with Mount St. Helens, people with respiratory illnesses may find their symptoms triggered in the short term, but for others, he says, it’s not likely to be a big deal.

Image: Bloomberg News

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You Mean that Iceland Volcano Really Isn’t a Health Hazard?