A comprehensive investigation into the medical effects of volcanic ash is now underway in South Iceland.
The research is being co-ordinated by Iceland’s Chief Epidemiologist, Haraldur Briem along with local health workers and the lung department of the Landspitali hospital in Reykjavik.
“We think it is important to find out if ash and other material from the volcano has any effect on human health. There are professionals here researching lung function, and we are also taking blood samples to assess [the effects] in the body. Finally there is a general medical exam and questions about physical and mental well being,” Briem told RUV.
He added that the research is being focused on the parts of South Iceland which were most affected by ash fall from the Eyjafjallajokull eruption and on people considered most at risk from the ash. It is hoped the research can be completed in two weeks.
There is a little town in Italy, at the foot of its Mt. Vesuvius named Pompeii.
Though none survived the effects of the ash assaults, which, in and of itself will inform Iceland’s experts, the plaster-of-paris-filled corpse molds are also instructive as to the speed of the medical consequences upon the population by the heartless and unwelcome clouds of volcanic effluvia and ejecta.
If they find something very bad in the volcanic ash, I’m curious about the people in hawaii. They are living on and breathing it in all the time.