“Air Pollution Harmful, But It Isn’t A Killer”: Environment Minister Harsh Vardhan

“Certainly if you have a diseased lung and if the pollution is continuously damaging your alveoli (air sacks) then one day when you die, you can attribute the cause of death, to some proportion, to maybe pollution. But I don’t think we can generalise and say that millions of people are dying only due to pollution,”
This is the statement of Shri shri Harsh Vardhan, India’s Environment Minister (via) on being asked about the linkage between air pollution and deaths.
And mind you, Harsh Vardhan is the incumbent minister at Ministry of Science & Technology (India), Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and Ministry of Earth Sciences.
By the way : As per a joint study by Health Effects Institute in Boston and the Seattle-based Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation, India’s toxic air is now contributing to nearly 1.1 million deaths a year, and the country is on its way toward standing alone as the site of the deadliest air pollution problem on the planet.
https://www.nextbigwhat.com/india-air-pollution-297/