Case studies on the
crowd-control weapon show just how dangerous it can be for the lungs.
Hannah
Seo June 8, 2020
Grey clouds waft over
scattering crowds in the footage from Seattle this past Sunday. The yells
and screams of police and protesters alike are punctuated by shots of flare
guns. Eventually, the street empties out, but the haze of tear gas continues
to swirl under the lights.
As more and more dissidents
take to the streets in solidarity with Black Lives Matter, US police have
unleashed some dangerous
crowd-control tools, possibly exacerbating the continued health risks
of COVID-19. Cities like
Seattle are still seeing hundreds of new cases each week—and
doctors worry that dispersing mass amounts of tear gas could needlessly damage
people’s lungs and cause greater risk of virus exposure.
“The coronavirus is still
quite active … and we will likely see a rise in cases,” says Anna Nolan, a
pulmonologist at New York University School of Medicine who’s been treating
COVID-19 patients. “It’s unfortunate, but true.”
Whether a person is exposed
to tear gas and then SARS-Cov-2, or they’re recovering from the virus and
subsequently get gassed, Nolan says the two make a terrible combination, given
the damage they inflict on internal organs. Research on tear gas, which is
often made of a powdered irritant, links it to a slew of respiratory
conditions, including choking, blistering, bronchitis, pneumonia, chest pain,
and long-lasting lung damage. In fact, the Chemical Weapons Convention deemed
tear gas so harmful that they banned it from international war in 1993.
“If exposure to tear gas is
prolonged, it can result in pretty severe respiratory impacts,” says Howard Hu,
an epidemiologist at the University of Washington who’s studied global tear gas
use and its effects. He says there are many well-documented cases of people
developing asthma after living alongside it for days, and adds that it can
worsen deadly pre-existing conditions like emphysema, hypertension, and
coronary artery diseases.
In 2013, 37
detainees in Egypt died from asphyxiation from tear gas. And just
today, the city of Columbus launched an investigation of the death of a
22-year-old protester who was hospitalized after being tear gassed.
Considering that COVID-19
causes respiratory
distress and failure in many patients, Nolan says that people being
pushed into crowds and small spaces while being exposed to a
breathing-impairment tool is “really problematic.” But as far as the compounded
effects of tear gas and coronavirus, that’s still an open question.
“If you irritate the
airways further [with tear gas], will you get predisposed to COVID-19? That's a
thought,” Nolan says. “Nobody's really looked at that combination yet, but I'm
sure we will know more about that over the coming weeks if this type of
activity continues.” For now, Nolan and other doctors are warning protestors
with underlying lung conditions to stay vigilant: If they do contract the
virus, they may experience severer symptoms.
Assessing long-term risk is
complicated, though, because the lasting effects of tear gas haven’t been
adequately documented. “There really is no decent research that's been
conducted on communities exposed to gas,” Hu says. “When this was first
developed by the US Army, all the research was conducted on healthy men—they weren't
exposed to really high concentrations, nor were they followed for months or
years.” But for a lot of the communities that are currently marching and
protesting, there may be a days-long period of exposure. “We're in uncharted
territory,” Hu adds.
As protesters and police
funnel into residential neighborhoods, clouds of tear gas are also entering people’s homes—a
hazard for anyone staying indoors to avoid the virus. The chemical can stick
to clothing and skin for up to 72 hours, and has deadlier consequences when
it builds up in enclosed areas.
“There are case reports
that in neighborhoods where tear gas was used, the people inside were really
stuck,” says Rohini Haar, an emergency physician and health and human
rights researcher at UC Berkeley. “The best way to get rid of it is to open
your windows and let in fresh air. But if that makes more tear gas come in,
then there's really no safe air to breathe.”
“It’s supposed to be a
weapon of last resort,” Haar goes on to explain. Originally, it was intended
for dispersal at the periphery of crowds, but the police have been going beyond
that by “firing too many canisters, targeting the canisters to hit people
directly in the middle of the crowd, or using it in enclosed spaces.” "For
them to continue to use excessive amounts of tear gas when people have to wear
masks is very irresponsible,” Haar adds. Videos circulating on Twitter show
protesters removing their masks after being gassed to get a few
breaths of air; others reveal officers pulling
down protestors’ masks to pepper spray them directly in the face. At
least 1,300 health professionals recently signed an open letter opposing the “systemic injustice occurring
during the COVID-19 pandemic,” urging police departments to halt the use of
tear gas.
In the chaos of a protest,
with crowds running and regrouping, it becomes nearly impossible to maintain
COVID-19 safety measures. Nolan worries about the health of both protestors
and coronavirus patients down the line: “As a pulmonologist, knowing what I
know ... it’s so clear that not using those inhalation irritants on people who
are peacefully protesting would limit risk.”
“The science is not moving
the policy the way it should,“ Harr says, alluding to the fact that the
dangerous side effects of tear gas have long been known. “Both police violence
and health services are due for a reckoning around race and disparities as much
as every other system in the US. Being in the era of coronavirus makes that an
even more urgent need.”
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