University of Virginia Professor's Work Has Made A Big Impact In Ozone Layer Restoration

With a formal education on pulmonary medicine, Dr. Robert Meyer never expected that he would end up running a propaganda in saving the ozone layer as one of his primary goals in life.

For an impressive 20 years- Meyer, Virginia Center for Translational and Regulatory Sciences director and Public Health associate professor at University of Virginia- has been contributing his time and effort for his cause, UVA Today reported.

Before associating himself with the UVA, he was a medical reviewer at the USFDA for fresh pulmonary products. When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approached FDA in 1996, Meyer was in the middle of one of the biggest and most important decision of his life.

When an international treaty popularly known as the Montreal Protocol has been passed in 1987 and took effect two years after, Meyer never turned down this offer. The protocol is made in order to eliminate products that has chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs on them because this is one of the substances that promotes the depletion of Earth's ozone layer, creating an increase of ultraviolet radiation that reaches the surface of the earth which is the number one suspect of skin cancer.

The UN Environment Program has announced recently that at the end of this year, products with CFCs are completely phased out in the face of the world. Patients who depend on medicines that treats asthma can now utilize that contains either hydrofluoroalkanes or dry powder, wherein both chemicals aren't dangerous for the ozone layer. As Meyer have announced, there are more or less 170 countries around the Earth that committed and dedicated to Montreal Protocol, Tech Times reported.

Just last month, scientists who study the atmosphere have accounted that one of the holes in the ozone layer has begun healing and closing, manifesting the positive effects of the protocol.

Meyer said that the ban on CFC affected positively, together with the respect given to the patients and the conservation, restoration and preservation of the ozone layer altogether. He added that this particular news is a positive information especially in the public health and a proof how the world could be united for a single cause.