implications for autogas · implications for autogas eric johnson diesel exhaust and human health
TRANSCRIPT
Implications for Autogas
Eric Johnson
Diesel exhaust and human health
Diesel exhaust’s three horsemen
• Cardiopulmonary (heart-lung) disease – Emphysema – High blood pressure – Heart attacks
• Respiratory (breathing) ailments – Bronchitis – Asthma
• Cancer – Lung – Bladder
How do they know this?
Are they sure?
Since when, says who?
• Started in the late 1970s, early 1980s
• ‘Diesel cancer’: 30,000 references in Science
• Regulators agree
– California: diesel PM a carcinogen (since 1998)
– US EPA: ‘a likely carcinogen’
– German Environmental Agency: ‘a suspected carcinogen’
June 2012: WHO said what?
Diesel exhaust is carcinogenic to humans
This is new
Gasoline exhaust is possibly carcinogenic
Unchanged view since 1989
Diesel Exhaust in Miners Study
After 17 years of fighting
Henry Chajet, Patton Boggs LLP Mining Awareness Resource Group
US government agencies
Reaction of other industries?
What about LP Gas?
How diesel exhaust causes cancer
Carcinogen
Nitroarenes are nasty
6-Nitrochrysene Melting point: 220 C
LP Gas chemistry is less complex
Diesel LP Gas
Hey, it’s used indoors
Particle filters will solve diesel cancer, right?
They might make it worse!
Autogas: for fleets and cities
These results indicate that stringent occupational and particularly environmental
standards for diesel exhaust should be set and compliance ensured to have an impact on
health outcomes.
Lesley Rushton, PhD Department of Epidemiology and
Biostatistics Imperial College London
