Diesel and Cancer

"There's a substantial body of expert opinion to say the fine particles from diesel exhaust are the most dangerous elements of the traffic pollution that's responsible for about 1,200 deaths a year in Australia."

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2004/s1179825.htm


"Diesel's predominance leads to some surprising results. For example, San Francisco, California shows a risk level of 2,600 additional cancer cases per million, with 90 percent of the risk coming from diesel emissions. The goal set in the Clean Air Act for air toxics is a maximum of one additional case per million."

http://www.rag.org.au/buc/cancerrisk.htm


"Diesel exhaust is more carcinogenic than cigarette smoke...Research overseas shows that people exposed to diesel exhaust at high levels in enclosed spaces for long periods of time – such as truck drivers, railway workers, and miners – face up to 30 per cent increased risk of lung cancers, even after the effects of smoking are taken into account."

"While only 10 per cent of cars and trucks run on diesel [in Australia], they're responsible for around 80 per cent of fine particles from vehicles."

http://www.abc.net.au/health/regions/features/diesel/


"Diesel emissions are the primary culprit behind Americans’ one in 2100 risk of developing cancer from breathing outside air—500 times the Clean Air Act’s protective threshold of 1 in 1 million, according to a recent report by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a national public interest advocacy group. Dangers of Diesel: How Diesel Soot and Other Air Toxics Increase Americans’ Risk of Cancer examines the cancer risk of 33 hazardous air pollutants, focusing on five from mobile sources: diesel soot, acetaldehyde, benzene, 1,3 butadiene, and formaldehyde. Diesel emissions represented 89% of the increased cancer risk, 60% of which come from nonroad vehicles such as construction and farm equipment."

http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2002/oct/policy/lk_dieselcancer.html