14 DAY TRIAL // A new paper in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives says that, each year, about 11,000 people in the United States and the United Kingdom die as a result of exposure to diesel exhaust.
Specifically, researchers with the Emory University and several other institutions in Europe say that, of the total number of lung cancer deaths reported in these countries on a yearly basis, 6% are caused by people's breathing in diesel emissions.
In their report, the scientists detail that, according to their investigations, 4.8% of these diesel exhaust-related lung cancer deaths are due to occupational exposure to said air pollutant.
Thus, it appears that truckers and miners are the ones most likely to develop lung cancer after being exposed to noteworthy amounts of diesel emissions.
As far as the researchers could tell, these people's risk of being diagnosed with lung cancer is about 70 times higher than what US occupational standards currently consider acceptable.
Otherwise put, of 10,000 truckers and miners, 689 are likely to suffer from lung cancer at some point in their lives.
By comparison, federal workplace standards are set with just one cancer death per 1,000 in mind, Environmental Health News reports.
The remaining 1.2% of said number of yearly lung cancer deaths linked to diesel emissions need be linked to environmental exposure to diesel exhaust.
Not at all surprisingly, the researchers maintain that people living in urban areas are about 10 times more at risk to suffer from lung cancer than what current health standards consider acceptable.
The specialists base their claims that diesel exhaust is responsible for 6% of the total number of lung cancer deaths documented in the United States and the United Kingdom annually on data provided by three previous studies on the health of truckers and non-metal miners.
National death statistics for both countries were also taken into consideration.
“Combined data from three US occupational cohort studies suggest that DEE at levels common in the workplace and in outdoor air appear to pose substantial excess lifetime risks of lung cancer, above usually acceptable limits in the US and Europe,” the researchers write in their paper.
Furthermore, “Based on broad assumptions regarding past occupational and environmental exposures we estimate that approximately 6% of annual lung cancer deaths may be due to DEE exposure.”