Recent advances in investigations of toxicity of automotive exhaust

The influence of auto exhaust on man's health is difficult to gauge considering the intricacy of human environmental urban stresses and particularly of other air polluting (industrial, domestic) emissions. Epidemiological surveys made in road tunnel employees and in traffic officers have not demonstrated specific effects and have often been complicated by cigarette smoking as a factor. Long-term animal experiments run mostly on small rodents give evidence of little effect of the pathological actions of dilutions such as those encountered in high polluted cities. However the acute toxicity of gasoline exhaust emission is well known and mostly due to carbon monoxide. Considering the different types of cycles and operating conditions of vehicles (gasoline and diesel), auto exhaust gases constitute no more a chemical entity than they show, a definite toxicity. A great number of substances that they contain (nitrogen oxides, aldehydes, antiknock additives, heavy metals, possible catalysts are highly toxic as shown by in vivo and in vitro (mutagenic) tests. Interactions of the components are for the moment ignored or poorly understood. Besides, the evolution of the physicochemical properties and natures of the auto exhaust emission in the gaseous biotope of man under determined conditions of ultraviolet irradiation, temperature, and hygrometry provoke the formation of secondary products such as oxidants and ozone. Several experiments show clearly that irradiation increases the toxicity of auto exhaust significantly. For these reasons, geographical, meteorological, and chronological (circadian and seasonal) factors should be taken into consideration, especially with regard to emission standards.