The Ethanol Papers - Paperturn manuscript - Flipbook - Page 162
very much during the past two decades. Health concerns were finally addressed.
Unfortunately, for the public, what is still used in gasoline is benzene, and the
oil industry would like to increase its use by eliminating the use of ethanol (which
was primarily adopted in recent years in place of tetraethyl lead and then
MTBE).
So, what's wrong with benzene? Oh, everything. In the late 1940's the American
Petroleum Institute sponsored a study of benzene. I presume they were hoping
for a miracle finding that would absolve them of any guilt or responsibility for
killing people. What they did, instead, was shoot themselves in the foot...well,
both feet, and then they stepped on their own male anatomical part at the same
time.
The report, called the API TOXICOLOGICAL REVIEW, was published in September 1948. It "summarizes the best available information on the properties,
characteristics, and toxicology of benzene. It offers suggestions and tentative
recommendations pertaining to medical treatment, medical examinations, and
precautionary measures for workers who are exposed to benzene. It was prepared at the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Mass., under the direction of Professor Philip Drinker." The report was made available to me by the
people at FixOurFuel.com and UrbanAirInitiative.com. The complete report can
be found at:
http://fixourfuel.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/API-Benzene-ToxicologyReview-2.pdf.
The report cites various symptoms of exposure to benzene, including the final
ultimate symptom of exposure to benzene...death. It discusses possible treatment for exposure, and it also sets forth the levels at which benzene can cause
these symptoms and/or death to occur. The quantities range from very high
exposure to relatively minute quantities, as permitted by government laws. It
can go from 20,000 ppm (parts per million) in the air we breathe, to just 50 or
100 ppm. The upper quantities can result in immediate death, the lower quantities take a little longer.
The most critical part of the report, I think, is the part in which they give what
they believe is a safe ppm amount of benzene in the air we breathe. The report
states:
