Car fumes make Los Angeles the cancer capital

By Giles Whittell Copyright 1999 The Times (UK) March 2, 1999

Cancer-causing chemicals in car exhaust fumes have left residents of Los Angeles hundreds of times more at risk of fatal disease than the federal Clean Air Act allows, according to a government study that is likely to send shock-waves through the healthcare and motor industries.

The congressional study of air quality in America's second-largest city, published yesterday, reveals airborne carcinogens at levels 426 times higher than those established as safe nine years ago.

The alarming figures "should give a jolt" to the city, a spokeswoman for the Natural Resources Defence Council in Washington said. "We know our air is dirty, but now we know in black and white that it's toxic too," she added.

The city's air quality is the worst in the country, the council said yesterday.

The risk of cancer from air pollution is thought to be the highest in the country as a result, with lung cancer still a leading killer in California, despite intensive anti-smoking campaigns. About 14,600 new cases are expected this year in California, compared with 10,700 in New York state, though per capita, lung cancer rates are highest in states with the most smokers, such as Kentucky and Arkansas.

The death rate from breathing particulates - airborne grit that is not necessarily cancer-causing - is also highest in Los Angeles, with 5,873 deaths recorded in a 1996 study, compared with 4,024 in New York.

Los Angeles smog, which for decades has driven film stars to the coast for the relief brought by onshore breezes, has already prompted the nation's toughest car emissions standards. But yesterday's report showed that little has been done to curb invisible compounds in vehicle exhausts that target internal organs.

Butadiene, benzene and formaldehyde cause tumours in lungs, breasts, ovaries, livers, thyroid glands, testes and other organs, tests have shown. All three are present at unusually high levels in the air over the Los Angeles basin, where clinics such as the John Wayne Cancer Wing at the Cedars Sinai Medical Centre have treated a steady stream of famous - and merely rich - cancer victims, including Larry Hagman, Michael Landon and Gilda Radner.

"It appears that motor vehicles create the largest portion of the toxic risk in terms of their emissions," Barry Wallerstein, of the local Air Quality Management District, said.

The Clean Air Act set a target of exposing only one American in a million to the risk of cancer through bad air quality. In Los Angeles, that index is now at 470 per million, the study found, while in neighbouring Burbank, 483 per million are at risk.

Smoking is still more dangerous than breathing the air in Los Angeles - 250 times more dangerous for an adult with a one-packet-a-day habit, according to the report.

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