Car Air Conditioning causes cancer?

[bodeh6]

I received this thru chain mail by a friend. Wondering if there is any truth to it.

Quote:
Maybe this is the reason so many have been getting cancer now. We all ride in cars!!!

Car A/C (Air Conditioning) MUST READ!!!
No wonder folks are dying from cancer more than ever before. We wonder where this stuff comes from but here is an example that may explain some of the cancer causing incidents. Please pass this on to as many people as possible. Guess it's never too late to make some changes!! Do NOT turn on A/C as soon as you enter the car.

After you enter your car, OPEN the windows and WAIT a couple of minutes BEFORE turning on your air-conditioning!!

HERE’S WHY:
According to research, the car dashboard emits Benzene, a cancer causing toxin, into the air of your car. Have you ever noticed the smell of heated plastic in your car?
In addition, Benzene poisons your bones, causes anemia and reduces white blood cells. Prolonged exposure could cause Leukemia, increasing the risk of cancer. It may also cause miscarriage. Benzene is a toxin that also affects your kidneys and liver. What's worse, it is extremely difficult for your body to expel this toxic stuff.
Acceptable Benzene level indoors is 50mg per sq ft. A car parked indoors with windows closed will contain 400-800mg of Benzene. If parked outdoors under the sun at a temperature above 60 deg F. the Benzene level goes up to 2000-4000mg, 40 times the acceptable level.
People who get into the car, keeping windows closed will inevitably inhale in quick succession, excessive amounts of the toxin.

So friends, please open the windows and allow the car to air out before you close it up and turn your air on.
When someone shares something of value with you and you benefit from it, you have a moral obligation to share it with others. Please send this to all your family and friends.

 

[rjacket]

Yes I think many things in modern life are to blame for things like cancer as well as heart disease, diabetes and other ailments that people never used to get before.

I am a firm believer that our modern food chain is the biggest cause of cancer but I've also read that the amount of chemicals in our cars is through the roof.

 

[Geo_Prizm]

wow

 

[IndyIan]

For the same reason its never good to use the recirculate option in the car, even in smog, the air inside the car quickly gets worse than almost any condition outside.

 

[JHZR2]

This is very plausible. The plasticizers are volatile and they do release. High temperature means that they are more likely to vaporize.

Now, is it a concentration that is high enough to cause cancer in the way they describe it being so bad for you? Not sure... however, it is plausible that this is yet another exposure to bad stuff in relatively high concentrations as compared to what we encounter in nature, and exposure to this stuff isnt good.

IMO, it is smart, regardless, to let the car air out a bit. If nothing else, when the car is closed and AC is running, the car cools a bit faster...

 

[Boomer]

Vinyl plasticizers are generally phthalates and do not have a significant vapor pressure! Others are adipates and similar esters, not unlike the esters used in motor oils. All are fairly high molecular weight. Benzene? As a vinyl formulator, I can tell you that there is no benzene in compounded vinyl. Typical adds are the plasticizers, sometimes a small amount of aliphatic mineral spirits, colorants, and stabilizers such as barium and/or zinc sats. In the US it is illegal to use lead or cadmium compounds as stabilizers like it is in the Far East.

This stuff circulates on the Internet and sounds so real...you take it as gospel but if someone said there was raw benzene in motor oil, BITOG folks would be all over it!

 

[mechanicx]

I don't know about all that, but R12 was much safer than R134a. R134a has been known to cause death if enough is inhaled. I don't know about the ozone depletion claims for R12, and if I had minute leakage at the evaporator I would rather be inhaling R12 than R134a. Also R134a seems more prone to leakage which is the real problem anyway.

 

[willix]

That all may be true but only if you drive a Subaru.

Given the time & the money, in the end everything known to man will cause cancer.

 

[Deltona_Dave]

I would not go so far as to say R-12 was safer than R-134a. Both are harmful if inhaled. R-12 would be nastier in your lungs, as it was chlorine based. When chlorine gets into your lungs, it combines with the moisture and becomes hydrochloric acid. Then your lungs become mush.

r-134a is also nasty and uses "eco-friendly" chemicals to kill more humanely.

Just my .02

Dave

 

[05ChevyI5]

Originally Posted By: mechanicx
I don't know about all that, but R12 was much safer than R134a. R134a has been known to cause death if enough is inhaled. I don't know about the ozone depletion claims for R12, and if I had minute leakage at the evaporator I would rather be inhaling R12 than R134a. Also R134a seems more prone to leakage which is the real problem anyway.

Any refrigerant can cause death if inhaled in large concentrations. They displace O2 as well. R134a leaks no worse than R12 if used in systems orginally designed for R134a. R134a retro's in auto R12 systems do in fact leak more because of the smaller molecule. Barrier hoses are used in new auto R134a systems to address this. R12 has more ozone depletion potential being a CFC. R134a HCFC's (hydrochlorofluorocarbons) differ from CFC's in that only
some, rather than all, of the hydrogen in the parent hydrocarbon
has been replaced by chlorine or fluorine. The most familiar
example is CHClF2, known as "HCFC-22", used as a refrigerant and
in many home air conditioners (auto air conditioners use HCFC-134a).
The hydrogen atom makes the molecule susceptible to attack by the
hydroxyl (OH) radical, so a large fraction of the HCFC's are
destroyed before they reach the stratosphere. Molecule for
molecule, then, HCFC's destroy much less ozone than CFC's, and
they were suggested as CFC substitutes as long ago as 1976.

 

[ahoier]

My first thought was "HOW" considering NEWER cars have all these fancy air filters, [censored], I think it was Cadillac or Lexus even has "air ionizer" in their car now...though that form of air purification has it's disputes too.....

But yea, I know that smell....I've owned 2 "pre owned" (within 2 years) and recognized that smell, which is why I ALWAYS drove with the windows down. Barely ever used the A/C....

 

[Cutehumor]

that new car smell is also bad for you from what I heard in the past. good thing, I drive vehicles until they croak. I will only have to suffer that new car smell about 5-6 times in my life.

 

[mechanicx]

Still R134a is more leak prone all things being equal, and the leaks can be harder to detect, the oil it uses, typically PAG, absorbs moisture, and it is more toxic than R12. R12 just flat worked better. The only reason for switching to R134a was for eviro and ozone depletion concerns. I don't know that it actually depletes ozone has been proven. I kind of look at it like global warming, that was shown to be based on even fabricated numbers.

 

[JimPghPA]

Originally Posted By: Boomer
Vinyl plasticizers are generally phthalates and do not have a significant vapor pressure! Others are adipates and similar esters, not unlike the esters used in motor oils. All are fairly high molecular weight. Benzene? As a vinyl formulator, I can tell you that there is no benzene in compounded vinyl. Typical adds are the plasticizers, sometimes a small amount of aliphatic mineral spirits, colorants, and stabilizers such as barium and/or zinc sats. In the US it is illegal to use lead or cadmium compounds as stabilizers like it is in the Far East.

This stuff circulates on the Internet and sounds so real...you take it as gospel but if someone said there was raw benzene in motor oil, BITOG folks would be all over it!


Just saw the TV show (60 minutes) a few days ago about a new laws outlawing phthalates in kids toys. The TV show had a piece about phthalates causing cancer in lab mice. But it also had something about it not causing cancer in lab monkeys. Then they commented monkeys are closer to man than mice, so phthalates might not be a problem. But it is still believed by many that they should not be allowed in kids toy. If it does not belong in kids toys then it does not belong in anything else humans contact. Final verdict, the safety of phthalates is an unknown, but there is enough concern to not use them any more. If it is a law to not have them in kids toys today, it will probably be a law to not have them in many other things in the near future.

 

[mechanicx]

I've noticed that new cars lately have almost no new car smell. A few years back I noticed cars had a strong new car smell. Anyone else notice this?

 

[bluestream]

Originally Posted By: mechanicx
Still R134a is more leak prone all things being equal, and the leaks can be harder to detect, the oil it uses, typically PAG, absorbs moisture, and it is more toxic than R12. R12 just flat worked better. The only reason for switching to R134a was for eviro and ozone depletion concerns. I don't know that it actually depletes ozone has been proven. I kind of look at it like global warming, that was shown to be based on even fabricated numbers.


I guess that make you a skeptic.... BTW the term in now "climate change" not global warming.

If it helps you, this is the first year in my 52 years that we received no snow this winter. Oh, and April was warmer than May.

 

[mechanicx]

And where I live we had record snow and cold. Some years you have a bad Winters and sometimes not. Usually the claim is the globe has been warming some fraction of a degree a year, so it's not a drastic noticable change. Climate change has been happening for millions of years before there was industrialized man. It's easy to point the finger at man-made causes, a lot harder to prove. So yeah call me a skeptic.

 

[L_Sludger]

Hmm...
Which will cause me to get cancer faster?
1) Diesel particulate soot blown in my face from having the window down; or
2) A/C on, set to recirc?

 

[crinkles]

feasible... there are many other things though too.

 

[Boomer]

Sucking on toys with phthalates is one thing. And even there, the real evidence sdoes not support what you see in the popular press. A dashboard with phthalates is about as likely to cause you harm as the cured paint on your car's exterior. Many thousands of people work in plants where there are literally clouds of phthalates coming off of 400 F vinyl goods as they are produced and not one event of cancer can be directly attributed to this over many decades.

So let's not confuse the truth with something conjured up by the "press".