Mehlman M A
University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Environmental and Community Medicine, Piscataway, USA.
Toxicol Ind Health. 1996 Sep-Oct;12(5):613-27. doi: 10.1177/074823379601200502.
Methyl tertiary butyl ether has caused the following cancers in rats and mice: kidney, testicular, liver, lymphomas, and leukemias. Thus, in the absence of adequate data on humans, it is biologically plausible and prudent to regard methyl tertiary butyl ether-for which there is sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in experimental animals-as a probable human carcinogen. This means that some humans are at extreme risk of contracting cancers resulting from their exposure to oxygenated gasoline containing methyl tertiary butyl ether. Immediately after the introduction of methyl tertiary butyl ether into gasoline, many consumers of this product in New Jersey, New York, Alaska, Maine, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Arizona, Montana, Massachusetts, California, and other areas, experienced a variety of neurotoxic, allergic, and respiratory illnesses. These illnesses were similar to those suffered by refinery workers from the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers Union who mixed methyl tertiary butyl ether with gasoline. Additionally, these illnesses occurred following exposure to extremely low levels of methyl tertiary butyl ether in gasoline, particularly when compared to the adverse health effects that occurred only after exposure to very high levels of conventional gasoline. Thus, gasoline containing methyl tertiary butyl ether exhibited substantially more toxicity in humans than gasoline without this additive. A number of oil industry-sponsored or influenced reports alleged that these illnesses were either unrelated to exposure to reformulated gasoline or were characteristic of some yet-to-be-identified communicable disease. These studies further alleged that the widespread concern was not about illness, but was merely a reaction to the odor and the five cent increase in the price of gasoline. To clarify the significance of this issue, it is important to note that consumers have been using gasoline for many decades, with complaints only occurring following exposure to high levels at 100s ppm or higher. After the introduction of methyl tertiary butyl ether gasoline there were thousands of human health complaints. The sudden increase in widespread illnesses from which many thousands of individuals throughout the United States began to suffer immediately following the introduction of methyl tertiary butyl ether into gasoline provides strong and unquestionable evidence that gasoline containing methyl tertiary butyl ether is associated with human illnesses. When considering the severity of the illnesses in humans, it is prudent that this highly dangerous chemical be promptly removed from gasoline and comprehensive studies be conducted to assess the long-term effects that human may experience in the future from past and current exposure.
肾癌、睾丸癌、肝癌、淋巴瘤和白血病。因此，鉴于缺乏关于人类的充分数据，将甲基叔丁基醚（在实验动物中有充分的致癌证据）视为可能的人类致癌物在生物学上是合理且谨慎的。这意味着一些人因接触含甲基叔丁基醚的含氧汽油而面临患癌的极高风险。在甲基叔丁基醚被引入汽油后不久，新泽西州、纽约州、阿拉斯加州、缅因州、宾夕法尼亚州、科罗拉多州、亚利桑那州、蒙大拿州、马萨诸塞州、加利福尼亚州及其他地区的许多该产品消费者出现了各种神经毒性、过敏和呼吸系统疾病。这些疾病与石油、化学和原子工人工会中混合甲基叔丁基醚与汽油的炼油厂工人所患疾病相似。此外，这些疾病是在接触汽油中极低水平的甲基叔丁基醚后出现的，特别是与仅在接触非常高浓度的传统汽油后才出现的不良健康影响相比。因此，含甲基叔丁基醚的汽油在人类身上表现出的毒性比不含这种添加剂的汽油大得多。一些由石油行业赞助或受其影响的报告称，这些疾病要么与接触重新配方的汽油无关，要么是某种尚未确定的传染病的特征。这些研究还称，广泛的担忧并非关于疾病，而仅仅是对气味和汽油价格每加仑上涨五美分的反应。为了阐明这个问题的重要性，需要注意的是，消费者使用汽油已有数十年，此前只有在接触浓度达到数百ppm或更高的高浓度汽油时才会出现投诉。在引入含甲基叔丁基醚的汽油后，出现了数千起关于人类健康的投诉。在将甲基叔丁基醚引入汽油后，美国各地成千上万的人立即开始遭受的广泛疾病的突然增加，提供了强有力且无可置疑的证据，证明含甲基叔丁基醚的汽油与人类疾病有关。考虑到人类疾病的严重性，明智的做法是立即从汽油中去除这种高度危险的化学物质，并进行全面研究，以评估人类未来可能因过去和当前的接触而经历的长期影响。
