MPs hear conflicting evidence on vehicle emissions and health

Oil companies and lead additives producer Associated Octel have presented the House of Commons Transport Committee with strongly conflicting evidence on the health hazards of benzene emissions from vehicles. Meanwhile, the Department of Health played down the significance of a recent study which established a link between a severe pollution episode and increased mortality in London in 1991 - and shrugged off suggestions that traffic emissions may be an important cause of leukaemia and asthma.