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SENSORY, SYMPTOMATIC, INFLAMMATORY, AND OCULAR RESPONSES TO AND THE METABOLISM OF METHYL TERTIARY BUTYL ETHER IN A CONTROLLED HUMAN EXPOSURE EXPERIMENT
Citation:
Prah, J., G. Goldstein, R. Devlin, D. Otto, AND e. al. SENSORY, SYMPTOMATIC, INFLAMMATORY, AND OCULAR RESPONSES TO AND THE METABOLISM OF METHYL TERTIARY BUTYL ETHER IN A CONTROLLED HUMAN EXPOSURE EXPERIMENT. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., EPA/600/J-95/087, 1994.
Description:
In response to elevated ambient carbon monoxide (CO) due to incomplete combustion of automotive fuels, the Clear Air Act mandates that CO reduction be obtained by adding oxygenates to the fuel (oxyfuel) in areas of non-attainment. In 1992 the addition of methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) to automotive fuel resulted in complaints of illness in some parts of the country. Symptoms reported in Alaska consisted of headache and two or more of the following symptoms nasal, throat, or ocular irritation, nausea or vomiting, dizziness, or sensations of "spaciness" or disorientation. A chamber exposure experiment was conducted to determine if the symptoms reported were related to MTBE exposure. Male and female subjects (N=37) were exposed in a repeated-measures design to clean air and 1.39 ppm MTBE for one hour. Exposures were separated by at least one week. Symptoms questionnaires were completed pre- and during exposure. Cognitive testing was completed once during exposure. Objective measures of ocular and nasal irritation were obtained pre- and post-exposure. Four questions relating to air quality, odor strength, headache, and nasal irritation, were considered confirmatory hypotheses. All other measures were exploratory. The only significant confirmatory result was a difference in air quality rating driven by the rating of clean air quality by the female subjects as being better than the MTBE. No other measures, object or cognitive approached significance. These results indicate that in young, healthy subjects a one-hour exposure does not increase symptom reporting or result in increases in objective markers of inflammation. Two subjects also participated in a pharmacokinetics study in which blood samples were obtained before, during, and seven hours post-exposure.