How Volkswagen Caused Sickness To Thousands Of Children
It was four years ago when Volkswagen took the spotlight for a scandal that questioned the brand’s integrity. According to revelations from regulators, they found that the German car manufacturer falsely claimed that it is using clean diesel which led to the sales of millions of vehicles all over the globe. The information took the industry and brands such as AFE by storm as it was unexpected from a company deemed as one of the most credible in the market.
The truth is that the clean diesel they are claiming is actually not clean. They were able to support the false claim by using software that altered the engine’s operation while it was being tested for emission. Thus, the result is that these vehicles made by Volkswagen passed as low-emissions models. In fact, their vehicles are emitting pollutants found to be at very dangerous levels as it is 150 times compared to the emissions of a regular car.
With this discovery, researchers decided to conduct a study regarding the effects of these fraud emission test results to the community. They focused on areas with low and high numbers of these so-called cheating cars and found that communities with high cheating cars count have higher level of air pollution and more infants are born with poor health.
The effect of the cheating cars is very notable especially when it comes to determining its impact on babies. For instance, one cheating car in every 1,000 vehicles contributes to an increase of 10 per cent in car exhaust which is equivalent to a 2 per cent rise in fine particles. These numbers is found to have increased the incidence of low birth weight by 1.9 per cent.
These side effects are more significant on infants but it also affects the health of older children. The study revealed that there is a rise of 8 per cent in cases of emergency room visits due to asthma. This is why brands such as AFE are advocating for high quality air intake system and exhaust because the consequence is deadly to every human exposed.
