29-01-2018, 19:55
...rigeno (no cabia todo en el titulo)
https://m.xataka.com/medicina-y-salud/vo...-stz-y-swr
Volkswagen, BMW y Mercedes financiaron estudios con humanos para probar que el diésel no es cancerígeno, según StZ y SWR
Volkswagen, BMW y Mercedes financiaron estudios con humanos para probar que el diésel no es cancerígeno, según StZ y SWR
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13 COMENTARIOS
Javier Jiménez
hace 4 horas - Actualizado 29 Enero 2018, 17:15
El jueves, el New York Times informó que una investigación del EUGT (un grupo disuelto desde el año pasado financiado por los pesos pesados de la industria automovilística alemana: Volkswagen, BMW y Daimler, el fabricante de Mercedes) había usado monos para encontrar evidencia experimental contra la decisión de la OMS de calificar los gases de los motores diésel como cancerígenos.
Según el NYT, el EUGT había expuesto a diez monos a gases de este tipo en un laboratorio de Albuquerque (Nuevo México) en 2014. La condena fue unánime, pero nadie se imaginaba que, según han sacado a la luz varios medios alemanes, los experimentos se habían realizado también con humanos.
Pruebas que "no pueden justificarse éticamente de ninguna manera"
dfdsf
Durante el fin de semana, varios medios alemanes, el Stuttgarter Zeitung y la emisora SWR, han presentado pruebas de que al menos 19 hombres y 6 mujeres fueron sometidos a ambientes altamente contaminados para demostrar que el diésel no era cancerígeno. Las pruebas duraron un mes y se llevaron a cabo en Aachen, al oeste de Alemania, siempre según estos medios.
Las empresas condenaron y se desvincularon de los experimentos durante el fin de semana. Y Steffen Seisert, el portavoz del gobierno de Angela Merkel, ha dicho que “estas pruebas en monos o incluso en humanos no pueden justificarse éticamente de ninguna manera”. Toda la oposición está pidiendo explicaciones.
Pero llueve sobre mojado. Tras el Dieselgate, el escándalo de emisiones contaminantes de vehículos de Volkswagen, los principales medios del país señalan directamente al lobby del automóvil y su fuerza en la política alemana como causantes de una "sensación de impunidad" capaz de saltarse las más básicas normas éticas.
La experimentación humana ha sido un tema tradicionalmente muy delicado en Alemania y, por el momento, no está nada claro cuál será el impacto de esta revelación. Sin embargo, parece evidente que la sucesión de escándalos públicos está dejando sin credibilidad a la industria del automóvil.
Más en Motorpasion | Los primeros en experimentar el fraude de las emisiones de Volkswagen fueron 10 monos en una cámara de gas
https://m.motorpasion.com/industria/los-...ara-de-gas
Los primeros en experimentar el fraude de las emisiones de Volkswagen fueron 10 monos en una cámara de gas
Los primeros en experimentar el fraude de las emisiones de Volkswagen fueron 10 monos en una cámara de gas
Compartir 174 Twitter Email
× Europa sigue confiando en Volkswagen y alimenta un récord de ventas que supera los 6,2 millones de unidades en 2017
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Europa sigue confiando en Volkswagen y alimenta un récord de ventas que supera los 6,2 millones de unidades en 2017
PUBLICIDAD
42 COMENTARIOS
Daniel Murias
27 Enero 2018, 18:01 - Actualizado 29 Enero 2018, 15:49
El escándalo de las emisiones de CO2 de algunos modelos de Volkswagen, y de otros modelos del grupo, estalló hace ya unos años. Pero no fue hasta ahora que el New York Times descubrió que diez monos estuvieron encerrados en una habitación de un laboratorio y obligados a respirar los humos de un diésel.
El experimento formaba parte de la campaña del fabricante alemán en Estados Unidos en la que contrataba a científicos para llevar a cabo estudios que pudiesen demostrar que el diésel es respetuoso con el medio ambiente. Los científicos que participaron en el estudio no sabían que el Volkswagen Beetle utilizado equipaba el software que permitía hacer trampa en las pruebas de emisiones.
Monos dieselgate
Los detalles de este experimento llevado a cabo en Albuquerque en 2014 se hicieron públicos en una demanda contra Volkswagen en Estados Unidos, explican en The Times. Los diez macacos en cuestión, una especie habitualmente utilizada en ensayos clínicos, simplemente estaban en una habitación viendo dibujos animados. En otra sala, un Volkswagen Beetle en un banco de rodillos simulaba una conducción normal mientras los gases de escape eran enviados dentro de la habitación de los monos.
El estudio no arrojó una conclusión determinante. Vamos, que no sirvió para nada. Y es que la contaminación, especialmente la de los NOx, no es exclusivamente culpa del diésel.
Estalla el Dieselgate
Dieselgate monos
Sin embargo, no fue hasta 2015 que Volkswagen reconoció el uso de un software que le permitía hacer trampas en las prueba de emisiones. El software en cuestión equipó 11 millones de coches diésel del grupo VAG en todo el mundo. El llamado Dieselgate ha costado hasta ahora 30.000 millones de dólares, según Reuters.
También ha provocado la detención de ocho personas, entre ellas James Liang (el ingeniero que diseñó el software) condenado a más de tres años de cárcel. Y por último ha hecho que Volkswagen se pusiese las pilas con la electrificación de sus coches para lavar su imagen.
Un estudio financiado por Volkswagen, Daimler y BMW
Volkswagen Beetle Us Spec
Ahora bien, Volkswagen no es la única responsable de lo que parece un ensayo de lo más grotesco. El estudio fue realizado a petición del “European Research Group on Environment and Health in the Transport Sector” cuya financiación provenía de Volksagen, Daimer y BMW.
Fue fundado en 2007 cuando los fabricantes alemanes, especialmente Volkswagen, se preparaban para comercializar sus modelos diésel en Estados Unidos. Entonces ya no era un carburante que gustaba a los estadounidenses y las restricciones en emisiones eran más severas que en Europa. Este instituto cerró sus puertas en 2017 debido a la controversia suscitada por su trabajo.
El estudio realizado en Albuquerque contó con el beneplácito de un comité de asesoramiento compuesto por científicos de prestigiosas universidades y centros de investigación, aseguran en Daimler. Eso sí, ni Daimler ni BMW estaban al tanto que el Volkswagen Beetle utilizado equipaba el software fraudulento.
Esta historia, que puedes leer al completo en el New York Times, no es más que un nuevo y absurdo episodio del Dieselgate. Después de la excusa barata de “enviamos un email el fin de semana para avisar”, ahora nos tenemos que enterar de este sorprendente estudio.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/01/25/wo...ara-de-gas
10 Monkeys and a Beetle: Inside VW’s Campaign for ‘Clean Diesel’
Image
Testing a Volkswagen Golf in California in September 2015. That month, the carmaker admitted that it had installed illegal software to help its cars evade standards on diesel emissions.CreditPatrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg
By Jack Ewing
Jan. 25, 2018
FRANKFURT — In 2014, as evidence mounted about the harmful effects of diesel exhaust on human health, scientists in an Albuquerque laboratory conducted an unusual experiment: Ten monkeys squatted in airtight chambers, watching cartoons for entertainment as they inhaled fumes from a diesel Volkswagen Beetle.
German automakers had financed the experiment in an attempt to prove that diesel vehicles with the latest technology were cleaner than the smoky models of old. But the American scientists conducting the test were unaware of one critical fact: The Beetle provided by Volkswagen had been rigged to produce pollution levels that were far less harmful in the lab than they were on the road.
The results were being deliberately manipulated.
The Albuquerque monkey research, which has not been previously reported, is a new dimension in a global emissions scandal that has already forced Volkswagen to plead guilty to federal fraud and conspiracy charges in the United States and to pay more than $26 billion in fines.
The company admitted to installing software in vehicles that enabled them to cheat on emissions tests. But legal proceedings and government records show that Volkswagen and other European automakers were also engaged in a prolonged, well-financed effort to produce academic research that they hoped would influence political debate and preserve tax privileges for diesel fuel.
The details of the Albuquerque experiment have been disclosed in a lawsuit brought against Volkswagen in the United States, offering a rare window into the world of industry-backed academic research. The organization that commissioned the study, the European Research Group on Environment and Health in the Transport Sector, received all of its funding from Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW. It shut down last year amid controversy over its work.
The organization, known by its German initials, E.U.G.T., did not do any research itself. Rather, it hired scientists to conduct studies that might defend the use of diesel. It sponsored research that challenged a 2012 decision by the World Health Organization to classify diesel exhaust as a carcinogen. It financed studies that cast doubt on whether banning older diesel vehicles from cities reduced pollution. It produced a skeptical assessment of data showing that diesel pollution far exceeded permitted levels in cities like Barcelona, Spain.
Image
Rush hour in London, one of the many European cities that restrict diesel traffic.CreditDan Kitwood/Getty Images
Industries like food, chemicals and pharmaceuticals have a long history of supporting research that advances their political agendas. But the automakers’ group consistently promoted the industry’s claim that diesel was environmentally friendly — a claim now undercut by the Volkswagen scandal.
Margaret Douglas, the chairwoman of a panel that advises the Scottish public health system on pollution issues, compared the automakers’ behavior to the tobacco industry. Just as the tobacco companies promoted nicotine addiction, Ms. Douglas said, the carmakers lobbied for tax breaks that made European drivers dependent on diesel.
“There are a lot of parallels between the industries in the way they try to downplay the harm and encourage people to become addicted,” Ms. Douglas said.
Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW said the research group did legitimate scientific work. “All of the research work commissioned with the E.U.G.T. was accompanied and reviewed by a research advisory committee consisting of scientists from renowned universities and research institutes,” Daimler said in a statement.
Daimler and BMW said they were unaware that the Volkswagen used in the Albuquerque monkey tests had been set up to produce false data. Volkswagen said in a statement that the researchers had never managed to publish a complete study.
It wasn’t for lack of trying.
Documents produced in legal proceedings show that in August 2016 Michael Spallek, the director of the automakers’ research group, emailed the Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute, the Albuquerque organization that conducted the tests with monkeys. “The E.U.G.T. point of view is that it’s time to try to finalize the report and to present or discuss the problems of the study in a scientific way ASAP,” Mr. Spallek wrote.
That was almost a year after Volkswagen admitted to equipping millions of diesel vehicles sold in the United States and Europe with illegal “defeat devices” that cranked up pollution controls when software detected that testing was being done in a lab. At other times, the controls were turned off, allowing the cars to produce more nitrogen oxides than a long-haul truck.
How Volkswagen’s ‘Defeat Devices’ Worked
Volkswagen admitted that 11 million of its vehicles were equipped with software that was used to cheat on emissions tests. This is how the technology works and what it now means for vehicle owners.
Oct. 8, 2015
Mr. Spallek declined to comment, saying his contract prohibited him from discussing the research group’s work.
In the 1990s, carmakers used their political clout to persuade European leaders that diesel helped fight climate change because it burns more efficiently than gasoline. As a result, almost all European countries now tax diesel at a lower rate than gasoline, making it cheaper at the pump.
The carmakers maintained that modern technology had solved diesel’s big downside: emissions of nitrogen oxides and fine soot particles that can contribute to asthma, heart attacks and cancer.
David King, a former chief scientific adviser to the British government, recalled being taken to a lab in the early 2000s where 10 diesel vehicles were running on rollers. The air was so clean that Mr. King, an asthmatic, could breathe freely.
What Mr. King did not know is that most European automakers had built their diesel cars to pass laboratory emissions tests and no more. On the road, according to recent studies by the governments of Britain, France and Germany, diesel cars by almost all European manufacturers spewed toxic gases in quantities far above those allowed by law.
“We were all misled by the car manufacturers,” Mr. King said in an interview.
The toll on public health has become impossible to ignore. In 2012, 72,000 people in Europe died prematurely because of nitrogen dioxide pollution, which comes primarily from diesel vehicles, according to a report released last year by a committee of the European Parliament.
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Research sponsored by industry “all has the same fundamental aim,” said Joachim Heinrich, an environmental health expert at the University of Munich who has spent his career studying the effects of air pollution, “namely to weaken or discredit regulation — to say ‘the evidence is not that clear,’ ‘we shouldn’t take it so seriously,’ ‘we need to think more about it.’”
Image
From left: Dieter Zetsche, the Daimler chairman; Matthias Müller, the Volkswagen chief executive; Matthias Wissmann, president of the German Automobile Industry Association; and Harald Krüger, the BMW chief executive, in Berlin last year after a summit meeting on the future of diesel vehicles.CreditAxel Schmidt/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The automakers’ research group was created in 2007, as Volkswagen was readying a major push to market diesel technology in the United States, which has stricter limits on nitrogen oxide emissions than Europe. Mr. Spallek, the executive director, had been the chief medical officer of Volkswagen’s commercial vehicles division.
The negative health effects of diesel were starting to attract more attention. Zones where diesel was restricted were proliferating in Europe, posing a threat to automakers because the areas discourage sales of diesels.
In response, the research group financed two studies that concluded that low-emissions zones had only a marginal effect on pollution levels. But the studies used dubious methodology, the German Federal Environment Agency said in a report released last year.
The industry group’s studies on low emissions zones were influential, however. They were cited in reports by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, a public body in Britain that provides guidance on health care.
Elsewhere, a regional court in Austria cited the research in a 2014 ruling against residents of Graz who had sued to force officials to restrict diesel traffic. The decision, by the State Administrative Court for the province of Styria, called the study “thorough” and said it showed that the effect of low-emissions zones on fine soot pollution was “less than expected.” The decision did not mention that the study had been financed by the auto industry.
Officials at the research group also sought to influence public debate. In 2016, Helmut Greim, the chairman of the group’s research advisory board, testified before the German Parliament that it was impossible to establish a direct link between nitrogen dioxide pollution and lung ailments. Mr. Greim is a longtime bête noire for environmental activists, who say he consistently takes the industry point of view.
Mr. Greim, 82, said in an interview that the group’s research was independent and published only in peer-reviewed journals. During an interview in Munich, he said that fear of nitrogen dioxide pollution was “completely overblown.”
Engineering a Deception: What Led to Volkswagen’s Diesel Scandal
In September 2015, Volkswagen was accused of evading emissions standards in the U.S. The scandal has hit the company hard.
March 16, 2017
The research group intended the Albuquerque experiment to be a rebuttal to a 2012 finding by a division of the World Health Organization that had classified diesel exhaust as a carcinogen.
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The automakers’ research group set out to show that new diesel vehicles were better. It hired the Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute, an established research center that has also done work for the Environmental Protection Agency, to conduct a study that would compare emissions from a late-model Volkswagen with those of a 1999 Ford diesel pickup.
The tests were conducted in 2014 using 10 cynomolgus macaque monkeys, a breed used extensively in medical experiments, according to the legal records.
Volkswagen took a lead role in the study. Company engineers supervised the installation of a treadmill that would allow the vehicles to run on rollers while equipment sucked exhaust from the tailpipes.
The gas was then diluted and fed into chambers containing the monkeys. To keep the animals calm during the four hours they breathed fumes, lab workers set up a television showing cartoons.
“They like to watch cartoons,” Jake McDonald, the Lovelace scientist who oversaw the experiments, said in a sworn deposition taken last year as part of a lawsuit by Volkswagen diesel owners seeking damages beyond those provided for in a class-action settlement.
Dr. McDonald said he did not know the Volkswagen Beetle was equipped with software that recognized when the car was being tested on a treadmill. The software did not interfere with the filter that removed carcinogenic fine soot particles from the exhaust, a technology that has in fact improved significantly.
Image
The Eiffel Tower shrouded by smog last year. Pollution’s toll on public health has become impossible to ignore.CreditPhilippe Wojazer/Reuters
But it cranked up controls so that nitrogen dioxide pollution, which has been linked to asthma, bronchitis, heart attacks and possibly lung cancer, was only a small fraction of what it would be during normal driving.
Even so, the study did not provide a clear finding. The researchers struggled to produce a paper that they could publish, a condition for receiving full payment.
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In the August 2016 email, Mr. Spallek complained about numerous flaws with the methodology used by the Lovelace research team. But he never mentioned the illegal software that had caused the Beetle to produce artificially low emissions.
Discussions about publishing the study continued until last year, according to Dr. McDonald. A lawyer for Volkswagen, Michael Steinberg, implied during cross-examination that Dr. McDonald had pushed to publish the results so that the institute could collect $71,000 owed under the contract.
Dr. McDonald disputed that assertion. “The decision to continue,” he said in an emailed statement, “was the choice of the client.”
Although Dr. McDonald and other employees at the institute exchanged emails about the Volkswagen defeat device after its exposure in 2015, Dr. McDonald testified that he had not followed the Volkswagen case closely and had realized only recently that the Beetle used in the tests was manipulated to produce artificially low emissions.
“I feel like a chump,” Dr. McDonald said.
https://m.xataka.com/medicina-y-salud/vo...-stz-y-swr
Volkswagen, BMW y Mercedes financiaron estudios con humanos para probar que el diésel no es cancerígeno, según StZ y SWR
Volkswagen, BMW y Mercedes financiaron estudios con humanos para probar que el diésel no es cancerígeno, según StZ y SWR
Compartir 812 TWITTER EMAIL
PUBLICIDAD
13 COMENTARIOS
Javier Jiménez
hace 4 horas - Actualizado 29 Enero 2018, 17:15
El jueves, el New York Times informó que una investigación del EUGT (un grupo disuelto desde el año pasado financiado por los pesos pesados de la industria automovilística alemana: Volkswagen, BMW y Daimler, el fabricante de Mercedes) había usado monos para encontrar evidencia experimental contra la decisión de la OMS de calificar los gases de los motores diésel como cancerígenos.
Según el NYT, el EUGT había expuesto a diez monos a gases de este tipo en un laboratorio de Albuquerque (Nuevo México) en 2014. La condena fue unánime, pero nadie se imaginaba que, según han sacado a la luz varios medios alemanes, los experimentos se habían realizado también con humanos.
Pruebas que "no pueden justificarse éticamente de ninguna manera"
dfdsf
Durante el fin de semana, varios medios alemanes, el Stuttgarter Zeitung y la emisora SWR, han presentado pruebas de que al menos 19 hombres y 6 mujeres fueron sometidos a ambientes altamente contaminados para demostrar que el diésel no era cancerígeno. Las pruebas duraron un mes y se llevaron a cabo en Aachen, al oeste de Alemania, siempre según estos medios.
Las empresas condenaron y se desvincularon de los experimentos durante el fin de semana. Y Steffen Seisert, el portavoz del gobierno de Angela Merkel, ha dicho que “estas pruebas en monos o incluso en humanos no pueden justificarse éticamente de ninguna manera”. Toda la oposición está pidiendo explicaciones.
Pero llueve sobre mojado. Tras el Dieselgate, el escándalo de emisiones contaminantes de vehículos de Volkswagen, los principales medios del país señalan directamente al lobby del automóvil y su fuerza en la política alemana como causantes de una "sensación de impunidad" capaz de saltarse las más básicas normas éticas.
La experimentación humana ha sido un tema tradicionalmente muy delicado en Alemania y, por el momento, no está nada claro cuál será el impacto de esta revelación. Sin embargo, parece evidente que la sucesión de escándalos públicos está dejando sin credibilidad a la industria del automóvil.
Más en Motorpasion | Los primeros en experimentar el fraude de las emisiones de Volkswagen fueron 10 monos en una cámara de gas
https://m.motorpasion.com/industria/los-...ara-de-gas
Los primeros en experimentar el fraude de las emisiones de Volkswagen fueron 10 monos en una cámara de gas
Los primeros en experimentar el fraude de las emisiones de Volkswagen fueron 10 monos en una cámara de gas
Compartir 174 Twitter Email
× Europa sigue confiando en Volkswagen y alimenta un récord de ventas que supera los 6,2 millones de unidades en 2017
Te puede interesar:
Europa sigue confiando en Volkswagen y alimenta un récord de ventas que supera los 6,2 millones de unidades en 2017
PUBLICIDAD
42 COMENTARIOS
Daniel Murias
27 Enero 2018, 18:01 - Actualizado 29 Enero 2018, 15:49
El escándalo de las emisiones de CO2 de algunos modelos de Volkswagen, y de otros modelos del grupo, estalló hace ya unos años. Pero no fue hasta ahora que el New York Times descubrió que diez monos estuvieron encerrados en una habitación de un laboratorio y obligados a respirar los humos de un diésel.
El experimento formaba parte de la campaña del fabricante alemán en Estados Unidos en la que contrataba a científicos para llevar a cabo estudios que pudiesen demostrar que el diésel es respetuoso con el medio ambiente. Los científicos que participaron en el estudio no sabían que el Volkswagen Beetle utilizado equipaba el software que permitía hacer trampa en las pruebas de emisiones.
Monos dieselgate
Los detalles de este experimento llevado a cabo en Albuquerque en 2014 se hicieron públicos en una demanda contra Volkswagen en Estados Unidos, explican en The Times. Los diez macacos en cuestión, una especie habitualmente utilizada en ensayos clínicos, simplemente estaban en una habitación viendo dibujos animados. En otra sala, un Volkswagen Beetle en un banco de rodillos simulaba una conducción normal mientras los gases de escape eran enviados dentro de la habitación de los monos.
El estudio no arrojó una conclusión determinante. Vamos, que no sirvió para nada. Y es que la contaminación, especialmente la de los NOx, no es exclusivamente culpa del diésel.
Estalla el Dieselgate
Dieselgate monos
Sin embargo, no fue hasta 2015 que Volkswagen reconoció el uso de un software que le permitía hacer trampas en las prueba de emisiones. El software en cuestión equipó 11 millones de coches diésel del grupo VAG en todo el mundo. El llamado Dieselgate ha costado hasta ahora 30.000 millones de dólares, según Reuters.
También ha provocado la detención de ocho personas, entre ellas James Liang (el ingeniero que diseñó el software) condenado a más de tres años de cárcel. Y por último ha hecho que Volkswagen se pusiese las pilas con la electrificación de sus coches para lavar su imagen.
Un estudio financiado por Volkswagen, Daimler y BMW
Volkswagen Beetle Us Spec
Ahora bien, Volkswagen no es la única responsable de lo que parece un ensayo de lo más grotesco. El estudio fue realizado a petición del “European Research Group on Environment and Health in the Transport Sector” cuya financiación provenía de Volksagen, Daimer y BMW.
Fue fundado en 2007 cuando los fabricantes alemanes, especialmente Volkswagen, se preparaban para comercializar sus modelos diésel en Estados Unidos. Entonces ya no era un carburante que gustaba a los estadounidenses y las restricciones en emisiones eran más severas que en Europa. Este instituto cerró sus puertas en 2017 debido a la controversia suscitada por su trabajo.
El estudio realizado en Albuquerque contó con el beneplácito de un comité de asesoramiento compuesto por científicos de prestigiosas universidades y centros de investigación, aseguran en Daimler. Eso sí, ni Daimler ni BMW estaban al tanto que el Volkswagen Beetle utilizado equipaba el software fraudulento.
Esta historia, que puedes leer al completo en el New York Times, no es más que un nuevo y absurdo episodio del Dieselgate. Después de la excusa barata de “enviamos un email el fin de semana para avisar”, ahora nos tenemos que enterar de este sorprendente estudio.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/01/25/wo...ara-de-gas
10 Monkeys and a Beetle: Inside VW’s Campaign for ‘Clean Diesel’
Image
Testing a Volkswagen Golf in California in September 2015. That month, the carmaker admitted that it had installed illegal software to help its cars evade standards on diesel emissions.CreditPatrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg
By Jack Ewing
Jan. 25, 2018
FRANKFURT — In 2014, as evidence mounted about the harmful effects of diesel exhaust on human health, scientists in an Albuquerque laboratory conducted an unusual experiment: Ten monkeys squatted in airtight chambers, watching cartoons for entertainment as they inhaled fumes from a diesel Volkswagen Beetle.
German automakers had financed the experiment in an attempt to prove that diesel vehicles with the latest technology were cleaner than the smoky models of old. But the American scientists conducting the test were unaware of one critical fact: The Beetle provided by Volkswagen had been rigged to produce pollution levels that were far less harmful in the lab than they were on the road.
The results were being deliberately manipulated.
The Albuquerque monkey research, which has not been previously reported, is a new dimension in a global emissions scandal that has already forced Volkswagen to plead guilty to federal fraud and conspiracy charges in the United States and to pay more than $26 billion in fines.
The company admitted to installing software in vehicles that enabled them to cheat on emissions tests. But legal proceedings and government records show that Volkswagen and other European automakers were also engaged in a prolonged, well-financed effort to produce academic research that they hoped would influence political debate and preserve tax privileges for diesel fuel.
The details of the Albuquerque experiment have been disclosed in a lawsuit brought against Volkswagen in the United States, offering a rare window into the world of industry-backed academic research. The organization that commissioned the study, the European Research Group on Environment and Health in the Transport Sector, received all of its funding from Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW. It shut down last year amid controversy over its work.
The organization, known by its German initials, E.U.G.T., did not do any research itself. Rather, it hired scientists to conduct studies that might defend the use of diesel. It sponsored research that challenged a 2012 decision by the World Health Organization to classify diesel exhaust as a carcinogen. It financed studies that cast doubt on whether banning older diesel vehicles from cities reduced pollution. It produced a skeptical assessment of data showing that diesel pollution far exceeded permitted levels in cities like Barcelona, Spain.
Image
Rush hour in London, one of the many European cities that restrict diesel traffic.CreditDan Kitwood/Getty Images
Industries like food, chemicals and pharmaceuticals have a long history of supporting research that advances their political agendas. But the automakers’ group consistently promoted the industry’s claim that diesel was environmentally friendly — a claim now undercut by the Volkswagen scandal.
Margaret Douglas, the chairwoman of a panel that advises the Scottish public health system on pollution issues, compared the automakers’ behavior to the tobacco industry. Just as the tobacco companies promoted nicotine addiction, Ms. Douglas said, the carmakers lobbied for tax breaks that made European drivers dependent on diesel.
“There are a lot of parallels between the industries in the way they try to downplay the harm and encourage people to become addicted,” Ms. Douglas said.
Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW said the research group did legitimate scientific work. “All of the research work commissioned with the E.U.G.T. was accompanied and reviewed by a research advisory committee consisting of scientists from renowned universities and research institutes,” Daimler said in a statement.
Daimler and BMW said they were unaware that the Volkswagen used in the Albuquerque monkey tests had been set up to produce false data. Volkswagen said in a statement that the researchers had never managed to publish a complete study.
It wasn’t for lack of trying.
Documents produced in legal proceedings show that in August 2016 Michael Spallek, the director of the automakers’ research group, emailed the Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute, the Albuquerque organization that conducted the tests with monkeys. “The E.U.G.T. point of view is that it’s time to try to finalize the report and to present or discuss the problems of the study in a scientific way ASAP,” Mr. Spallek wrote.
That was almost a year after Volkswagen admitted to equipping millions of diesel vehicles sold in the United States and Europe with illegal “defeat devices” that cranked up pollution controls when software detected that testing was being done in a lab. At other times, the controls were turned off, allowing the cars to produce more nitrogen oxides than a long-haul truck.
How Volkswagen’s ‘Defeat Devices’ Worked
Volkswagen admitted that 11 million of its vehicles were equipped with software that was used to cheat on emissions tests. This is how the technology works and what it now means for vehicle owners.
Oct. 8, 2015
Mr. Spallek declined to comment, saying his contract prohibited him from discussing the research group’s work.
In the 1990s, carmakers used their political clout to persuade European leaders that diesel helped fight climate change because it burns more efficiently than gasoline. As a result, almost all European countries now tax diesel at a lower rate than gasoline, making it cheaper at the pump.
The carmakers maintained that modern technology had solved diesel’s big downside: emissions of nitrogen oxides and fine soot particles that can contribute to asthma, heart attacks and cancer.
David King, a former chief scientific adviser to the British government, recalled being taken to a lab in the early 2000s where 10 diesel vehicles were running on rollers. The air was so clean that Mr. King, an asthmatic, could breathe freely.
What Mr. King did not know is that most European automakers had built their diesel cars to pass laboratory emissions tests and no more. On the road, according to recent studies by the governments of Britain, France and Germany, diesel cars by almost all European manufacturers spewed toxic gases in quantities far above those allowed by law.
“We were all misled by the car manufacturers,” Mr. King said in an interview.
The toll on public health has become impossible to ignore. In 2012, 72,000 people in Europe died prematurely because of nitrogen dioxide pollution, which comes primarily from diesel vehicles, according to a report released last year by a committee of the European Parliament.
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Research sponsored by industry “all has the same fundamental aim,” said Joachim Heinrich, an environmental health expert at the University of Munich who has spent his career studying the effects of air pollution, “namely to weaken or discredit regulation — to say ‘the evidence is not that clear,’ ‘we shouldn’t take it so seriously,’ ‘we need to think more about it.’”
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From left: Dieter Zetsche, the Daimler chairman; Matthias Müller, the Volkswagen chief executive; Matthias Wissmann, president of the German Automobile Industry Association; and Harald Krüger, the BMW chief executive, in Berlin last year after a summit meeting on the future of diesel vehicles.CreditAxel Schmidt/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The automakers’ research group was created in 2007, as Volkswagen was readying a major push to market diesel technology in the United States, which has stricter limits on nitrogen oxide emissions than Europe. Mr. Spallek, the executive director, had been the chief medical officer of Volkswagen’s commercial vehicles division.
The negative health effects of diesel were starting to attract more attention. Zones where diesel was restricted were proliferating in Europe, posing a threat to automakers because the areas discourage sales of diesels.
In response, the research group financed two studies that concluded that low-emissions zones had only a marginal effect on pollution levels. But the studies used dubious methodology, the German Federal Environment Agency said in a report released last year.
The industry group’s studies on low emissions zones were influential, however. They were cited in reports by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, a public body in Britain that provides guidance on health care.
Elsewhere, a regional court in Austria cited the research in a 2014 ruling against residents of Graz who had sued to force officials to restrict diesel traffic. The decision, by the State Administrative Court for the province of Styria, called the study “thorough” and said it showed that the effect of low-emissions zones on fine soot pollution was “less than expected.” The decision did not mention that the study had been financed by the auto industry.
Officials at the research group also sought to influence public debate. In 2016, Helmut Greim, the chairman of the group’s research advisory board, testified before the German Parliament that it was impossible to establish a direct link between nitrogen dioxide pollution and lung ailments. Mr. Greim is a longtime bête noire for environmental activists, who say he consistently takes the industry point of view.
Mr. Greim, 82, said in an interview that the group’s research was independent and published only in peer-reviewed journals. During an interview in Munich, he said that fear of nitrogen dioxide pollution was “completely overblown.”
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The research group intended the Albuquerque experiment to be a rebuttal to a 2012 finding by a division of the World Health Organization that had classified diesel exhaust as a carcinogen.
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The automakers’ research group set out to show that new diesel vehicles were better. It hired the Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute, an established research center that has also done work for the Environmental Protection Agency, to conduct a study that would compare emissions from a late-model Volkswagen with those of a 1999 Ford diesel pickup.
The tests were conducted in 2014 using 10 cynomolgus macaque monkeys, a breed used extensively in medical experiments, according to the legal records.
Volkswagen took a lead role in the study. Company engineers supervised the installation of a treadmill that would allow the vehicles to run on rollers while equipment sucked exhaust from the tailpipes.
The gas was then diluted and fed into chambers containing the monkeys. To keep the animals calm during the four hours they breathed fumes, lab workers set up a television showing cartoons.
“They like to watch cartoons,” Jake McDonald, the Lovelace scientist who oversaw the experiments, said in a sworn deposition taken last year as part of a lawsuit by Volkswagen diesel owners seeking damages beyond those provided for in a class-action settlement.
Dr. McDonald said he did not know the Volkswagen Beetle was equipped with software that recognized when the car was being tested on a treadmill. The software did not interfere with the filter that removed carcinogenic fine soot particles from the exhaust, a technology that has in fact improved significantly.
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The Eiffel Tower shrouded by smog last year. Pollution’s toll on public health has become impossible to ignore.CreditPhilippe Wojazer/Reuters
But it cranked up controls so that nitrogen dioxide pollution, which has been linked to asthma, bronchitis, heart attacks and possibly lung cancer, was only a small fraction of what it would be during normal driving.
Even so, the study did not provide a clear finding. The researchers struggled to produce a paper that they could publish, a condition for receiving full payment.
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In the August 2016 email, Mr. Spallek complained about numerous flaws with the methodology used by the Lovelace research team. But he never mentioned the illegal software that had caused the Beetle to produce artificially low emissions.
Discussions about publishing the study continued until last year, according to Dr. McDonald. A lawyer for Volkswagen, Michael Steinberg, implied during cross-examination that Dr. McDonald had pushed to publish the results so that the institute could collect $71,000 owed under the contract.
Dr. McDonald disputed that assertion. “The decision to continue,” he said in an emailed statement, “was the choice of the client.”
Although Dr. McDonald and other employees at the institute exchanged emails about the Volkswagen defeat device after its exposure in 2015, Dr. McDonald testified that he had not followed the Volkswagen case closely and had realized only recently that the Beetle used in the tests was manipulated to produce artificially low emissions.
“I feel like a chump,” Dr. McDonald said.
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