A killer named Euro-0: what kind of a mine has the government planted on millions of asthmatics

The Cabinet of Ministers and the lobbyists of the auto industry, suffering from sanctions, simply "forgot" about the health of millions of their fellow citizens.

Sergey Lvov, asthmatic

I'll start with the facts that any pulmonologist or even the most ordinary therapist could tell the bureaucrats in the White House.

Carbon monoxide (CO) is called the "silent killer" for a reason. It is known that in the human body, hemoglobin, a protein contained in the blood, serves to supply oxygen. It forms an oxyhemoglobin complex with oxygen and thus delivers it to organs and tissues. CO can also form a complex with hemoglobin called carboxyhemoglobin. And the resulting compound is much stronger than oxyhemoglobin. That is, upon contact with CO, the process of supplying the body with oxygen is blocked.

In addition, carbon monoxide affects the operation of ion channels in the membrane of heart cells. This leads to a change in the concentration of sodium and calcium in the myocardium, resulting in arrhythmia.

For the death of a person within 1 hour, it is enough that the concentration of carbon monoxide in the air exceeds 0.1%. The lethal concentration of CO in the inhaled air is 0.4%.

What happens to pulmonary patients when, even on the cleanest country road, an old Mercedes with cut out catalysts heats them up with exhaust, and then their native KAMAZ with a "zero" eco-standard adds gas?

I explain. At first, you will feel a sharp stench, then spasms in the bronchi and lungs, and then a slight dizziness. If there is no wind at the moment, then you will begin to inhale this rubbish for about five minutes. Cough will also be added to the described syndromes, and dizziness will intensify.

Now imagine that an asthmatic, allergic, emphysema or COPD patient (this is chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) finds himself driving and gets into an hour traffic jam in calm weather and intense heat. This is a typical situation not only for metropolitan highways and rings. It is easy to stand in a traffic jam for a couple of hours, for example, in the resort of Gelendzhik from the way from the airport to the city, while outside the window you will have +40 degrees.

If there is "zero" exhaust in front of your car, then in half an hour or earlier the sequence of events will be like in this picture: headache - nausea - disorientation - cough - fatigue - fainting.

I will explain completely for the feeble-minded: fainting is a loss of consciousness!

And what threatens loss of consciousness while driving a car?

Well, if at low speed you just smash the car on a road pole or a bump stop. And if you find yourself in the oncoming lane under the wheels of a truck? What if you don't see any pedestrians?

And then what to write in the report on the accident and its consequences?

“Asthma-suffering driver Pupkin, while in an unconscious state, hit a mother with a child to death, because KAMAZ or AvtoVAZ, using the permission of the Russian government, produced and sold a car in front of a traffic jam without neutral catalysts and control electronics”.

So, what, write in the protocol?

Well no, of course not. Pupkin will be to blame in any case. But the question is, how many of these "pupkins" do we have, risking their own lives and the health of other people in the name of import substitution and the fight against sanctions?

According to experts, the number of asthma patients is approximately 9.915 million. In addition, according to epidemiological studies, the number of COPD patients in our country may exceed 11 million people.

Thus, every seventh Russian suffers from pulmonary diseases and is at risk of rapid toxic carbon monoxide poisoning with serious consequences.

Millions of “cores” can be added to the “lungs”, and millions of those who have recovered from coronavirus with pneumonia, whose ability to digest gas poisoning is obviously reduced.

Well, here's another thing, bureaucrats and lobbyists will say in response, earlier, before 1988, there were no eco-standards for cars, but we are still alive.

However, this false argument does not hold water and does not take into account the density of car traffic then and now. In 1991, only one out of 17 Russians had a car; today, every third one. Traffic jams occur in almost all cities of the country.

Finally, it is worth thinking about the health of still healthy people. In Moscow and the region alone, there are 150 thousand taxi drivers, tens of thousands of drivers of public and commercial transport, who breathe road exhausts for 8-15 hours a day. From now on, the prospect of becoming disabled is closer than ever to them. With "zero" exhaust, Euro-1, Euro-2 and even Euro-3, the chance of getting lung sores increases many times over. And they are threatened not only by carbon monoxide, but also by nitric oxide, smoke, hydrocarbon emissions, which are dozens of times higher for cars with "zero" than modern Euro-5 and Euro-6 standards.

True, it is worth noting that in the resolution of the Council of Ministers, the elimination of eco-requirements for cars is presented as a temporary measure - until February 2023. And the government does not at all prohibit car factories from producing normal cars with Euro-5 cleaning.

However, in any case, poisoning your people with ancient chariots in a new guise is not worth it. And those who want to buy a new domestic car without catalysts at all costs can endure until better times, when the sanctions regime is weakened or our auto industry learns to respect not only their selfish interests, but also the health of the nation.