carcinogenic • \ˌkär-sə-nō-ˈje-nik\ • adjective
: causing or tending to cause cancer
The word carcinogenic has appeared in 18 New York Times articles in the past year, including on Sept. 22 in “VW’s Recall Troubles May Have Little Effect on China, Its Largest Market” by Keith Bradsher:
American researchers have long been more worried than European experts that diesel emissions might be carcinogenic. In addition, diesel exhaust tends to have more particulates than gasoline engine emissions. Particulates are a big health concern in dusty northern China, and they add to the notoriously bad air pollution in Beijing itself.
Making matters worse is that, until fairly recently, many Chinese refineries lacked the technology to remove much of the naturally occurring sulfur contaminants when they produced diesel from crude oil. The resulting high pollution when diesel was burned as truck fuel made regulators wary of allowing the nation’s fast-growing car fleet to burn diesel as well.
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