What are some of the health risks associated with MTBE?
MTBE has been known to cause cancer in laboratory animals if given a certain dosage, but there haven’t been too many studies done to determine what happens when humans ingest MTBE through drinking water, or if they inhale it through the air. It is known that when a person ingests water that has been contaminated by MTBE, the person’s liver will convert it into formaldehyde and tertiary butyl alcohol (TBA), which a person’s body has a hard time eliminating from the body. When MTBE gets into the air it is converted into tertiary butyl formate (TBF), which causes problems in a person’s respiratory system.
