However, breathing fuel oil vapors overtime can affect a person's ability to smell and taste. High levels can cause headaches, nausea, light-headedness, poor coordination, increased blood pressure and difficulty concentrating. Skin contact can cause irritation that results in itchiness, redness, pain, blisters, and peeling. Swallowing fuel oil can cause vomiting, diarrhea, swelling of the stomach, cramps, coughing, drowsiness, restlessness, irritability and breathing difficulties. Drinking more than an ounce can result in coma or death.
Most accidental poisonings involve children.
Many of these children drink kerosene that was being kept in old soft drink bottles. Exposure to fuel oil is not known to cause cancer in humans. However, long-term exposure to benzene, the most toxic component of fuel oil, is known to cause leukemia. Prolonged or high level exposures to fuel oil can cause kidney and liver damage, nervous system damage, increased blood pressure and reduced blood clotting. In general, chemicals affect the same organ systems in all people who are exposed.