According to a recent report released by the New South Wales Heath department, there does not seem to be any relation between the Sydney's M5 East tunnel stack and cancer rates in local residents.

Certain concerns were raised by the community group Residents Against Polluting Stacks (RAPS) in regard to the emanations around Turrella, in south Sydney. After compiling these concerns, the final report was developed by the health department.

This tunnel was inaugurated in 2001, and since then no such increase in the number of leukemia cases or cancer rates has been found. An independent panel was assigned the duty and they found no such boost.

According to the Director of the Centre for Health Protection, Dr. Jeremy McAnulty, there is no doubt to say that today, a much large number of individuals suffer from lung cancer but then this cannot be linked with the opening of the tunnel in any way. He added "Lung cancer takes many years to develop and the increase occurred only a short time after the opening of the stack, and in fact began before the opening of the stack".

After analyzing the quality of tunnel ventilation stacks, it has been confirmed by the Health Department that there is a very less of its contribution in polluting the air.