Our Toxic Legacy: How Lead, Mercury, Arsenic, and Cadmium Harm Our Health

Preface

Lead, mercury, arsenic, and cadmium are major toxic metals. All are environmental pollutants that can inflict harm on humans and other living creatures as well as adversely affect our air, water, soil, and food supply. Two of them_lead and mercury_are neurotoxins. They can poison not only us but also our progeny developing in the womb. The other two_arsenic and cadmium_have some carcinogenic forms. All four metals can break down the body’s basic functions.

This book demonstrates the failure of federal regulatory agencies to be proactive rather than reactive. The pattern has been to act too little and too late. Regulations have been lax, delayed, or not enforced. The regulations, themselves, have been formulated to accommodate economic interests rather than to protect public health based on sound science.

There have been a few success stories, notably with lead. Today, most gasoline is unleaded, house paint is no longer manufactured with lead, and food cans are lead free due to banning of the use of lead solder for this purpose. However, these victories are small, compared with what needs to be done.

Herbert L. Needleman, a pediatrician, child psychiatrist, researcher, and professor at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center with whom the reader will become acquainted, remarked about lead toxicity that unlike genetic, infectious, or metabolic disease, it is not a biologic mystery … It is a completely preventable disease; the mystery resides in its continued existence. The same can be said of mercury, arsenic, and cadmium toxicity.

—Beatrice Trum Hunter

July 2011

Lead (Pb) is present in the earth’s crust. Through the millennia, it remained there, locked in ore. Lead was the first metal to be extracted from its ore, because where lead is deposited, so too is silver. The early mining of lead introduced humans to metal technology.

Lead is not a required nutrient. Nor is there any known biological function for lead. There may be no threshold concentration for its toxicity. Derek Bryce-Smith, professor of chemistry at the University of Reading, England, appraised the metal succinctly, the only good lead is no lead. Scientifically, the only appropriate absorption level of lead is zero.

Despite the harmful health aspects of lead, it is an attractive metal. It is malleable and durable, with thousands of uses. In addition, by extracting lead from ore, silver is released as well.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF LEAD’S USES

LEAD IN THE ANCIENT WORLD

Lead was prized in the ancient world. The Greek mines at Laurium were in operation well before 3000 B.C. The British Museum has a lead statue found in Turkey that dates back to about 6000 B.C. The wealth of the Persian kings is attributed to their abundance of lead/silver deposits. The Persians introduced silver coinage in about 750 B.C. This development was a major stimulus for further mining. By Roman times, nearly all the major lead/silver deposits in the Mediterranean and western European areas had been discovered, and extraction from these mines continued throughout the centuries. The Romans used lead mined in Britain for pipes to supply water to public baths.

Silver taken from lead ore became the chief unit of exchange in the Middle East. A technique to extract the silver from lead ore was called cupellation. The metallic mixture was oxidized at high temperatures, and the base metal (lead) separated from the noble metal (silver) by absorption into the walls of a cupel cup. The technique spread to other parts of the ancient world, and remained as a dominant process to recover silver for nearly 5,000 years.

Lead Poisoning and Rome’s Decline

Old bones, old Roman recipes, and remnants of old lead-lined pots provide some clues of the numerous environmental exposures to lead, especially of the upper classes, during the Roman Empire (27 B.C.-393 A.D.). Some historians attribute lead poisoning as a major factor in the Roman Empire’s decline.

Lead was used for water pipes, roofing, containers, cups, statuettes, tokens, coins, lids, sieves, household repair aids, solder, paint, cosmetics, external medications, boxes, markers, writing tablets, and coffins, as well as in many alloys with copper (lead bronze) and with tin (pewter).

The most significant uses of lead were in the kitchens of the upper classes, and in their foods and beverages. Lead was present in wine and other drinks made from fruit or honey, olive oil, grape syrup, and preserved fruits. Lead was in the amphoras, containers used to store these items, as well as in the cooking pots. The heat in cooking greatly increased the absorption of lead, especially if the pots were scraped from time to time to prevent burning of thick liquids such as grape syrup, used to sweeten and preserve foods and beverages.

Wine was a major delivery system for lead. The Romans boiled unfermented grape juice (called must) into a concentrate, using solid lead pots. The resulting sweet syrup was added to wine to give it bouquet and strength. By killing any microorganisms present in the grape juice that would cause the wine to spoil, the syrup prolonged the wine’s shelflife. The grape syrup was used, too, to preserve olives, plums, cherries, apples, pears, peaches, and quinces. The grape syrup also was an ingredient in many luxury dishes, as reflected in a cookbook written by the epicure, Marcus Gavius Apicius.

Minor amounts of lead in wine came from the leaded storage and drinking vessels, from the lead-contaminated water mixed with wine, from the grape syrup used to cement the amphora’s stopper, from the leaden clamps used inside and outside of a mended cracked amphora, and perhaps even from the leaded parts in the winepress. Grapes and wine, being acidic, readily leached lead.

There was some recognition of the toxicity of the wine, though not necessarily of its lead content. In the earlier Republic times, wives were advised not to drink wine. This admonition was from the observation that wine-drinking women bore fewer children. Wine-drinking women tended to be gaunt (a sign of lead poisoning), whereas non-wine drinking obese women were more fertile. Also, there were warnings that certain Greek-made wines produced sterility, miscarriage, constipation, headache, and insomnia—all possible symptoms of lead intoxication.

Later, after the Republic was followed by the Empire, the advisory to wives was ignored. Wine, which had once been a rare luxury, became an everyday drink for the upper classes, including the wives.

Drinking water was another source of lead exposure. The water was brought from the countryside to cities in lead-lined aquaducts, and then through lead piping into buildings. The lead roofs of homes collected rainwater as well as decaying vegetation that would make the water acidic and capable of leaching lead from the roof or from acidic volcanic basaltic dust from soil. Hard alkaline water does not leach lead.

The grape syrup was not only used in the kitchen, but was a panacea as well. A weak drink made by boiling down the grape syrup with seawater was given to invalids. Also, it was a favorite drink of courtesans. Myrrh added to the grape syrup made a special drink for women. Grape syrup-enhanced wine, boiled with wormwood, was used to relieve the effects of hangovers. The grape syrup with onion was used to induce abortion.

Wealthy Romans used leaded paints. The favorite color of their walls was the famous Pompeiian red, produced by minimum, a salt of lead or mercury. Chemical analysis of human skeletons found at Pompeii showed very high lead levels in the bones.

Roman cosmetic creams typically contained lead acetate. By the second century A.D. Romans became aware of lead’s toxicity, and switched to other compounds, such as tin oxide.

Lead poisoning was recognized in the ancient world from smelting lead ore. Hippocrates, who became known as the father of medicine, described lead poisoning about 370 B.C. In the second century B.C., Nikander, a Greek physician, is credited with a description of common symptoms of lead poisoning. During the Roman Empire, warnings were recorded about the dangers of lead poisoning from water vessels and pipes.

Gradually, signs of lead poisoning among the upper classes became more apparent. Fertility declined, and more women were sterile or suffered miscarriages, stillbirths, or premature labor. Infants born to such women were apt to die shortly after birth. If they lived, they showed signs of lead poisoning. The bizarre behavior of Roman emperors such as Caligula and Nero might be attributable to lead poisoning. The lead exposures and consequences of the upper classes during the time of the Roman Empire should serve as a cautionary story, with current applicability. Although our lead exposures may not be as extensive as the ancient Romans, lead exposure is only one of numerous toxic, mutagenic, teratogenic, and carcinogenic exposures in the modern world.

Lead Compounds in Ancient Egyptian Cosmetics

The ancient Egyptians were attracted by the beautiful colors from lead pigments that could create powders for skin colorants. They used lead chloride compounds in cosmetic formulations. Philippe Walter, laboratory director of the Center for Research and Restoration of the Museums of France, led a team that analyzed specimens of Egyptian cosmetic powder used from 2000 B.C. to 1200 B.C., preserved in their original containers and stored at the Louvre in Paris. In 1999 Walter and his team reported that they had identified two naturally occurring lead-based compounds in the cosmetics: the minerals cerussite (PbCO3) and galena (PbS), which produce dark tones and gloss. Their analyses revealed the presence as well of two unexpected and very rare non-naturally occurring lead chloride constituents: laurionite (Pb[OH]Cl) and phosgenite ([PbCl]2CO3). All were white pigments. The team followed ancient recipes for mixing crushed silver foam (Pb) with rock salt in water, and identified the white reaction product as laurionite. In the presence of carbonates, the team produced phosgenite.

This research was followed by a separate investigation of lead in ancient Egyptian cosmetics by another team interested to learn about the use of cosmetics to prevent infections. The team, led by Christian Amatore, a chemist at the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, reported in 2010 that the lead-based cosmetics used by the ancient Egyptians had antibacterial properties that helped prevent infections common at the time. When the Nile River flooded, Egyptians suffered from eye infections caused by particles that entered the eye and caused inflammations and blindness. The scientists suggested that the lead-based cosmetics were used to kill infections before they could spread. Amatore cautioned that currently such compounds should not be used. Any possible benefit is far outweighed by its risks.

Amartore and his team analyzed 52 samples of the Egyptian cosmetics, preserved at the Louvre, and found the same four lead compounds identified earlier by Walter and his colleagues: galena, cerussite, laurionite, and phosgenite.

Lead Levels in Preindustrialized Humans

Bones of many humans have been examined in various parts of the world, where people had lived in non-leaded environments. There was little evidence of lead toxicity.

The bones examined in burial grounds in ancient Peru showed less than 5 parts per million (ppm) of lead in bones. Modern Peruvians have from 5 to 110 ppm of lead in their bones.

Other studies showed that the ancient Peruvians had only about one one-hundredth of the average concentration of lead carried by a present-day American or Britisher. Our diets have more than a hundred times the amount of lead than in a prehistoric diet; our skeletal lead is five hundredfold greater. Similar investigations of Nubians, Yunomana Indians, and other peoples who lived in remote areas in pre-industrialized societies showed exceedingly low lead levels in bones. Prehistoric people had about 0.2 micrograms per deciliter (mcg/dL) of lead, about a hundred times lower than what is currently considered a normal range of 15 to 25 mcg/dL in the United States. These findings bring into question the concept of a normal level.

One study of current inhabitants in a remote area, far from urban pollution, was conducted in the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains of Nepal. Concentrations of lead in the blood of 103 children and adults showed an average of 3.4 mcg/dL—a level substantially lower than in current industrialized populations.

We now know that lead as an air pollutant can travel globally. Analyses of Greenland ice cores showed that Greek and Roman mining and smelting of lead/silver heavily polluted the middle troposphere of the Northern Hemisphere with lead from about 600 B.C. to 300 A.D. Heavy lead pollution continued through medieval times and the Renaissance to the early modern age.

LEAD IN THE NEW WORLD

In the New World, lead was mined first in Virginia in 1621. Beginning in the 1770s, the Mississippi Valley lead deposits became prominent for extraction.

In 1723 Massachusetts enacted the first law in the New World to protect consumers from lead. The colonial legislators passed An Act for Preventing Abuses in Distilling of Rum and Other Strong Liquors with Leaden Heads or Pipes.

Benjamin Franklin Warned against Lead Poisoning

Benjamin Franklin was familiar with lead poisoning. Through his own writings, he publicized Thomas Cadwalader’s medical monograph, Essay on the Dry Gripes (1745), which described the symptoms of lead poisoning. At the time when Franklin lived in Philadelphia, many patients were treated for lead poisoning at the Pennsylvania Hospital.

When Franklin was in his 80s, he wrote a cautionary letter in which he compiled observations and episodes he had noted over six decades that convinced him of the dangers of lead poisoning. He cited an attack of dry bellyache that suddenly had beset a family who for a long time had collected drinking water that ran off a leaded roof. Franklin observed that trees planted around the house years before had grown tall enough to shed leaves on the roof; rotting of the leaves created acid that corroded the lead and furnished the water … with baneful particles. Franklin lamented, How long a useful truth may be known before it is generally received and practiced on. Indeed, it took more than two centuries before American officials would appreciate the public health hazards of lead exposures.

Lead as a Food Adulterant in the 19th Century

By the nineteenth century, lead as well as other toxic metals became common adulterants of foods in Great Britain, America, and elsewhere. Lead chromate was added to wheat, potatoes, and rice flour to increase their bulk and weight, thereby making their sales more profitable. Plumbago (lead ore) was mixed with tea for the same purpose.

Food adulteration was so widespread that a German chemist living in London, Frederick Accum (1769-1838) tested numerous foods and published his findings in a muckraking book titled Death in the Pot in 1820. Accum’s pioneering efforts were followed by Arthur Hill Hassall (1817-1894), a London physician, who bought some 2,500 samples of foods and beverages between 1851 and 1854 for analyses. He published his results in the Lancet, which had begun a campaign against the adulteration of foods and drugs. Hassall was commissioned to write articles on poisonous confectionery, in which the poisons contained in various items of colored sweets, previously condemned by Accum, were identified once more. Hassall identified brightly colored compounds of lead as well as mercury and copper in the sweets. The trade in highly colored confections had grown extensively in the decade since Accum first wrote about the problem. Even the sweets’ wrappers often were colored with the same poisons to make them appear more attractive, and especially alluring to young children.

Lead Poisoning of Some Famous People

FRANCISCO JOSÉ DE GOYA When the celebrated Spanish painter and etcher Francisco Jose de Goya (1746-1828) was 46 years of age, he was struck by some mysterious illness that attacked his nervous system and almost killed him. Suddenly, Goya suffered terrifying dizziness, convulsions, mental confusion, paralysis of his right side, partial blindness, and impaired speech and hearing. Eventually, most of the symptoms subsided but Goya remained totally deaf for the rest of his life. His personality became gravely altered, and the change was reflected in his subsequent artwork. Formerly, an artist of pleasing subjects, Goya’s work became morose and sinister, with visions of despair. He covered the walls of his home with what became known as his Black Paintings with dark hues, and mysterious lurking figures.

Goya lived for 36 more creative years after his illness, but lacked his hearing and former cheerfulness. He experienced two additional bouts of the mysterious illness, but recovered from both.

There has been much speculation about the cause of Goya’s illnesses and his dramatic changes in personality and creativity. In 1972 psychiatrist William Niederland did some medical sleuthing that pointed to lead poisoning. Goya and his contemporary artists used lead-based paints, which are toxic if their fumes are inhaled. At the time, lead poisoning was termed the painter’s disease. Goya was known to grind his own paints. He used more lead-white paint as a primer than most other artists. One researcher, Thomas N. Thomas, also a psychiatrist, concluded that Goya worked in a storm of flying lead, and he inhaled it. Thomas concurred with Niederland that Goya’s bouts of illness resulted from lead poisoning.

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN   In 2005 the Center for Beethoven Studies at San Jose State University, California, arranged to test bone and hair fragments of Beethoven (1770-1827). The specimens showed high lead levels. The artifacts provided the best available evidence that the 56-year-old composer died from lead poisoning. His deafness, memory lapses, abdominal pain, irascibility, and other symptoms are common characteristics of plumbism—lead poisoning. However, in 2010 additional forensic evidence raised doubts about Beethoven’s lead poisoning. Andrew C. Todd, a lead-poisoning expert at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, examined the same skull fragment as well as another larger one and found that the ones contained no more lead than average. Todd concluded that Beethoven did not have long-term high lead exposures. No doubt, there will be further investigations and discoveries.

Hassall’s articles in the Lancet were commissioned by the Analytical Sanitary Commission. At first, Hassall’s reports appeared weekly; later, less frequently. For the articles in the first three months, no names of the manufacturers of the adulterated samples were printed, but vendors of the adulterated confections were warned that the names of tradesmen who sold adulterated foods would be published in future reports. Thomas Wakley, editor of the Lancet assured Hassall that he was prepared to bear any expenses that might be incurred as a result of legal action. From the beginning, Hassall commended the sellers of unadulterated confections, and mentioned them by name in his articles.

Federal Agencies Responsible for Regulating Lead

•   Food and Drug Administration (FDA, www.fda.gov) regulates lead in bottled water, calcium supplements, ceramic and other food ware, commercial coffee urns, decorated glassware, lead crystal ware, foods, food ingredients, and food packaging.

•   Environmental Protection Agency (EPA, www.epa.gov) researches and/or monitors lead in air, water, and soil.

•   Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC, www.cpsc.gov) requires warning labels on lead solder for drinking water pipes, monitors lead paint on children’s toys to ensure compliance with the federal standard limiting lead levels in paint, and regulates the labeling of lead in artists’ materials.

•   National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH, www.cdc.gov/niosh) researches and conducts surveillance on occupational lead exposure, and offers industrial hygiene training as well as health hazard evaluation programs on work sites, when requested.

•   National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS, www.niehs.nih.gov) conducts basic biomedical research on lead’s health effects on humans.

•   U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD, www.hud.gov) funds public housing authorities to control or remove lead-based paint in public housing units.

•   Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR, www.atsdr.cdc.gov) is responsible for health assessments of areas near Superfund toxic waste sites that pose an environmental threat, and issues materials for health professionals and congressional documents regarding the nature and extent of lead poisoning of American children.

The standard for acceptable lead levels is not uniform with the different federal agencies.

These pioneering efforts of Accum and Hassall led to passage of England’s first Food Adulteration Act in 1860. It would take more than forty years for similar legislation to be passed in the United States, as the first Food and Drug Act of 1906.

SOURCES OF LEAD EXPOSURE

OCCUPATIONAL EXPOSURES TO LEAD

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), lead is the oldest recognized occupational disease. The effects of lead exposure with miners and smelterers in the ancient world were noted. In modern times, the numbers of occupational exposures have expanded exponentially, especially since the Industrial Revolution.

Current occupational exposures to lead include:

Acid battery makers

Acid finishers

Actors who use lead-containing makeup

Ammunition makers

Artificial flower makers

Battery manufacturers and reprocessors

Blacksmiths

Bookbinders

Bottlecap makers

Brass workers and polishers

Brick burners and layers

Bridge builders, repairers, and demolishers

Bronzers and bronze-ingot workers

Brushmakers

Burners of lead-painted wood and battery casings

Cable makers, splicers, and strippers

Canners of nonfoods

Cartridge manufacturers

Cathode ray tube television makers

Ceramic makers

Chemical equipment makers

Chlorinated paraffin makers

Cigar makers

Copper secondary smelterers

Crop dusters

Cutlery manufacturers

Demolition workers

Diamond polishers

Dental technicians

Dye makers and dyers

Electric servicers

Electronic device makers

Electroplaters

Electrotypers

Embroidery workers

Emory wheel makers

Enamel burners, enamel makers, and enamellers

Explosive manufacturers

Farmers

File cutters

Fine arts and commercial painters

Firemen

Firing range instructors, custodians, and military trainees

Furniture restorers

Gas station attendants

Gun shot makers

Home distillers of wine or whiskey

Iron and steel foundry workers

Jewelry makers

Lead alloy grinders

Lead mill workers

Lead miners

Lead smelterers

Leaded crystal glass makers

Leaded steel workers

Linoleum makers and installers

Linotypers

Linseed oil boilers

Lithotransfer workers

Motor vehicle and car body workers

Machine valve makers

Match makers

Metal burners, cutters, and grinders

Metalizers

Mirror silverers

Musical instrument makers

Nitric acid workers

Nitroglycerin workers

Paint and pigment makers

Paper hangers

Patent leather manufacturers

Pharmaceutical workers

Photographic supply makers

Pipe fitters

Plastic and resin workers

Plumbers

Porcelain enamellers, slushers, polishers, refiners, and refinishers

Pottery glazers, dippers, and mixers

Power plant scrubbers

Printers

Putty makers

Riveters

Road workers and repairers

Roofers

Rubber makers, buffers, and recyclers

Scrap metal workers

Semi-conductor workers

Sheet metal workers

Shellac makers

Shipbuilders, repairers, and demolishers

Silk weighters

Smelterers

Solder makers and solderers

Stained glass window makers

Steel engravers

Stereotypers

Stevedores

Tanners

Temperers

Textile makers

Tile makers

Tinners

Toll booth cashiers

Traffic police

Type founders

Valve and maritime alloy casters

Valet car attendants

Vanadium compound makers

Varnish manufacturers

Vehicle maintenance workers

Vehicle tunnel attendants

Wallpaper printers

Welders

Wood stainers

Zinc mill workers

Zinc smelter chargers

The CDC Adult Blood Lead Epidemiology and Surveillance (ABLES) program tracks laboratory-reported blood lead level cases in adults. The occupational sources of lead exposure are in the Unites States are as follows:

•   58 percent in the manufacturing industry

•   22 percent in the construction industry

•   8 percent in the mining industry

•   7 percent in the wholesale/retail trades

•   3 percent in the service industry

•   2 percent in transportation and public utilities; finance, insurance, and real estate; and in public administration

Lead in Automobile Batteries

Three-quarters of the world’s entire lead production is used in automobiles. Each car contains about twenty-seven pounds of lead, mainly in the battery. Also, lead batteries are used widely in forklifts, golf carts, and as backup power for computers, as well as for solar and telecommunication systems.

In the United States, more than 88 percent of all lead production is for battery use. The lead from many batteries is recycled. The process can cause a significant amount of lead to be emitted into the environment, unless the recycling is controlled in proper facilities. In the developing countries, used lead batteries are melted down for scrap in backyards and on roadsides in urban areas. Numerous lead poisoning incidents related to lead-battery production and recycling occur, notably in China, Mexico, and Central American and Caribbean countries.

Imported lead batteries enter the United States in nearly half of all new cars. Even more are imported for the replacement market. The number of imported lead batteries to the United States is increasingly rapidly as more production shifts to developing countries where there are fewer environmental regulations and less enforcement capacity.

Hybrid cars use 42-volt lead battery systems that are much larger than the conventional 12-volt car battery. In addition, such cars have a second nickel-metal hydride or lithium-ion battery. These metals, like lead, also are toxins emitted into the air.

Substitutes for lead batteries exist, but they contain other toxic metals such as those just mentioned, and others, including cobalt. The alternatives are considerably more costly than lead batteries, and they, too, can pose significant detrimental environmental and health effects.

Automotive Maintenance and Repair Shops

Automotive maintenance and repair shops are environments where both workers and customers are at risk of lead exposures. Frequently, such shops are poorly ventilated. The workers are exposed to lead from soldering operations, and lead dust generated during radiator cleaning.

One study measured the blood lead levels of 200 Cincinnati, Ohio, garage mechanics and parking lot attendants. On average, their blood lead levels were three times higher than those of 25 suburbanites in Pennsylvania, and in rural residents in California.

Electric Vehicles May Increase Lead Pollution

So-called zero emission electric vehicles may reduce some forms of atmospheric pollution, but they may emit sixty times the lead pollution attributed to burning leaded fuel in vehicles. Lester B. Lave led a team at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to study the projected lead increase with electric vehicle use.

Although some states require that a certain percentage of new vehicles sold must be electric, the mandate ignores pollution produced during the manufacture, handling, disposal, and recycling of lead-acid batteries that power such vehicles. Such vehicles will be less efficient and more expensive to operate.

The study demonstrated that the introduction of electric vehicles will raise the total level of lead pollution, even though it may shift the deposition of the pollution from the road to the battery manufacturing facilities where it is not visible. In fact, the anticipated lead pollution will be much greater than what has been caused by the tetraethyl lead fuel additive.

The study noted that lead emissions from primary battery plants and downstream processing and recycling practices most likely will greatly exceed the EPA guidelines. Electric vehicles using batteries made with newly mined lead will be the source of about 1.34 grams of lead per kilometer (g/km) of operation, contrasted to 22 mg/km from a typical vehicle burning leaded fuel.

Moreover, at present, no power source exists that rivals the lead-acid battery. Alternatives either contain other toxic metals, or they are unlikely to become available commercially in the near future.

Lead in Plastics Manufacture

Lead is used in plastics manufacture, and has been a source of lead exposure and poisoning in workers. Plastic coating has been reported in connection with lead exposure in burning lead-containing plastics during repair of storage tanks, in the production of plastics, and in the manufacture and use of stabilizers and pigments in the plastics industry. Lead exposure occurs, too, among workers who burn plastic coating off copper wires in order to retrieve and recycle the copper.

Lead compounds are used in producing colored plastics. Lead chromates are used as pigment. In the manufacture of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastics, from 2 to 5 percent lead salts are used as stabilizers. Environmental regulations have reduced considerably the amount of lead used in the production of PVC plastics. The manufacture of electrical wire and cable continues to produce PVC stabilized and/or pigmented with lead compounds.

Leaded Glass Window Artisans

In the manufacture of leaded glass windows, the artisans are exposed to lead. Strips of lead hold the pieces of glass together, and the artisans may be exposed to lead fumes and contacts.

To determine the lead content in the hair of leaded stained glass window workers, in 1986 Trace Minerals International tested individuals who had worked in the industry for different lengths of time, as well as individuals who worked solely in management and had no exposure to the lead.

Of eleven people tested, eight had worked in the industry from two to thirty-eight years. Their hair lead levels were elevated correspondingly, between 41.7 and 90.1 ppm of lead, with the higher levels in those individuals who had worked the longest in the industry. Those with highest lead levels also reported symptoms typical for chronic lead exposure. The three individuals from management had lead levels within an acceptable range, less than 20 ppm.

Paraoccupational Lead Exposures

Paraoccupational lead exposures involve secondary contamination. For example, if the garage mechanic services the interior of a car, the driver may be exposed to contamination from the clothing of the worker. Or, if a worker goes home and continues to wear occupationally contaminated clothing, the home and occupants are at paraoccupational risks.

Lead poisoning from occupational exposures such as mining and smelting operations are likely sources. However, many other sources are less obvious.

In 2006 the CDC reported six cases of paraoccupational exposures to lead dust by children ranging from twenty-eight months to four years of age, all living in Maine. The six children were from five different families, including one family with two affected children. All the children had elevated blood lead levels. Among many samples tested by the investigators were dust samples taken from the families’ vehicles and child safety belts installed in the vehicles. Both were the likely source of the lead exposures for the children. The parents of the children currently or recently worked in painting or paint removal. One was a self-employed metal recycler. The employed workers reported that their employers provided no lead-related occupational safety measures at work sites.

The cases were the first reported ones of lead poisoning associated with child safety seat belts. To date, no lead standards exist for vehicles or child safety seat belts. These reports highlight the need to expand lead dust testing to include vehicles and child safety seat belts whenever occupational lead exposures are suspected, and to reinforce lead safety work practices.

Despite newer information and greater understandings of the health effects of lead on adults exposed to this toxin in the workplace, and their families and homes, the U.S. occupational standard remains unchanged since the 1970s.

LEAD IN THE AIR

In 1965 Clair C. Patterson, a geochemical researcher at the California Institute of Technology, reported important findings. Patterson’s research, supported by the U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) and the Atomic Energy Commission, and published in the Archives of Environmental Health, a publication of the American Medical Association (AMA), demonstrated that the radically increased lead burden of humans was from a geochemical source. The chemistry of the body is related closely to the chemistry of the environment in which it has evolved. Similarly, a striking example is the resemblance of the mixture of salts in body fluids to those of seawater, indicating human ancestry from the sea. Patterson reasoned that the proportion of metals such as lead in the body is related to its general abundance. In a radically altered state, the oceans were receiving more than fifty times as much lead as they had held in prehistoric times, and Americans were carrying a hundred times more lead than formerly.

Based on Patterson’s findings, the National Science Foundation (NSF) reported that there was a sharp increase in the lead content of snow that had fallen on Greenland in the last decade. Greenland was not industrialized, so the presence of lead indicated the global nature of airborne lead. Since then, numerous studies have traced airborne substances carried globally.

At the time, vehicle exhaust from leaded gasoline appeared to be the chief contributor of lead to the atmosphere. Patterson also noted that lead arsenate insecticide used on tobacco crops was another significant contributor to airborne lead.

In 1970 the Clean Air Act was passed, but the EPA failed to include lead among the air pollutants covered by the legislation. The National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) brought suit. In 1976 a federal judge ordered Russell Train, administrator of the EPA under provisions of the Clean Air Act, to list lead as an air pollutant with adverse effects on public health. The listing had to be done within thirty days. Within a year of the listing, the EPA had to issue a national air quality standard for the permissible limit of the pollutant in the air that people breathe. Nine months after the standard, the EPA had to review standards submitted by the states. The EPA had four additional months to approve the states’ plans, or to develop a plan of its own.

In 1977 the National Science Foundation issued Lead in the Environment, a report describing recent research by three large universities. Among the findings:

•   Lead alkyls may be absorbed by the surface of atmospheric particulates. Therefore, dust may act as a scavenging mechanism and serve as a substitute for the conversion of the absorbed lead species into solid, inorganic lead compounds.

•   Lead concentrates mostly on the smallest particles, and the ones most likely to be inhaled and retained within the lungs. Hence, they constitute the greatest human health hazard.

•   The amount of lead found in dust on rugs and floors in the home may be sufficient to create a health hazard for young children.

Attempts to Limit Airborne Lead

In 1978 the EPA, for the first time, established standards for lead in the atmosphere. The agency allowed the states nine months to comply with a limit of 1.5 mcg per cubic meter (m³) of air, measured on a three-month average. At the time, California was the only state to have a standard that met the new EPA requirement. The EPA suggested that other states would be able to meet the limit because lead was being phased out of gasoline.

The EPA reported that each year, some 160,000 metric tons of lead were being emitted into the air in the United States. About 90 percent was from vehicle exhaust; the rest, mostly from nonferrous smelting operations. The EPA planned to work nine months with smelters and other industries that might have difficulty complying with the limit.

Deposits from airborne lead were being identified everywhere. Lead was detected in snow at ground level 200 yards from a suburban road in Vermont, within four hours after a snowfall. The lead was detected nearby in snow on a backroad near a mountain forest, eight days after the snowfall. Various sections of 100-year-old elm trees in the vicinity showed rapidly increasing lead concentrations during the period when airborne lead sharply increased.

Airborne lead was found in extremely high concentrations on or near heavily traveled streets and highways during rush hour traffic. In such environments, measurements were as high as 15 mcg/m³ of lead in air. On dirt roads, lead-containing oil wastes were applied to keep down the dust. This practice, too, added to airborne lead.

Long after most leaded gasoline was phased out, the atmospheric legacy remained. As recently as 2006, Arlene L. Weiss, a consulting toxicologist with Environmental Medicine in Westwood, New Jersey, and her colleagues, found that urban house dust tends to contain more lead the closer it is to a frequently opened window, with the air entering from the outdoors. The researchers sampled soil and street sweepings from 255 sites throughout New York City’s five boroughs. The highest lead contamination occurred directly beneath elevated train trestles and bridges, where concentrations of lead routinely reached many thousands of parts per million (ppm). Lead is commonly used on outdoor steel structures such as bridges to improve their weatherability. Samples of outdoor dust were much lower in lead