Document 2RR44d3DbBKVpb635nmV6rYxR

June 17, i.9i* Lt. Colonel Donald d. Myers, 1C Preventive .Viedicine- Officer, (PACKS) iieaiuquartems Unitea States Army, Alaska AK> 943 Seattle, Washington Dear Colonel Myers: Dr, John Phair, Processor of Preventive &adiclne, -and one os.' my associates in this Department, has referred ycur letter op June 5th to L& for reply, l shall reply directly to certain of ycur questions, .sad forward to you, unaor separate cover, certain Ltm-.s o iniorrc&tton, Unfortunately not all that you wish to obtain ia available in wholly utiai'actory form, but i shall see that certain additional items oi information are seat to you by Mr, il, X, Sail iron the ffew fork office of Ethyl Corporation. I believe it ia fair to aay that Ethyl Corporation, through Its .Medical Department ana the Product Service Division of its Sales ?oparifront, has made every possible effort, for many years, to reach all of this re sponsible people fa the military services with fall information on the natters which you have queried. For some reason, unfathomable by 3, we have not been able to arrive at any suitable arrangement with the army, but we have met on several occasions with the technical people and the chief medical officers ire all of the Air Force base headquarters, and 1 believe there ia no such base at which the responsible people lack de tailed information. It would be highly desirable if the s o k o thin^: could be accomplished for all of the Army bases, and mention the matter here iu the hope that it might be possible for you, and perhaps others in the service to raise this issue. We would go to a great deal of trouble to put on a three - or four-day session of instruction at some appropriate time and place where a group of medical officers and technical personnel {the appropriate people front various headquarters) could be brought together. This would save a great deal of trouble and expense and, in all probability, some lives. Perhaps I should explain that 1 retired iron the Medical Directorship of htliyi Corporation last December, after having held that position from the tine of the organisation of Ethyl Corporation. At the some tiao, 1 have continued in ay university position as the Director of this Laboratory and bepartmont in this Medical School (the two posts, of course, were indpendant of each other, but were not in conflict, and they were, in a sense functionally related, since this Laboratory since 1325 had done all of the major clinical and toxicological work on tetraethyl lead.) X continue, for the present, as a nodical consultant to Ethyl Corporation, and therefore Lt. Colonel Donald s. 3(yrs June 17, 1953 l can cull upon Mr# Ball and ofclteru, who will be only too glad to contribute anything they can to the solution of tUio probles. With these preliminary remanes behind re, I shall deal with your tiutstione. I'-ircf. with roapeot to tho diagnosis and therapy of tetraethyl loita poisoning. X shall get together, for you, what I can. Unfortunately, however, the articles published on this subject have been unavailable in reprint forra for years, having had a very wide distribution years ago. I will nave to get copies reproduced for you. (Ho publications on this subject have come out of the Taft Sanitary Engineering Center.) Second, lot joc ay categorically, that there is no r'OBger, from the apeos ..1 tetraethyl poisoning, la association with the ordinary Lauding wi ^eadod gasoline m tvbne equipment, pipe iines v*r .rrora dis- .cubing equipment. ' jftmru, cue danger involved in the cleaning ol tonus that have bees used for the storage u> leaded gasoline, ir; of a very extraorciaary type, unlike anything eisw in the handling of thin fuel, 3 cuuaot go iUtc detail bore la describing or explaining it, but the problem lies in the sludge tlmt fosaia under the water bottom. Xn fact, but for the presence of the water bottom there would probably be no problem, for this uceusuiaeiou of degradation products 1 tetraethyl It-xu ia the water layer under the guscline is the husis oi the problem. 'hen -.mi cuter a tank that Las been freed of gasoline, ler all practical purposes, organic lead Compounds, including isf.il quantities of tetraethyl iced remain behind, la the sludge, osa fro this aiucige the vapors of lead compounds escape and contaminate the air. da tills account, any aan, who enters a tank that contains water and sludge, or a slurry ox sludge, nay be subjected to respiratory exposure to these organic compounds i lead, with disastrous results. Therefore, so long as any sludge remains in the tank, icn who cutor the tente must bo completely protected by air-2ine, positive pressure isaska with hose lines. To Avoid contact of the 5icin with the sludge, they should also be clothed in olean coveralls, or the equivalent, so that contamination ot the clothing can readily be recognised and a change in clothing cifoctod if necessaryj they ;aust also wear im pervious boots and gloves in perfect condition. Good supervision, of cource, is necessary, and proper provisions for rescue, in caso of any . accidental difficulty, should be established, if theso precautions are foZnwed properly, in relation to tank-cleaning, no one will cot*: to grief. On the other band, under tho worst conditions that have been known to exist within such a tunh, fatal poisoning has resulted rcta no hour of exposure in the absence of respiratory protection* The conditions in tanks vary, and one cannot predict when they will b at their worst, and therefore, one must always guar against the rick. Our caaes of poisoning have occurred when some responsible person has failed to see that these precautions were Kf 00.12412 Lt. Colonel Donald 3. flyers ~3 ` June 17, 1959 taken, or when s o b one assumed that theye wau little or no clanger in a given situation. When the sludge has been removed completely, and all of the surfaces of the tank, on critical inspection, arc found to be clean, persona uay enter without respiratory protection. Fourth, in answer to your question if 3, information will be supplied in the fora of printed material. Fifth, with respect to your question if 5, you will be better able to handle the safety of your personnel if you put no dependence on analytical equipment, with respect to lead in the atiaoaphere of tonics. When any and all sludge (which nay contain tetraethyl lead or will certainly contain some triethyl lead j^ecdl-shaped crystals*] compounds) has been removed rota the tank, and when all adherent seals (containing decempocition predicts of tetraethyl lead) have been re moved fros. the ids- walls, she tank ay lie said tc> be clean, in general, "lead sust" as you call it, will not be dislodged readily by air currents, for the iead-containing scale on the sides of tanka, is adherent It will bo volatilised by fcho bout cf a hlww-torch, and it will be dislodged as dust if brushes or scrapers are used on the, side plates, uad therefore oeja ohoaid have respiratory protection in any of those operation-?. If uu jrvpuirs re vwsdc, hcwsvssrj the thin layer of adherent load-containing; scale oa the aid plates Is hcrmlena since the leavd canpound therein are not volatile at ordinary aubient tesiyeratures. As to your question .7 4, the use of the "explosion taetsr'* or other ;aeans for chocking tho significance of gasoline vapor, is optional tad has nothing to do with tetraethyl lead, JSoreovcr, air fro of tho vapor 1 gundine i/.! not necessarily of tetraethyl lead., ll> ass'jsiptiuns should bo i&aJe, therefore, with r& ap e ct to safety frora expoaure to lead, from detcnoiuaficn of gaadiae vapor in air. It is not vafe, from the asyect ;f exposure to load, to cater u tank that it s froe of gn aoline vapor. With respect to y sgat preparation of instruct!ans, I should net, if I were you, be t oo much concerned The'solution of your problem in connection with tank-cleaning (which ie the only problesi about which you need ?> concerned) lies not i.n iafonfi&tion in headquarter files, but In hard and taut discipline und supervision at tho point at which a tank ia being cleaned. If the simple precautions which we have advised are actually followed, you will never see a case of tetraethyl lead poisoning, nor will you have occasion to treat such a case. I suggest that you organise the activities in this connection in such a manner that there will always be an Informed person on the Job when a tank or a aeries of tanks arc to be cleaned, While t syinpathino deeply with your interest in XnoYdns ail the facts (and I will do what I can to satisfy your interest), it is not detailed knowledge, but adherence to simple but rigid procedures of safety, that will eliminate this trouble. KB' 0 12413 Sincerely yours,