Document 3EV0NKBg7Q7JeyY934JyLjMn

April 21, 1950 Dr. A t F. Lecklider, Medical Director# Fielier Body Division, General Motors Corporation, Piquette and St. Antoine, Detroit 2, Michigan* . Dear Doctor Lecklidert I am sorry that the pressure of work has delayed my comments on your booklet, and I am also somewhat apologetic, for the hasty notations, which may not be too easily legible, which I have jotted down opposite certain paragraphs. I nave changed or reworded certain statements, and have contented on others. I must be frank and say that I do not think the instructions to your staff are adequate. 1 do not believe they will understand either the problem or the significance of the analytical control measures unless the instructions are more precise and more extensive. You can, I am sure, eliminate all lead poisoning from your plani you will apply proper criteria for- J . viJ cognition 01 danger, and put the burden for prevention where it belongs - iot on the doctors but on the engineering and protective measures. Otherwise, the only choice presented to you and your staff to remove men summarily from work involving load exposure, when they reach dangerous levels of lead absorption. If you do this,, you will put the pressure where it belongs, automatically. Dangerous exposure is subject to entirely adequate definition at present, best in terras of urinary lead excretion, but reasonably satisfactory in terms of lead concentration in the blood. I regard an occupational exposure to lead which is sufficiently severe to cause dangerous absorption within '! 1/2 months (i.o. blood lead concentrations of 0.68 mg. and more, per 100 grams, and urinary levels of 0.15 mg. or more, per liter as being too severe to be tolerated in a well managed industrial establishment. We have not had a case of lead poisoning in the manufacture of tetraethyl lead, which is much the most dangerous of the lead trades, since the middle period of the war, and we had had none up to that time since 1928. We were compelled b y the pressure of the war to relax air standards and we got into trouble. I shall never he caught again in that situation. Moreover, the cost of having cases of poisoning in compensation coots and in terms of morale and anxiety and bad employee relations of one kind or Irfi? 0 0 d !tj Dr-* A. F. Lecklider - (2} - April 21, 1950 another, is too great to he endured, and this cost is hecoming greater every year- It Is even greater If one appreciates fully -J' w iX tr necessi'ty of~ `3c ping men out of exposure until they excrete the abnormal quant. ;ies of lead from their bodies, before returning to v ork. Our procedure is t- that. representatiV' do iico go above levels of lead in blood and urine which ve have found to be safe. Tills fixes the general environmental pattern, and establishes the measures of control and supervision required If occasional incidents of unusual character involve certain l au ..vzduaJ Ie< so r.iiar. move upward. into potentially dangerous ranges of lead, excretion or blood Lead ccm;sue, ve 'emeve them at once, having the authority to do so summarily. By tills means ve avoid cases of lead poisoning and the worries'and wear and tear associated therewith. If this is to be done, it must be founded on the presently certain evidence, that occupational lead exposure can be kept entirely cafe at defined by present physiological standards, and that if this io done, no cases - not a few, but absolutely none - will occur. If you have any doubts about t h i s , i shall cc only too happy to supply the evidence. 1Inceroly j ours, BAK ef Fnc. K p >il4f * tK.t ' /