Document 9J8Xvypopqrn6kbQ63qNzDgw6

...... ^ o ........... und Gewerberat S t o f e n Gewerbeaufsidhtsamt fr den Regierungsbezirk Montabaur Az.:____________ Tgb.-Nr.___ (bei Antwort stetsangeben) tT Geweibeaufeidhteamt Montabaur *"1 Department of Health, Education, and Welfare Public Health Service 4676 Columbia Parkway Cincinnati 26. Ohio USA L. J 5430Montabaur, den 29. I ,r:;r 7 1 c~ Tiergaitenttr. 17 Fernruf 321 Postfach 148 5 1 ! ' Dear Mister McCaldin, I apologize my `being late in answering your letter; I was on leave for some weeks and expected that my study on the lead problem would be published within short time by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which has accepted it on principle. But my study is based on an other treatise published by Fatzer in the supplement "Natur und Wissenschaft" to: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of 17 June 1963 and so will not be useful by itself. I therefore prefer to give you a survey on the main features, quoting the important publication each time: 1) The Soviet medicine has for lead dust in the air a threshold of 0,0009 mg/m^ for the general population. You find the scientific reasons in "Predel'nodopustimye kontsentratsii zagriaznenii atmosfernogo vosdukha" vypusk 5, Moscow 1961 - photostats of the few pages on request. A principal discussion of the Soviet methods has been given by Nesswetha, W. in "ber die maximalen Arbeits platzkonzentrationen in der UdSSR" published in "Zentralblatt fr Arbeitsmedizin und Arbeitsschutz" 1o. 196o p. 112. 2) The danger of higher concentrations of lead dust in the atmosphere has been statistically proved by A. Zykowa in "Gigiena i Sanitariya" 22. 1957 ed. 2 pp. 12 - 17. She found in the environment of a metallurgic plant with an average lead concentra tion of 0,022 mg/nw 8 times as much diseases of the nervous system and of the digestive system and 2 times as much diseases of the cardio-vascular system compared with normal conditions. I ship a translation under separate cover. 3) This concentration - 0,022 mg/m^ - exists in many large cities of the USA and of other countries. Some times it is much higher. 4) The gynaecological-perinatal effects of lead inhalations have hardly been studied. In the case of a pregnancy the lead depots in the tissues are mobilized and enter the blood, which provides the fetus. The result is little growth ecc. (see A. Baumann "Die ^ N7889 2 5) Children are much more jeopardized than the male adults. 6) The effects of combinations of lead and other nocious substances are heavier than the addition of the effects of the single substances. 7) The single point, in face of which I feel rather helpless, is the diminishing lead concentration in such cities as Los Angeles, Cincinnati and Philadelphia found by Dr. Kehoe. If I remember well, he explains this with a diminishing coal consuption. But on the other hancj/bhe Eidgenssische Bleibenzinkommission in Bern (Switzerland) has found an continuously increasing lead concentration in the dust of the streets of Zrich and therefore supposes that the lead concentration of the air increases as well continuously, because of the whirling up dust, without regard to the rapidly increasing car.traffic. I must admit that I myself am not physician '(in spite of a bit of medical university study), but there are physicians in Germany too who take leaded petrol for very dangerous, e.g. Prof. Borneff of Mainz University. Nobody denies that Dr. Keh o e 1s work "has given him a place in the history o^medicine. But the Soviet results should be examined at any rate. A scholar of Ann Arbor wrote me that he has observed a. wide-spread lethargy in the big cities of USA. It is possible that lead has a place among the reasons for this phenomen. _ If the Soviet.new ideas should be examined in the US, I should be happy to get the^esult. Their burocratic centralized medical system enables them to find coherences easier than we; I'm sure. Sincerely yours K E 0007423