Document K6w3vQ3X9KRvvwKwKB8DzxqR6

4 THE TEACUP AND THE SPONGE @ Copyright 1991 By Peter Reich 158 North Leverett Rd. Leverett, Massachusetts 01054 N40010 EXHIBIT NO. INTRODUCTION In very small quantities, as low as 15 micrograms per deciliter of blood, lead poisons the brain. Children with blood levels of 30 micrograms and higher show reduced short term memory, delayed reaction time, reduced ability to concentrate and diminished Intelligence Quotients. Conservative estimates now indicate that an IQ drop of six points in an exposed populations can be explained by lead poisoning. Depending on the city and neighborhood and whether you use 15 micrograms, or 30, anywhere from 4 to 20 percent of all U.S. children are poisoned and may suffer reduced intelligence as a result. The populations affected have been primarily in black and inner city groups. Lead poisoning is a middle class disease, too, especially among families where fixing up this old house is fulfillment of the American dream. For all these children, the sweet chips of paint on windowsills were candy on a dreary afternoon leaning out the window, and the white dust from old walls, or the black dust from auto exhaust composed the daily collection of lead collected on hands, faces, toys. How did the Lead get there? Through the twenties and thirties, firms that made lead and sold lead products vigorously and aggressively promoted the use of lead paint for the interiors and exteriors of homes. Paint had made rapid entry into domestic interiors after the turn of the century, when washability made it ideal for urban tenements and a replacement for wallpaper. Other bright new painted surfaces in the home included cribs, toys, woodwork and furniture. Since it is natural for an infant or toddler to place things in its mouth, cases of 2 lead poisoning in children caused by ingestion of lead paint began to appear in the medical literature. Lead in paint was first identified as the cause of a "Toxicity of Habitation" in 1897, and the first U.S. reported case was in 1914. By 1917 leading U.S. medical authorities had established that childhood lead poisoning from eating lead paint was a common problem. "The child," wrote a medical commentator in 1924, "lives in a lead world." After in 1922, another important source of domestic lead wafted into the child's world: lead from automobile exhaust. When it was discovered that a small amount of tetraethyl lead added to automobile fuel significantly improved performance and efficiency, the lead industry launched a medical research and political arm-twisting campaign to assure that lead, this "Gift of God" would not be banned for unfounded health concerns. Even though a Yale University physiologist warned of the scourge of poisonous dust that would fill U.S. cities, the industry view prevailed. By 1926, an authoritative Harvard researcher declared that lead was "harmless" and the U.S. SurgeonGeneral essentially labelled lead as safe. For half a century, tons of lead churned into the air from automobiles and it was "normal." For the next three decades, the lead industry and its trade associations held hegemony over the conduct of medical research, the setting of public health priorities, and the dissemination of information to warn the public. Through a white lead trade association, The Lead Industries Association, the nation's lead lead producers, refiners and manufacturers disputed claims.of lead poisoning and worked actively to discount such reports. When competition from non-toxic paints became a problem in the thirties, the association by passed the marketplace and worked to assure the lead paint would be required in public housing projects and other public buildings. Only the sheer weight of dead bodies began to stir pediatricians and legislators into action in the 1950s, but it wasn't until 1965 that the hegemony began to crack. Today, despite the banning of lead in paint and in autombobile fuel, the child still lives in a lead world from dust that is 3 everywhere, still, in the urban environment. At even greater risk is the unborn child of a mother carrying a lead burden, into whose blood the lead is carried as it drains with calcium from the mother's skeleton and passes through the umbilicus. Deposited in the brain, it impairs healthy brain, development and as TTME put it in 1943, causes stupidity. 4 THE LEAD MYSTIQUE Smelting ore in glowing hearth fires, primitive magicians emerged from centuries of smoke as fairly expert metallurgists, many of them certain that they would one day synthesize gold. Intensifying heat from coals using bellows and natural air currents, they separated basic metals from the stone in which they froze eons ago. In this manner, industrious peoples made and sold copper, tin, silver, gold, iron, and lead from the earliest of recorded time and probably before. Great lodes of metals swirl in frozen beds and veins beneath the surface of history: gold from the mines of Laurion financed the Athenian golden age and Andalusian silver sparked the Punic Wars.1 The promise of gold and silver attracted explorers to Africa and the North Atlantic before the Christian era, to the Americas in the 16th and 17th centuries, and teased waves of prospectors to the western United States throughout much of the 19th century.1 These metals found use as tools, weapons, and currency, and appear as footnotes, if at all, in the pages of human history. The bias of the mining industry, as stated firmly by H. A. Rickard, the well-known historian and journal editor, was "Trade follows the flag, but the flag follows the pick." Lead was one of the easiest of metals to smelt, and since it usually occurs with silver, the cost of obtaining it could be reduced. In its most common form, Galena, the lead is bound with sulfur to make a dark crystal that shines like a black mirror. Thrown into a fire, this crystalline ore melts and produces metallic lead, most familiar to average U.S. citizens as a malleable grey metal seen on automobile battery electrodes or in a bullet. Common uses of lead throughout much of recorded history have been as bullets or shot, as water pipes -- the word plumbing comes from the latin word for l.Rickard, T.A., Man.and-Metals, New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1932. VI, p.232-290. 5 lead, Plumbum -- as roofing material, coinage and ornaments. Lead in one particular form became important as a pigment. When corroded, lead produces a fine white powder called white lead. It proved to be a remarkably durable surface coating. By the middle ages, white lead was used by artists in paintings on wood and for decorative painting on the interior of castles and churches.2,3 But it was difficult and very time-consuming to produce the chemical reaction necessary to convert lead in its metallic form to the corroded white lead powder in substantial quantities. Sometime in the eighteenth century, it was discovered that heat and acid fumes hastened the corrosion process and the practice of using beer vinegar and tanner's bark or manure manure to corrode lead and produce lead carbonate became known as the Dutch process.2 In the early part of the twentieth century about forty U.S. Plants produced most of the nation's white lead using the Dutch process. According to industry sources, the process became obsolete in 1940/ The Dutch Boy trademark is still with us, although the cans now contain zinc or titanium pigments. The white lead was packed in containers and linseed oil was added; the painter would engage in a laborious mixing process to blend the linseed oil and white lead. To believe the industry and its spokesmen in government, nothing could match the brightness, hiding power and durability of white lead. The truest test for the painter was in the sheer weight of the can and in the artistic thrill associated with slowly and carefully mixing the thick white paste into the linseed oil until the creamy mixture swirled smoothly in the pail. A good painter could thin and mix as desired for maximum coverage and protection or for minimal cost. '.Rose, C. "The Lead Pigments," in Mattiello, 3.3., Ed., Protective and Decorative fnatinrjs, V. 2, New York: 3onn Wiley & Sons, 1942, p. 338. \chatfield. H.W., Thp Srienrp of Snrfarp Coating?;, London: Ernest Benn, Ltd., 1962, pl59. '.Dunn E.3., 3r. (N L Industries, Inc.), "Lead Pigments," in Myers RR and Long 3S, Eds., Trpatic p on Coatings, Volnmp 1, Part T, Pigmpnts, pp 335-424, 1975, p. 336. 6 The lore of American mining and the record of industrial achievement is in itself an ore rich in romance and adventure. The.Dutch Boy and other trademarks, slogans and mythologies about lead perpetuated an image of lead that grew out of the romantic opening of the west. The people and places associated with lead were glorified as if its role in history imparted a luster to the lead in everyday life, stretching back to the revolution: "A leaden equestrian statue erected in honor of George III in 1770 had to be sacrificed...it was used to make bullets for the purpose of destroying His Majesty's soldiers. We are told that the statue was melted by Governor Winthrop of Connecticut, and that it was converted into 42,000 bullets."s Mined steadily up and down the eastern seaboard from 1621, lead was an important local industry providing bullets, paint and pipe. Because of its malleability, it was prized as a conduit for water. The first American white lead business was established in 1752 in Philadelphia followed in 1804 by the first white lead factory.* The white lead business became a large, powerful force in the nation's economy. Modern paint companies trace their roots to Philadelphia, where records showed Benjamin Franklin as a customer of one of the earliest paint firms in 1753. Unimagined wealth lay beyond the Appalachian frontier in Missouri where outcrops of Galena, the ore of lead, gave frontiersmen and indians a ready supply of lead. These deposits were first discovered by French explorers who made their way south on the great waterways, and after observing the outcrops in the Upper Mississipi Valley, began extracting lead late in the 17th century. In those days, anyone in need of bullets could just build a hot fire, toss in chunks of ore and watch the molten lead roll out of the coals and into molds. In addition to molds for shot, primitive ingot molds were fashioned in deep holes with poles set horizontally a few inches down. The '.Rickard, T.A., A History nf American Mining, New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1932, p.177. '.Trigg, ET, The Paint and Varnish Making Industry in Philadelphia. Philadelphia: Chamber of Commerce Edicational Committee, 1917., p. 20. 7 lead hardened into ingots with a built-in rope hole where the pole had been set so the ingot could be readily secured to a pack mule.7 The lead mines that developed in Missouri after the 1820s proved to be extraordinary and the concentration of lead-rich ores in a few geographic locations made it possible for ownership of the means of producing and marketing lead -- mines, smelters and refineries -- to concentrate in a handful of large corporations which predominated in two sections of the state.* In Southeastern Missouri, the largest lead-producing district in the United States, the St. Joseph Lead Co., dominated the region for well over a century. The mines in St. Francois County had been in operation since the early 18th century, and became consolidated in the 19th century under St. Joe after its incorporation in 1864. Located about 50 miles southeast of St. Louis, the expanding industry helped make that city into an industrial center. The ores from Bonne Terre, Desloge, Leadwood, Flat River were milled locally. It was the first firm to use diamond drill bits on a large scale (1869), and to use a blast furnace (1877). From 1891 until the present, St. Joe's refinery at Herculaneum has produced much of the nation's lead. St. Joe won important political chits during World War I. "During the World War the lead output of this company's mines proved of immediate and great value," wrote T.A. Rickard "On the very day that the United States declared war, namely, April 6, 1917, Mr. [Clinton H.] Crane [President of St. Joseph Lead Co., 1914-1947] became chairman of the Committee on Lead of the Advisory Committee of the Council of National Defence. The committee undertook to furnish, and did furnish, the lead required by the government at a price less than that of the current market, which market price fluctuated violently in common with that of most commodities in those hectic '.Richard, T.A., "formerly editor of the Engineering and Mining Journal (New York), The Mining and Scientific Press (San Francisco), and The Mining Magazine (London), Hictnry of American Mining, New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1932, p.148-152. '.Ingalls, W.R., lead and 7inr in the United State-;, New York: Hill Publishing Company, 1908, pviii-ix. 8 days. Subsequently, in 1918, when the tremendous demand for munitions created an acute condition in the lead market, the administration of the entire American and Mexican lead output was undertaken by the Lead Producer's Committee for War Service, with Mr. Crane as Chairman. It is estimated that near the end of the war less than 10 percent of the country's production of lead went into uses other than those vital to the victory of the Allies. The St. Joseph Lead Company from the date of its organization to December 31, 1929, produced 2,707,957 tons of lead, the sale of which has permitted the distribution of $63,963,189 in dividends. The lead of the Mississippi valley has proved of critical importance both in peace and in war."9 The second major lead region in Missouri is known as the Tri-State Region or the Joplin District, a 2,000 square mile area covering southwestern Missouri, southeastern Kansas, and Northeastern Oklahoma. The dominant firm in this area was the Eagle-Picher Mining Co., organized in 1888 to operate mines.10 It was re-named the The Eagle-Picher Mining and Smelting Co in 1919." Mines were located at Picher and Cardin, Oklahoma, Mineral Point, Missouri, and Treece and Baxter Springs, Kansas. Eagle-Picher mills were located in Oronogo and Wentworth, Missouri and Commerce/Picher, Oklahoma. The National Lead Company also had mines in Picher, Missouri and Baxter Springs, Kansas. In striking contrast to the stereotype of conestoga wagons rattling off to the western sunset, mining historians boast that as early as 1847, the sight of Prairie Schooners creaking northeast and eastward from Missouri and Illinois stimulated agricultural settlers to follow the trails west and '.Rickard, T.A. Op. Cit., p.176-177. 10. Gregory, C.F., A Cnnrisp History of Mining New York, Pergamon Press, 1980, p.134. ". Incorporated 1919 in Ohio, Formerly known as Eagle-Picher Lead Co.; produces raw materials & carries on mining operations through its subsidiaries, EaglePicher Mining & Smelting Co., Minas de Guerrero, S.A., and Minas de Furango S A de C V. Mines Rpgistpr, New York, V. 22, 1946, p. 106. 9 provided avenues for expansion into the south central states.12 Two major markets for white lead paint developed rapidly after the Civil War: One market was house paint, exterior paint for the new farms, stores and homes built in the wake of the expanding frontier. Later, the growth of large urban areas with tenements stimulated the use of white lead as an interior paint. With pre-packaged paint in gallons and quarts for domestic use a long way in the future, white lead was essentially the one and only protective covering. More importantly, perhaps, it was available in abundant supply. With the opening of the west after the Civil War astonishing discoveries of minerals in the rockies thrust the industry into a spasm of development that produced an oversupply of silver and a major economic collapse. Important lead deposits were found in Colorado, Utah, Idaho and Montana. A significant difference between the Missouri lead and the far western lead is that most of the western lead occurred in argentiferous ore, so that with specialized refining equipment, silver and other valuable metals could be recovered from the ore. The ores also contained substantial amounts of zinc. The final ring of the hammer at Promontory Point, Utah, in 1869 signaled that ores or ingots could be shipped readily by rail to manufacturing centers and markets on either coast and all along the way. By the turn of the century, the mining and manufacturing of lead,, copper, silver, gold and zinc in the far west was controlled by a few firms: The American Smelting and Refining Company, the National Lead Co., The Anaconda Company and the Heel a Mining Company. These firms along with EaglePicher and St. Joe in Missouri maintained ownership of mines, mills, smelters and refineries through the nineteen sixties. a. "A Milwaukee paper speaks of the interest excited by the 'prairie schooners' that were constantly arriving from the lead districts, these picturesque wagons being drawn by six, eight, or more yoke of oxen. (Hourwich, I.A., "The Making of America, Vol. VI, p273; 1905) The roads they followed became tempting avenues to the later agricultural settlers that went from the lake shore to the interior, and in this way the path of the lead miner became an important factor in facilitating the development of southern Wisconsin." Rickard, T.A., A History of American Mining., New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co.,1932, p.170 10 American Smelting and Refining Co. was founded in 1899 in New Jersey. Swiss immigrant Meyer Guggenheim traveled to Leadville, Colorado, in 1880 and came away with ownership of mines that yielded a fortune. Much of the history of the processing of lead (and silver) for the next half century is dominated by this family. Erection of a smelter in Pueblo, Colorado in 188? marked the beginning of Guggenheim rule in the processing of lead, zinc and silver ores. One of the ways the Pueblo mine achieved profitability was by the introduction of a german metallurgist. Daniel Guggenheim was one of 7 Guggenheim brothers who, with with their father Meyer, made fortune buying mining properties in late 19th century. Guggenheims became dominant influence in American Smelting and Refining Co. in 1901 when the American Smelting and Refining Co "assumed control of the lead market, fixing the price both for producers and consumers, and regulating output by agreement with the large producers and by adjustments of its smelting charges in connection with small producers." In 1903, the United Lead Co. was organized, securing control of nearly all the manufacturing plants making sheet lead, pipe and shot, 21 in number, together with a few white-lead works. 1906, The Guggenheim interests practically secured control of the National Lead Co., and the United Lead Co. thus bringing the major part of the lead-consuming industry of the United States into direct affiliation with the American Smelting and Refining Co. The National Lead Co. had its origins in one of the great trusts, the National Lead Trust, capitalized at $90,000,000 in 1887. This trust was dissolved in 1891 and the National Lead Company formed, combining numerous smaller companies involved in the production, refining and manufacture of lead products. The Company owned mines, mills, and refineries and controlled "approximately eighty percent of the white lead manufactured in this country." This evenually included control of the "Largest white lead plant in the world" in Perth Amboy, N.J. American Smelting and Refining Co. and National Lead Co. developed a network of plants nationwide. The Trust's influence was influential in 11 copper, too, and Guggenheim manipulation of copper prices and profits during World War I was one of the post-war scandals. Through the thirties, In addition to controlling American Smelting and Refining, the Guggenheim's controlled Kennecott Copper. Guggenheim's also stimulated development of Chilean and Mexican ore deposits. The Chilean holdinmgs were transferred to Anaconda in 19??. In Montana, the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, organized in 1895, held a large tract near Butte, and for most of the century produced copper, iron, aluminum and other minerals as well as lead and zinc. In Idaho, The Heel a Mining Co. controlled properties in Shoshone County that produced silver, lead and zinc, as well as mills. Hecla also held an interest in the United States Smelting and Refining Co. which owned a refineries in Idaho. For the first quarter of this century, white lead was the largest category of lead-consuming industries and the firms that mined, smelted, refined lead and manufactured lead products joined together in 1928 to form a trade association, the Lead Industries Association, to assure the orderly and continuous movement of lead into communities and homes. The National Paint, Oil and Varnish Association, founded in 1888, initiated a national effort to establish a U.S. Department of Commerce and met with success in 1903. (Trigg, 249). Establishment of a research institute in Washington in about 1910 provided a mechanism for continuous reporting of progress in paint technology. (Trigg, p60) The influence of the lead industry achieved apotheosis in 1921 when Herbert Hoover, the mining engineer of the 20th century, was named Secretary of Commerce by President Warren G. Harding. Bureaus directly under his control were instrumental in making the case for tetra-ethyl lead and for encouraging the use of white lead in municipal buildings and schools. For the first quarter of the century, white lead was the biggest item in the domestic consumption column, peaking at 125,000 tons in 1925, about the same time medical reports originating in the 19th century showed clearly that children 12 were at particular risk of being poisoned by non-industrial lead in the home. 13 TOXICITY OF HABITATION During the late 1890s and early years of the new century, physicians in Queensland, Australia, were perplexed and troubled by what was described in 1897 by A.3. Turner as a "Toxicity of Habitation," a mysterious disease of children (30). The key diagnostic signs were paralysis, notably wrist drop; abdominal pains and pains in the limbs; ocular neuritis; and convulsions. Chronic lead poisoning was the agreed-upon diagnosis in the 76 cases at the Children's Hospital in Brisbane, but the source of this "nerve poison" eluded researchers. Subsequent articles recounting the quest for the source of the lead convey both urgency and frustration. Then, in 1904, 3. L. Gibson, an ophthalmic surgeon at Brisbane Hospital for Sick Children reported in the first of several papers that lead paint had been identified as the source (36). The climate and regional architecture -- with large, painted verandas -- created an environment which increased the likelihood that dry powdery sweet-tasting paint would adhere to childrens' hot, sticky, frequently-licked hands. The theory that lead-containing paint was the cause precipitated considerable debate, and 3L Gibson and his colleagues published several articles after 1904 detailing the manner in which they had eliminated all other sources (41, 43, 51, 60). They also demonstrated that the powdery paint from the verandas was tested by reliable government chemists and found to be a soluble carbonate Of lead (66). After years of frustration Gibson seemed quite pleased in 1922 to have the Council of the Queensland Branch of the British Medical Association endorse proposed legislation to prohibit the use of lead paint on veranda railings and "outside surfaces within reach of children's fingers." While he expected opposition from "powerful monied interests," he was outraged that physicians could be recruited to the opposition (66). From 1904 children were recognized in 14 English language medical articles as being at risk of serious poisoning from eating lead paint. Altogether, Gibson reported 299 cases of lead poisoning due to lead paint over three decades of clinical work. While the first American medical article about children and lead paint didn't appear until 1914, lead poisoning from chrome yellow and lead carbonate on baker's buns established the medical seriousness of children ingesting the lead pigment from non industrial sources in the United States in 1887. In 1889, W. Glenn reported in Science on the work of D.D. Stewart in discovering the cause of the outbreak of lead poisoning in Philadelphia. Quoting directly from Glenn (22): Early in 1887, "Dr. Stewart had found some cases of lead poisoning...which...he finally traced to bakers' stuffs as the cause. He secured in a bakery the chrome yellow with which these stuffs had been colored, and showed that the baker himself was a physical wreck from eating his own wares; and, moreover, that several members of his family had died of lead poisoning, brought about by eating the chrome-yellow colored stuffs. This latter was proven by the bodies exhumed by the coroner, who investigated altogether fifteen deaths. The work was done by Deputy Coroner Powers, who, in an interview at his office on Sept. 10, 1887, told the writer that it was a small estimate to put at two hundred the people in Philadelphia who had died of lead-poisoning induced by baker's stuffs. The causes of death, he said, had been certified to various diseases, among them malaria and cerebrospinal meningitis, but that now all physicians agreed that they were cases of lead poisoning. "One who had examined the mortuary records informed the writer that others of these deaths were assigned to typhoid, typhus, epilepsy, Bright's disease, and to lepto meningitis. The real causes were established by Dr. Henry Leffmann, who analyzed the viscera of the exhumed bodies. The victims had died of lead poisoning. During the coroner's investigations, it was shown that the use of chrome yellow by bakers as a coloring matter was quite common. 15 At an inquest held July 11, 1887, the evidence of Dr. Miller of the firm of Aschenbach & Miller, dealers in colors, was 'that he believed that eighty per cent of the bakers in the city' used chrome yellow in certain of their breadstuffs. In February of the following year, two of these bakers were sentenced to terms of imprisonment. The courts appear to have been lenient because the bakers themselves had been so distressed by the poisoning. One of them had lost a wife and five children, and was himself a wreck." According to Glenn, whose purpose it was "to spread wide the facts" about the toxicity of lead pigments, the Philadelphia experience with chrome yellow on baker's buns during the 1880s established that lead chromate, chrome yellow and lead carbonate "are often the sources of lead poisoning, which may exist largely in a community and yet escape detection." Medical writers in the early part of the century frequently cited Stewart's 1895 report of the bakers' buns incident, "Lead Convulsions," (27) as an important early contribution to the literature of lead poisoning and its effects on the Central Nervous System, since he demonstrated the greater vulnerability of children to ingested lead pigment (six out of seven with convulsions died). The first United States report of a childhood case -- and fatality -- from eating lead paint came from the Harriet Lane Home of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, the first of many from this Home established in memory of her two deceased sons by Harriet Lane, niece of President Buchanan. At the May, 1914 meeting of the American Neurological Association, H.M. Thomas and K.D. Blackfan described the case of a five year old boy who was admitted comatose with recurrent convulsions and treated for serous meningitis (56). He recovered and seemed fine but returned to the hospital five months later with the same symptoms. After a more rigorous examination, the physicians finally noted a slight discoloration on a tooth which proved to be a lead line. Examination of the blood revealed the stippling characteristic of lead poisoning. "We were much puzzled as to the source of the lead, until he was found with his mouth covered with white lead paint which he had bitten from 16 the railings of his crib." The child died a few weeks later. Blackfan fol1 owed up in 1917 with another report on lead poisoning in four children, of whom three died (59). One child was the case reported in 1914. Of another fatal case, "The father stated that the child would gnaw any painted article, and that he and his brother had recently ruined a set of parlor furniture by eating the paint from it." The paper emphasizes the particular vulnerability of children and significance of convulsions as an indication of the severity of the lead poisoning. Blackfan concludes: "I would urge that energetic prophylactic measures be taken with children who habitually eat painted articles in order to guard against the development of lead poisoning...In all patients with convulsions in which the etiological factor is not clear, lead should be suspected." Another report of a child fatality from eating lead paint came from New Orleans in 1920 (64). By the mid-twenties, the literature moved from case reports to commentary and warnings by authoritative physicians in textbooks, and articles. For example, Abt's 1923 Textbook Pediatrics (68) included the observation that "Poisoning with lead is probably more common in children than generally supposed." Abt states that "eating the enamel of iron beds and licking painted walls" are some of the ways children are exposed. The eighth edition of Holt's Diseases of Infancy and Childhood, 1923 (69) also reported seven deaths out of eight cases: "The poisoning was caused in each instance by the child's nibbling and swallowing the paint from his crib or furniture." Holt himself underscored the seriousness of the phenomenon by publishing an article on lead poisoning in .infarmy (70). He presented a case of lead poisoning in a nursing infant due to lead acetate in a breast ointment, but described other sources of lead, including paint, buns, milk that had stood in lead containers, and medication. The dangers of non-industrial sources of lead were highlighted at the fifth annual meeting of the Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Disease at New York City's Commodore Hotel and reported in The New York Timp<; 17 / on December 31, 1924 (73). The limes reported international incidents involving cosmetics (75), and described the work of Carl V. Weller at the University of Michigan. Weller "told of a child who became a victim of lead poisoning after gnawing the paint from his crib." Weller emphasized that "lead poisoning continues to hold its pi ace in the first rank of industrial hazards and to find its victims through the most unexpected sources among the non-industrial population as well." Weller attributed this to "phenomenal growth of new industries using lead." Weller, a pathologist at the University of Michigan was interested in the cerebral effects of lead poisoning and noted in a 1925 study (81) that "Non-industrial lead poisoning has provided many of the cases of lead meningoencephalopathy and the diagnosis is much more apt to be missed in these cases because the etiology is unsuspected." Giving examples of non-industrial lead poisoning, he cites Stewart's bakers' buns, carpet weavers, cosmetics and ointments, and lead paints. Concludes Weller: "The importance of non industrial sources for the lead in infantile and juvenile lead meningoencephalopathy cannot be too strongly emphasized. The detective instincts of the clinician may be taxed to the outmost in order to guard his young patient against further increments of the poison." Shortly afterwards, in 1926, C.F. McKhann at Harvard Medical School reported seventeen cases of lead poisoning and observed that the eating of lead paint was frequently associated with picau(87). Less than ten years after Thomas and Blackfan stated that lead poisoning in children was "not very common," McKhann declared that "lead poisoning is of relatively frequent occurrence in children." By 1926, non-industrial exposure to lead was regarded as a serious hazard to infants and children, and eating lead paint from cribs, furniture, toys and woodwork was identified as a major source of the poison in 1513 13 Pica is defined as an unnatural craving for articles of food, from the Latin word for magpie, a bird that eats anything and everything. See Ruddock 1924 (74), first paper to make association between lead paint poisoning and Pica. 18 separate U.S. medical articles (37, 56, 58, 59, 64, 68, 69, 70, 74, 77, 79, 80, 81, 85, 87). For a time, it appeared that this widespread recognition of a societa! poison would be lead to its elimination. 19 LEAD POISONING During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, important medical aspects of lead poisoning both occupational and in society at large had become well established in medical literature and the debilitating effects of lead poisoning on the social fabric were well publicized in England and the United States. Important symptoms were identified, too: stomach pain, a blue "lead line" on the gums, and paralysis. The first public activity to prevent lead poisoning in populations occurred in the eighteenth century when Massachusetts outlawed the use of lead in rum-making equipment. The belly-ache -- dry gripes -- associated with rum ingestion was apparently quite common in the West Indies and up and down the coast, and the Massachusetts statute of 1723 was designed to prevent the disorder by removing its cause, lead. To judge from historical accounts, several Massachusetts physicians associated severe belly-ache with consumption of rum manufactured in machines containing lead parts. A medical historian later observed that "From the wording of the law, one can reasonably conclude that the clinical manifestations and cause of lead colic were recognized by the doctors of Boston in 1723, many years ahead of the medical world." (140) However, the problem appears to have persisted up and down the coast. The continuing use of lead in rum-making equipment was reported in a 1745 publication by Benjamin Franklin's press, a report on "the dry-gripes". The relatively frequent appearance of references to Franklin's article though the decades indicates that it was well-known in medical circles. Franklin shared his findings with an eminent British physician. Sir George Baker who proceeded to review two outbreaks of a mysterious illness that had puzzled physicians and determined that they were lead poisoning. The first was the colic of Citois, which in 1616 devastated the population in Poitiers, France. The epidemic was described by Citois in 1617. The second 20 outbreak, the Devonshire Colic of 1724 was the result of lead used in apple cider presses. Sir George went to Devon to personally inspect those who were poisoned, and found lead paralysis everywhere: people were "walking artificially, pallid, squallid, lean," with "their hands crooked and hanging under their own right, not being raised to the mouth and other higher parts except by effort...their feet not their own, but the muscles of their shanks making their gait laughable if (it were) not so pitiable, their voices harsh and halting." These signs of muscle paralysis joined the belly-ache as a marker of lead poisoning. Close investigation of the apple cider production facilities revealed that lead held iron pieces together, and often, the cider presses were lined with lead, while the finished product drained off in lead pipes. Sir George noted, too, that a common guide to cider and wine-making recommended adding sugar of lead to sweeten the product. Sir George's campaign elicited much criticism but Baker defended himself to the hilt, publishing results of chemical assays demonstrating the presence of lead in large quantities in the cider. In one experiment, 18 quarts of Devonshire cider yielded 4.5 grains of lead. Baker's report and related comments associating the Colic of Citois with lead poisoning were republished in Induct-rial Mpdirine in 1941. In 1971, G.V. Ball published results of a analysis of English port wine made between 1770 and 1820, with lead content ranging from 320 to 1900 micrograms of lead per liter.14 Ball hypothesized that the widespread "epidemic" of gout in the 18th and 19th centuries may have been caused by chronic ingestion of leadcontaining port wines.15 In the mid-nineteenth century with the European industrial revolution in full swing, occupational lead poisoning became more of a medical problem, and while the majority of cases involved occupational exposure, poisoning from 14. Ball, GV, "Two Epidemics of Gout," BiQlJiist-Med 45:401-408, 1971. 15. Ball GV, Sorenson, LB, "Pathogensis of Hyperuricemia in Saturnine Gout," N Fngl 1 Med 280:1199-1202, 1969. 21 common household objects was not uncommon. In 1840, a third major diagnostic sign was defined: a characteristic line on the gums was reported. The "Blue Line" or "Burtonian Line" was defined by H. Burton as a sign of lead poisoning and joined paralysis and colic as three key features of the disease. With high levels of blood lead, some of the lead is precipitated out as a thin bluish line along the gums. Although some 17th century physicians had commented on lead's effect on the central nervous system, acknowledged limits in medical knowledge hampered the endeavor to understand lead's effect on the brain. The first authoritative treatise on lead poisoning was prepared by Tanquerel des Planches and published in France in 1838 and in the United States in 1842. It clearly associated lead poisoning with encephalopathy, an inflammation of the brain characterized by violent seizures, coma, and death. Tanquerel des Planches' description of encephalopathy endured for decades. Tanquerel was clearly frustrated by the difficulties he encountered in tracking lead's pernicious attack on the central nervous system. According to Tanquerel, Stockhausen (1656) and many others in the 17th century associated "cerebral affections in lead colic." The French physician described the passage of lead to the brain but seemed frustrated by limitations of "present state of science concerning intellectual lesions__The nature of the impression of lead upon the encephalon...completely evade[s] investigation." Concerning the source of exposure, Tanquerel noted that "The use of playthings for children; colored with preparations of lead, intended to be placed in the mouth, such as trumpets, have caused serious diseases, among others colic. 16 In a lengthy Appendix, derived from his own substantial experience with lead poisoning, Dana stated that poisoning from lead ingested by children from lead water pipes, not an uncommon phenomenon in northern New England. "Lead," wrote Dana, "in continued small doses, is a slow poison." Dana included a report to the City Council of Lowell, Massachusetts, concerning lead water pipes which stated: "That lead, in continued small doses, is a cause of disease and death, is the accumulated testimony of two thousand years, yet the metal is used where it is most dangerous. Men are roused to a sense of its danger, only when the frequency of the disease, attended often by a fatal termination, has spoken in tones which chill the hearts of the bereaved, and alarm the living sufferers by 22 The growing social toll of lead poisoning was forcefully thrust upon the British public in 1894 when George Bernard Shaw's play Mrs. Warren's Profession" was banned from the London stage. The play, Shaw noted 1ater, is about prostitution, social conditions, and decency. The point, Mrs. Warren boldly states, is that "the only way for a woman to provide for herself decently is for her to be good to some man that can afford to be good to her." Mrs. Warren chose prostitution after watching her sister die in a white lead factory. "She only expected to get her hands a little paralyzed; but she died." The play was finally performed in 1902 and caused a critical uproar. In New York, the play's producer was arrested and a newspaper was fined for advertising it. Shaw's portrayal of white lead as the worst sort of poison earned a place in the "agitation" that eventually lead to formation of the British White Lead Commission, established in 1898 to examine the manufacture and use of white lead. Special rules for protection from occupational exposure in factories were issued in 1899 and strengthened in 1901. Meanwhile, careful study by British authors on lead poisoning in the pottery industry by an eminent British physician further clarified the insidious effects of lead on women and children in particular. Sir Thomas Oliver's official titles included "Expert, Dangerous Trades Committee, Home Office." While his primary interest was occupational exposures, their concern about effects of lead on children was explicit. The work of Oliver was an important source for U.S. authors. In 1911, Oliver delivered to the Eugenics Education Society a well grounded fears, that the seeds of deathly disease may be germinating in their constitutions." Dana continued: "...there is reason to believe that a vast many cases of rheumatic and spasmodic and nervous disease, a general breaking up, as it were, of the foundations of the great deep of life, have occurred, which can be attributed only to the effects of small, daily doses of lead." Dana made an especially poignant appeal concerning children: "In this sense of the constitution...of that agent called the vital force, it is found by experience, that the young, the delicate, soonest succumb, under the effects of lead drank [sic] in their daily drink, and like the dews of heaven, descending on all, the gentlest and fairest, first feel the chill which soon closes in death." 23 lecture entitled "Lead Poisoning and the Race." The lecture opens with a statement of concern about the nation's "reproductive power" and "the fitness of its children." He expressed concern about the high rate of abortion among women in the labor force, and singled out occupational lead exposure in particular as a cause. Noting that he had been calling for removal of women from lead-making for twenty years, incurring the wrath of manufacturers, he acknowledged some progress: "It is difficult to estimate directly and indirectly the gain to mankind by the abolition of female labour in white lead factories, and in all processes where lead is used." Moving on to more detailed discussion of abortion and miscarriage rates among women exposed to lead, he expressed concern about the "direct transmission of lead as a poison through affected mothers to the offspring." His descriptions of children in homes where pottery was a cottage industry is a clear, sharp warning that exposure to lead produced serious mental and physical deficits. Referring to a Dr. Prendergast of Hanley, Staffordshire, who had worked in the Potteries, he reported that "Dr. Prendergast is of the opinion that the children of lead-poisoned potters do not grow up into capable men and women like other children, but that they are handicapped in their start in life, and that subsequently many of them exhibit signs of mental as well as physical deterioration." The worst effects of plumbism seen by Oliver were in Hungary and he described incredible familial devastation in sections of Hungary where pottery making was a cottage industry. At the close of this passage Oliver stated again "...it is the repeated entrance of minute quantities of lead into the body and not of one or two large doses, which give rise to the worst types of plumbism." The contention of the paper is that there is a cumulative effect - possibly inherited -- and "there are signs that the development of child life is to some extent being interfered with."17 17. p. 32: "Lead is particularly a cumulative poison, and post-mortem analyses of viscera show that it may be stored up in certain parts of the body, more especially in the bone and red bone marrow and brain." Cites several studies showing 24 As a clear understanding of lead poisoning, particularly white lead, as an occupational and child poison became common knowledge, labor organizations pressed for better working conditions. In Switzerland, an attempt to prohibit the use of white lead failed in 1904, but Belgium prohibited the use of dry white lead Ca major source of dust) in 1909. Germany and Austria also regulated the use of white lead, the latter explicitly banning white lead in domestic interiors. The task of substituting non-toxic zinc-based pigments was easier in Europe where zinc ore and refining methods made it possible for zinc to compete in price. In the United States, zinc producers were more widespread than the lead producers, but most of the major lead deposits outside of southeastern Missouri contained zinc in recoverable quantities. For the most part, the companies that owned the lead production and manufacturing business also controlled substantially the market for zinc. The attitude appears to have been that as long as a substantial producing and lead in the brain as well as other organs. P. 33: "The quantity of lead present in the brain necessary to determine acute poisoning is not known and it is probably that an extremely minute quantity will produce very serious effects." p. 32: Anticipates Kehoe by citing research of Gautier [Societe de Biologie, April, 1903] that traces of lead may be found in normal persons. p. 39: "Malnutrition is recognized as a predisposing cause of practically all forms of disease, and with a chronic intoxication, such as lead poisoning, malnutrition and starvation, with its attendant depression of the vital force of the body, is essentially a predisposing cause of poisoning." Notes that an animal fed with milk containing lead nitrate aid not develop poisoning, although a control animal developed marked symptoms of lead poisoning with a much smaller dose given in water. Oliver, 1914, p. 98: "It is characteristic of lead poisoning that the absorption of minute quantities of lead continued daily for a few weeks or months is not only more likely to produce symptoms than one or two fairly large doses taken in rapid succession, but that the plumbism which develops will probably be more severe and persistent." Oliver, p. 161: "All physicians are agreed that plumbism is more likely to be the result of the frequently repeated entrance of small quantities of lead into the system than of one or two large doses. Where large doses are given by mouth -- e.g., 15 or 20 grains of acetate of lead-- only a minute quantity of this is likely to be absorbed. The bulk of it is thrown out in the feces, but in the case of a lead worker who is breathing or swallowing dust, minute quantities only reach the internal economy at a time." Oliver, p. 165-166: "WHAT AMOUNTS OF LEAD ARE HARMFUL?" "...the problem is surrounded with difficulties." notes that intoxication reported at levels of 1.6 mg/1 water; 0.5 mg/1; 0.2 - 1.5 mg/1. "Teleky gives it as his opinion that if 1 milligramme or a little more of lead is taken daily for several months it will cause plumbism, and that a daily dose of 10 milligrammes will lead to serious intoxication after a few weeks...Clearly, therefore, small quantities of lead can always be readily dissolved in, and be also readily absorbed from, the stomach. It is the minute Quantities of lead which do harm, for larger quantities would be less likely to be issolved and absorbed." 25 manufacturing capacity for white lead was in place, there was no reason to change. In addition, the voice for reform, labor, was closely associated with anti-American political perspectives. Even before World War I, international labor organizations were preparing a worldwide prohibition of white lead, and one of the provisions the Treaty of Versailles called for the International Labour Organization to examine industrial working conditions. Lead poisoning was a high priority item and as a result, the ILO in 1921 began a process to encourage national governments to ratify a ban. Through the 1920s most European nations banned the use of white lead. As of 1991, the United States still had not. The elimination of white lead was possible largely because a suitable substitute was available: zinc. 26 Zinc Pigment The problem with Zinc was that it just didn't have the excitement of lead. Lead, especially in the far west, was simply a vehicle for incredible wealth: From the molten metal were skimmed gold and silver. The suitability of Zinc oxide as a substitute for white lead as a pigment was demonstrated in the 1780s in Europe, and it entered commercial use in France in 1842. In Europe, the agitation over white lead and research comparing zinc oxide with white lead had given zinc the opportunity to become established as a viable substitute. In the 1914 monograph on lead often cited by U.S. writers including Aub, Holley and Gardner, Oliver devoted several pages to research programs to compare the two and provides for the reader names of the countries in Europe that had taken measures to regulate the sale of white lead. With discovery of Zinc deposits in the United States furnaces were constructed and processes patented during the 185Os.However, prolonged litigation over substantial zinc deposits in New Jersey delayed development until the turn of the century. By that time, the corporate infrastructure of the U.S. mining and smelting industry was well established and for many of these firms, lead and zinc production were clearly linked by virtue of their common occurrence in nature. A critical event in zinc's emerging role as a substitute for white lead was the erection of the paint test fences in North Dakota and elsewhere. These tests, based on deterioration of various paint combinations under controlled conditions showed conclusively and decisively that zinc-based paints were as good and often better than white lead only. The lead people insisted though that zinc oxide "has not proved satisfactory when used alone as a pigment for outside house paints." During the next few years, white lead positioned itself as being in a class by itself as a metallic covering, versus 27 "paints," generally portrayed by white lead people as cheap imitations. The white lead people opposed formula labelling because the quality of white lead was measured in sheer weight of the real material, not in percentage of product. For a time, it appeared that zinc would prevail in interiors. For example, the author of a 1907 book comparing white lead and zinc oxide noted that with wider use of zinc, "the trade will be in possession of real substitutes not only for white lead, but for many other articles...injurious to health. Then there will be no need of promulgating laws to supopress such and such a color, the draftsman having a choice between two good products will choose the one which exposes him to the least danger."18 One of the most optimistic authorities within the paint industry who appreciated the potential of zinc as a substitute was H.A. Gardner who moved to Washington in 1909 and whose career as director of the scientific section of the Paint Manufacturers Association of the U.S. endured until 1945. Gardner explicitly expressed concern about the public risk of exposure to corroding white lead paint: "Many tons of corroded white lead...were applied to the walls and ceilings of school rooms and hospitals. Gradual disintegration of such paint would result in the formation of dried particles of white lead dust. The presence of such dust in the atmosphere of a room is very dangerous to health...Fortunately the use of flattened white lead has been largely abandoned for wall and ceiling decorations and its place has been taken by the more sanitary leadless flat wall paints." Gardner explicitly warned his readers and ostensibly, members of his association to guard against lead dust in public buildings. Gardner appeared convinced that lead was no longer used on interiors, stating "...it is significant to refer to the fact that the use of zinc oxide is universal with the paint manufacturers of the United States and it is ". Petit, G., Thp Manufacture and Comparative Merits of White Lead-and 7inc Wh-iTP Paints, Grant D., Tr., New York: D. Van Nostrand Co., 1907, p.90. 28 rapidly becoming standard practice with the painting craft to use zinc oxide in nearly all interior and exterior paints." Gardner's optimism may have been fed by a number of acknowledgements by the lead industry and white lead interests of lead's toxicity in 1917. For example, the U.S. Navy replaced red lead as a primer with sublimed blue lead "on account of its less poisonous nature." And Sherwin-Williams recommended to the chief of ordnance of the War Department that government specifications for war helmet paint calling for 50% carbonate of lead be replaced by a leadfree formula containing lithopone. The Sherwin-Williams Company noted that with the new formula, "The danger of lead poisoning is entirely eliminated." It is possible, too, that the reports of lead poisoning from the Harriet Lane Home (1914 and 1917) played into Gardner's concern about the dangers of white lead. During the early decades of the century, there were other industry acknowledgements of the industrial lead poisoning. For example, C.D. Holley, chief chemist of the Acme White Lead Company devoted several lengthy paragraphs to lead poisoning. Citing Sir Thomas Oliver's Oliver's work on the particular risks to women, Holley noted, "Fortunately in this country female labor is not employed in white lead factories."13 The case for substituting zinc oxide for white lead gained momentum in Europe during World War I when lead shortages stimulated the use of substitutes for white lead. After the war, the International Labour Organization seized the moment to pass a worldwide ban on white lead and to document that zinc paints were less costly than lead paints. In the United States however, although there was a capacity to produce zinc oxide, it was very closley linked to lead production, since the two often occur together. The widely scattered ownership of producing mines appears to have precluded the consolidation that occurred with lead. Nevertheless, Holley, C.D., The lead and 7inr Pigments, New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1909, pl49. 29 several of the same firms that manufactured lead also manufactured zinc. American Smelting and Refining Co. inaugurated zinc smelting in 1901 in Pueblo, Colorado through its subsidiary, U. S. Zinc Co. (Ingalls 332-333) etc. The St. Joseph Lead Co. acquired substantial zinc mines in New York State in 1926.20 Anaconda began construction in 1922 of two zinc oxide plants, one in East Chicago, Indiana, and the other in Akron, Ohio. 21 To serve zinc output from mines in Southeastern Missouri, Eagle-Picher had zinc plants in Henryetta, Oklahoma and Van Buren, Arkansas. 22 and was the leading zinc producer for much of the century. Data on Tri-State District Production 1850- 1964, indicate that for over 100 years, zinc output from the district mines exceed lead output by a ratio of two, three and often four to one in volume and dollar value.23 In 1959 it was described as "the principal zinc-producing area of the country."24 With the white lead industry to a very large extent vertically integrated after the First World War, there was little inclination to give up a booming market to a competitor. The lead industry's response to potential competition from zinc was a vigorous new paint marketing campaign to preserve the growing market for white lead. But then, in 1922, dissemination of lead from another source, automobile emissions, took center stage. St. Joseph Lead Co., A Short History rvF thp St. Joseph I pad. Co., New York: The St. Joseph Lead Co., 1950, p.5 *l. U.S. Dept, of the Interior, Mineral Rp;nurrps of the United States. 1922. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1925, p.77 Minp<; Rpgister, 194fi, p. 106 ". Brockie, DC, Hare, EH Jr., Dingess, PR, "The Geology and Ore Deposits of the Tri-State District of Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma," in Ridge, JD, Eds., One nppnsitc n-F thp iinirpri States, iq33-iqfi7, New York: The American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers, 1968, p.404. J4. p.108. Riley, CM, Our Minpral Rpcnnrrpc, New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1959, 30 THE GIFT OF GOD Herbert Hoover was sworn in as Secretary of Commerce on March 4, 1921, and for the next seven years he managed the introduction of science and technology into American life. Cars, planes, radios, telephones and lead -- . in paint and automobile fuel -- were among the fruits pouring from the cornucopia of America. Hoover's tenure at Commerce was a stunning success and propelled him to the Presidency in 1928. Summing it up himself in a 1928 presidential campaign speech he pointed to "3,500,000 new homes, the electrification of 9,000,000 residences, the installation of 6,000,000 telephones, the purchase of 7,000,000 radio sets and 14,000,000 automobiles." (Hoover, H. Memoirs, Cahinet and Presidency 183-184) When he arrived, Commerce was a sleepy 19th century leftover: "The Department of Commerce was a congeries of independent bureaus left behind when the labor activities were separated into the Labor Department some years before. It consisted of the Bureaus of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Lighthouses, Navigation, Coast and Geodetic Surveys, Census, Standards, and Fisheries and the Steamboat Inspection Service. They were all old establishments created prior to the Department itself. Each was an inbred bureaucracy of its own. There was little departmental spirit, or esprit de corps. Some of the bureaus even placed their own names on their letterheads without mentioning the Department...Putting the fish to bed at night and turning on the lights around the coast were possibly the major concepts of the office." (42) Hoover, H. The Memoirs: The Cabinet- and the Presidency.....19.201933., New York: The MacMillan Company, 1952. Virtually all biographers acknowledge that Hoover essentially transferred the brains if not the power of the government from the White House to Commerce and his rapid rise won a TIME cover in 1925. Much of his interest 31 lay in promoting use of the automobi1e. While his bureaus standardized everything from tire sizes to rules of the road, Hoover's public writings exhorted men and boys to discover adventure by taking their cars on long fishing trips. Two Bureaus of the Department played highly significant roles in the dissemination of lead in automobile fuel after this remarkable new use for lead was discovered. In 1922, a General Motors researcher in Dayton, Ohio discovered that the addition of tetraethyl lead to automobile fuel dramatically reduced a knocking that limited power and efficiency from automobile engines. When questions were raised about the safety of adding lead to automobile fuel, it fell to the U.S. Bureau of Mines to defend lead. The Bureau's research was partly funded by General Motors, and as the battle intensified, the Bureau of Mines came under the direct control of Secretary Hoover, in time for a showdown on the safety of lead as a fuel additive. The issue simmered until five persons were killed in a Standard Oil factory explosion, igniting public concern over the use of lead, thrusting lead poisoning into the glare of public scrutiny. Predicting widespread lead poisoning from lead exhaust dust, Yale Physiologist Yandell Henderson led a strident opposition to leaded gas, warning of "virtual race suicide" as a result of tons of lead dust on city streets. Compelled to address the matter, U.S. Surgeon General E.S. Dimming called a conference attended by some 85 persons in May, 1925. Graebner describes the conference: "...business dominated the conference. Numbers alone made the producers and distributors of tetraethyl lead a force to be reckoned with. Oil had thirteen representatives, autos nine, and the Ethyl Corporation alone had six. Business was also granted the opportunity to establish an appropriate framework for the issue. The conference opened with Charles F. Kettering, speaking for the Ethyl Corporation, describing the historical conditions that had given rise to the need for leaded fuel. The general manager of DuPont spoke next, affirming that leaded fuel could be safely manufactured and marketed and documenting the 32 auto industry's early interest in impartial' studies of lead's effect. Then Sayers presented the animal study of the Bureau of Mines, and soon thereafter, Robert Kehoe presented the results of his early research for the Ethyl Corporation, emphasizing that lead was relatively nontoxic compared with other heavy metal compounds. When Henderson took the floor as the first person to oppose leaded gasoline, the conference was already hours old." (Graebner, p35) In the closing moments, Frank A. Howard of Ethyl Gasoline Corporation made a remark that still echoes loudly in the halls of public health when he declared that lead was "an apparent Gift of God." How, he asked, could the government preclude the use of this substance which promised to give Americans individual freedom of historic proportions? After a perfunctory study, Surgeon General Cumming essentially stamped the word "Safe" on lead, with his January 26, 1926 statement that rendered lead usable as an automobile fuel additive. For the next forty years, "the lead industries exerted enormous, indeed, hegemonic, influence over the production and dissemination of lead of knowledge about lead poisoning" (Graebner p40). Two principal sources of authoritative medical research were Joseph Aub, M.D., at Harvard Medical School and Robert M. Kehoe, M.D., medical director of the Ethyl Corporation and director of the Kettering Laboratory of Applied Physiology in Cincinnati, Ohio. 33 THE TEACUP The money to conduct the study of lead at Harvard came from the lead industry, procured by Alice Hamilton, the first female member of the Harvard Medical School faculty, and author of the authoritative handbook of industrial toxicology (141). Harvard handed the project to Doe Aub, a brilliant young physician-scientist. Doe Aub fitted the mold of Arrowsmith, and at the same time that the fictional physician won the Pulitzer and Nobel Prizes for Sinclair Lewis, Aub published a remarkable work on lead poisoning which became the classic American contribution to a lineage extending to Ramazzini and Tanquerel des Planches. "I don't know how she did it," Doseph Aub later told an interviewer about Alice Hamilton's fund-raising, "but she extracted $52,500 from leading lead manufacturers for a three-year study. What was even more astounding she got it with no strings attached. Harvard had complete authority to investigate and publish its findings without submitting it to the industry for approval. What makes this performance all the more remarkable is that before Alice Hamilton came on the scene many leading people in the lead industry would not even admit the existence of lead poisoning." (237)" He recruited a team and started publishing papers in 1922, culminating in the classic I pad Poisoning which appeared in the Dournal Medicine in 1925 (79), and in 1926 as a monograph (82). The Mpdirinp article states that "The funds for this work were given to the Harvard Medical School by the National Lead Institute."" Based on animal studies, human subjects and the most exhaustive literature review to date, Aub and his colleagues investigated25 25 Oral history taken by S. Benison 19 Duly 1957, Archives GA4, Box 14, pp. 171-172. 2`. Aub, D.C., Fairhall, T., Minot, A.S. and Reznikoff, P., "Lead Poisoning," Mpdirinp 4:4, 1925. 34 every possible aspect of industrial lead poisoning and presented it in a tidy package: "a positive calcium balance favors storage of lead, while a negative balance tends to increase the rate of excretion." The human body was naturally equipped for storage and excretion. To his credit, Aub was helpful in pointing out the risks to workers of inhaling lead dust, and during the twenties, more protective measures were taken in mines and mills. But the most powerful concept introduced by Aub was that lead was essentially "harmless." In the seminal monograph, Aub states that "...after absorption has ceased, significant amounts of lead are to be found only in apparently harmless deposits in the bones." (This is based on animal studies. (p68)) And from the perspective of childhood poisoning, only one of the 7 human subjects described was a child, and this child was "defective." This prejudice -- that the blame lay with the victim was perpetuated by the industry for decades. This "Teacup" theory of lead metabolism provided the foundation for chelation therapy of the future, and, coming the same time that America^ letters recognized a novelist for portraying the noble pure scientist, must have seemed to many as Harvard matching fiction with reality. No sooner had Martin Arrowsmith disappeared into the rarefied atmosphere of the research lab at the end of Arrowsmith, than Joseph Aub emerged from the lab with a tidy physiological package that solved the problem of lead poisoning and promised a cure. The beauty of Aub's model was that fit perfectly with developments in human nutrition. The appalling health status of the American youth who presented themselves for service in the Armed Expeditionary Force stunned the medical and public health communities and stimulated serious research into nutrition. By the mid-twenties, numerous vitamins had been discovered, and the miracle food of the decade was milk. Every major author on lead poisoning had addressed the protective effect of milk, but Aub described the mechanisms. Moreover, he did this at just the right time. "Nature's Most Nearly Perfect 35 Food" had been recently perfected by the introduction on a large scale of pasteurization of public milk supplies. As fresh, clean milk made its way into everyday life during the 1920s, it's reputation as a protective food may well have been nudged by policy makers who understood from reading Aub that lead followed the calcium. In an individual with a positive calcium balance, lead would just tag along with the calcium to the bones and become "harmless." Buttressing Aub's view of lead as "Harmless," came the steady stream of medical literature from R.A. Kehoe at the Kettering Laboratory in Cincinnati, Ohio. Kehoe was medical director of the Ethyl Corporation from 1925 to 1958 and also served as director of the Kettering Laboratory at the University of Cincinnati. Kehoe's work was is characterized by an emphasis on the normalcy of lead in the human body, and the equivalency of adult and childhood exposures. Although his first publication on normal lead levels appeared in 192627, a major contribution was a series of articles published in the .journal of TndMci-Hal Hygiene in September, 1933. In these articles, entitled "On the Normal Absorption and Excretion of Lead, Parts I,II,III and IV," Kehoe established that ingestion of lead was a common, everyday occurrence for Americans, and that the exposure levels described by Aub and others as being toxic were in fact normal. In Part I, Kehoe examined lead absorption and excretion in primitive life.2* He obtained lead values from urine and feces analyses in two Mexican villages in which the only apparent source of lead was the water supply. These were poor villages but "there was no hunger." "The water contained minute traces of lead," drinking water contained 0.009 mg/kgm, and soils !7. "There is at present no quantitative expression of lead secretion in man which may be said to be significant of impending or present lead poisoning." Kehoe, R.A., Edgar, G., Thamann, F., and Sanders, L., The Excretion of Lead by Normal Persons, Innrnal of the American Medical Assoriatinn, 87:2081-2084, 1926. ". Kehoe, R.A., Thamann, F., Cholak, 3., "On the Normal Absorption and Excretion of Lead, I., Lead Absorption and Excretion in Primitive Life, lournal. of Indus.tci.al Hygi ene., 15:257-272, 1933. 36 ranged from 0.60 to 6.00 mg.kgm. Vegetation contained less than half a milligram of lead per kgnu Lead was also found in pottery and prepared foods. One of the criteria for selecting this primitive site was "freedom from such opportunity for lead absorption as would come from the use of lead paints on the outside or inside of dwellings." Kehoe found an average of 0.0138 mg/Pb per liter of urine in 81 subjects. Figures for lead in feces were inconclusive because he failed to include subjects with values in the highest ranges (0.18-0.299). He concluded: "...the lead content of 24-hour samples of feces is approximately equivalent to the amounts of lead ingested daily. ... The mean lead content...of feces__shows the mean daily ingestion...to be not less than 0.11 mg." Part II examined lead absorption and lead excretion in modern American life.29 This study reports results of lead intake and excretion studies in four young men to establish "normal" levels in "normal people." There was considerable variation, but "normal adult American excretes lead at a rate of 0.02 - 0.08 mg/liter of urine." Average (urine & feces) 0.25 - 0.38 mg/day, which was approximately in balance with intake. Kehoe notes, too, that "Whether or not the continued absorption of minute amounts of lead has an influence on general health, remains unanswered." He did little to raise the question. In Part III, Kehoe examined the sources of normal lead absorption.90 He reviewed major sources of lead beginning with a global perspective noting that "lead compounds used as insecticides, lead paints, and many other lead- containing commodities, including, recently, finely divided lead from the exhausts of automobiles, add their bit to the top layers of the earth." (p. 294). He concludes that "For the present, there can be no doubt that the 2*. Kehoe, R.A., Thamann, F., Cholak, 3., "On the Normal Absorption and Excretion of Lead, II., Lead Absorption and Excretion in Modern American Life," Inurnal nf Tnrin;tria1 Hygiene, 15:273-288, 1933. ,0. Kehoe, R.A., Thamann, F., Cholak, J.. "On the Normal Absorption and Excretion of Lead, III, The Sources of Normal Lead Absorption" Inurnal-Qf Industrial Hygiene, 15:290-300, 1933. 37 chief problem of American hygienists with relation to lead compounds is to be found not in the lead absorption of the general public but in the high incidence of occupational lead injury." In concluding remarks, he highlights foods and lead-containing insecticides as additional sources of lead. Lead absorption and excretion in infants and children was the topic of Part IV.31 Even though the children showed lead excretion levels slightly higher than the "normal American adults," he insisted that processes of absorption and excretion are the same in adults and children (Average lead in feces (ash) was 0.080 mg ash and in urine, 0.085 mg/litre urine, total .165). Kehoe's contribution during the early 1930s was an important estimate of "normal" daily intake (.20-.35 mg/day) and excretion (.25-.30mg/day), confirming the Teacup theory.32 For example, McKhann conceded in 1932 that "the presence of lead in small amounts in the stools and urine of infants has been shown to be of common, almost normal occurrence," and cited Kehoe as the source (115). More importantly, Kehoe neutralized attempts to nail down a level of exposure that could be deemed toxic. In doing this, he contradicted Aub. Aub had taken a conservative view on the question of levels of lead necessary to produce toxicity. "It is difficult to determine even roughly the dose of lead which should be considered toxic, for the quantities eliminated without absorption from the gastro-intestinal or respiratory tracts cannot be measured, and individual susceptibility varies greatly. Teleky, however, is quoted in Oliver's book as believing that ingestion of a little more than 1 mgm. of lead per day for several months causes symptoms in a short time.33 n. Kehoe, R.A., Thamann, F., Cholak, 3., "On the Normal Absorption and Excretion of Lead, IV., Lead Absorption and Excretion in Infants and Children," journal of Tndnctrial Hygiene, 15:301-305, 1933. "See Minot AS 1938 for a summary of both Aub's no lead in Boston and other reports in the 30s indicating that nearly everyone has absorbed some lead. M. "Dr. Ludwig Teleky of Vienna informs us that a daily dose of a little more than 1 milligrame of lead taken for several months will cause plumbism, and that a daily dose of 10 milligrammes will cause symptoms of severe saturnine intoxication in a very short time." Oliver, T., lead Poisoning; From the Industrial... Medical, and Serial Points nf View. New York: Paul B. Hoeber, 1914, p. 37. 38 Legge thinks that 2 mgm. per day may cause chronic poisoning,3* while Soilman from a summary of the literature concludes that, in man, daily ingestion of 0.2 to 0.3 mgm of lead per kilo will in time produce phenomena of lead poisoning. He thinks, however, that more minute doses might possibly interfere with nutrition and resistance." Sollman (1922), reported as Aub's final source on toxicity, concluded that "daily ingestion of 0.2 - 0.3 mgm of lead per kilo will in time produce phenomena of lead poisoning." Kehoe simply declared that the level of lead ingestion deemed poisonous by experts on two continents was "normal." Together, Aub and Kehoe minimized the potential effects of absorbed lead on children. Aub seemed particularly interested in minimizing the importance of encephalopathy. Because he focused on the mature physiological systems of the adult, Aub saw and described the human body as a remarkable organism, well equipped to store and excrete ingested or inhaled lead. While he acknowledged some of the work on lead encephalopathy he favored a Less dangerous view of lead's effect on the central nervous system, i.e., the view that the cerebral effects were meningitisi an inflammation of the brain's lining rather than encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain itself. He cited lack of anatomic evidence for encephalitis.He said lead encephalopathy is "infrequent," and, echoing Tanquerel, added that "no satisfactory explanation for lead encephalopathy has been found." p212. Moreover, the only case presented by Aub involving a child appeared in a study of post-mortem lead in tissues in which "A mentally defective child with perverted appetite gnawed the paint, from her bed for several weeks." (p70)3J The seminal work associating lead poisoning in children with Pica had appeared in JAMA in i.924 (74) but apparently too late to be included among Aub's 2,500 references.34 34. Legge, T.M. and Coadby. K.W., Lead Poisoning and Lead.-Absorption, New York and London: Longmans Green & Co, 1912. " Aub reported values for both cerebrum and cerebellum totalling -- heavily footnoted -- 3.56 mgm/ of lead per 100 gm of fresh tissue. These are far and away the highest values. 39 Aub's association of childhood lead poisoning with mental defectives marked the beginning of a bias that any child who chewed lead paint was already "defective." More importantly, he failed to note the very high levels of lead in the brain of the single child whose case he mentioned. To judge from the way in which later scientists cite his work, Aub's l pad Poisoning won a place in the annals of medical literature on lead at the level of Tanquerel. Yet he did TanquereT disservice by guiding medical science toward the meninges rather than the brain itself. By declaring lead harmless, Aub provided the medical foundation for the Surgeon General's 1926 approval of tetraethyl lead. Kehoe's work put a lock on toxicology in general, and stalled pediatric research by asserting that absorption of lead was equivalent in adults and children. He represented a strong voice well into the sixties, for the normalcy of lead and the equivalency of child and adult exposures into the seventies. Together, these bodies of scientific work from the Kettering Laboratory and from Harvard posed a formidable obstacle to anyone who wanted to learn more about lead poisoning. Aub and Kehoe both sat on the Lead Poisoning Committee of the American Public Health Association, and Kehoe made sure that no references from the core literature on childhood lead poisoning would be avai 1 abl e. With eminent scientific researchers being glorified in the best-selling novel Arrnw;mith, Aub's work represented the astonishing achievements of medical science one might expect from Martin Arrowsmith. That modern scientists would assert that their product was harmless and normal was beyond the wildest dreams of the lead people who presided over the dissemination of lead into everyday life were. Very happy to have the honor of finding more and better ways to pour America's bounty into the affairs of everday life, these tradesmen and marketers were Babbitts. 40 HOUR OF LEAD From the time paint first emerged as a substitute for wallpaper early in the century, paint and especially lead paint was offered to the American people as the only thing to use on interiors and exteriors. "The Proper decoration of the interior of dwellings and public buildings has become of even greater importance than the protection and decoration of exteriors," wrote Henry Gardner in 1911 from his new Washington Office of the Educational Bureau of the Paint Manufacturer's Association. Up until a few years ago__wall papers...were almost exclusively used...there seems to be no questions, however, that the use of wall paper is steadily declining, and that the art of interior decoration is undergoing a transition to the almost universal use of paint."36 Gardner touted paint as a conservation measure because it meant trees weren't ground into wallpaper. More importantly,- in cities teeming with millions of new immigrants, the glossy durable finish of white lead meant walls could be easily washed. Gardner also noted proudly that in laboratory tests, walls painted with white lead grew fewer bacteria adding the sparkle of sanitation to paint as an. alternative to wallpaper. The lead industry had embarked on advertising in the second decade of the century with a "Save the Surface" campaign which continued after World War I. "Save The Surface" appeared in a series of ads in Thp Saturday Fvening Post during the 1920s. In one (March 25, 1922, p54) An astronomic observatory peers into a star-studded universe over the headline "Bringing the Stars Down To Earth." The text explains that lead, in one of its more unusual ". Gardner, H.A., Paint Tprhnology and Tpsts, New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1911, p252. 41 properties, enhance the refracting of glass lenses. Continuing, "Here is one of the little-known uses of lead in civilized life. There are many others. Your fountain pen and the tires of your automobile contain lead, for lead is used in making rubber. There is lead in the glaze on your fine china, lead in the tube which holds your toothpaste, lead in the solder that seals fruit and vegetable cans and joins metals in thousands of other articles, in printers' metals, in storage batteries, and in machinery bearings. "Most important of all, to modern civilization, is the use of white-lead as the principal ingredient in good paint. Everywhere people are learning the importance of paint-protection, the wisdom contained in seven short words -- "Save the surface and you save all." In April 8, 1922, p68, another National Lead Company ad states ""Save the surface and you save all. The highest protective power is found in those paints which contain the most white-lead." The Copy goes on to invite the reader to try Dutch Boy paints and write for a free booklet "The Wonder Book of Lead," to learn "the hundred and one ways in which lead enters into the daily life of everyone." This ad was placed by the National Lead Company, and listed John T. Lewis & Bros., Co., Philadelphia and National Lead & Oil Co., Pittsburgh. A large two-page spread in The Saturday Fvpning Post, November 3, 1923, pp. 144-145 sponsored by Acme White Lead and Color Works depicted a splitseason picture of a bright upper middle class home, where a gentleman shovels the sidewalk in the winter half and sits in a tie casually reading the newspaper on his porch in the summer half. On the next page in smaller insets, a man is shown painting wood trim and women are shown painting kitchen walls and a baby carriage with white lead. The advertising pitch picked up when Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover arrived on the scene. Hoover created a new Division of Building and Housing in the Department, and an important product of this division was a "Better Homes" campaign. Hoover himself was president for 12 years of a 42 voluntary organization called "Better Homes of America." [insert here information about recommendations in pamphlets] In addition, the National Bureau of Standards in which Hoover had taken a particular interest, made it clear in correspondence with citizens, firms, and public institutions that white lead was the paint of preference for interior surfaces, "...there is no more durable white paint for interior localities than basic carbonate white lead paint..." stated G.K, Burgess, NBS Director, in 1926. The Board of Education of Minneapolis, Minnesota, wrote to the Bureau of Standards in May, 1930 asking for standard specifications "for the painting of school house walls and ceilings." E.F. Hickson, chemist for the NBS, responded by noting that the NBS had no specifications for school house walls. Although he provided a circular number for lithopone, regarded as less poisonous by the industry, he strongly directed the reader to lead paints: "...interior paints for walls and ceilings are frequently made from mixtures of paste white lead or a combination of paste white lead and paste zinc oxide. To these are added linseed oil, turpentine and dryer to make either gloss, semi-gloss or flat finishes. You will find formulas covering white lead paints in Technologic Paper No. 274, a copy of which is enclosed. In our opinion, these white lead or lead-zinc paints when properly made and applied are more durable than the ready-mixed lithopone paints. The usual lead-zinc types of ready-mixed exterior house paints are likewise very durable when used for interior purposes." Hickson goes on to describe in detail "the practice of one branch of the Government in painting walls and ceilings" using entirely paste white lead. In response to an inquiry from the Board of Education, City of New York, P.H. Walker directed a division of the NBS to note in the letter that for painting plaster walls with lead and oil, "There is nothing better that can be used." To assure the continued protection of the market for white lead and other lead products, the principal producers of lead together established in 43 1928 the Lead Industries Association, with headquarters in New York, representing virtually all of the United States White Lead production. Key sponsors of the Association were The National Lead Company, St. Joseph Lead Co. Hecla Mining Co., The Anaconda Company and others. A major activity of the Lead Industries Association was the rebuttal and repudiation of allegations of lead poisoning and sponsorship of promotional programs including its use as an interior and exterior domestic paint. For despite the vigorous advertising and promotion campaigns, medical and epidemiological reports continued to identify white lead as a poison. 44 THE SPONGE For a few giddy months, Hoover's presidency sparkled as the apotheosis of Babbitry but even before the stock market crash, ominous reports from insurance companies showed that childhood lead poisoning continued to account for significant numbers of fatalities. And even before his term was over, medical reports were questioning the applicability of Aub's and Kehoe's work to children. Two statisticians who produced especially convincing data were Frederick Hoffman, whose work for the Prudential Life Insurance Company spanned three decades, ending with his retirement in 1935. A world traveller and expert on public health, Hoffman may have unwittingly sparked the concept of "A piece of the rock" when he returned from Gibraltar in 1901 with 2,000 pounds of it. In a report later published by the U.S, Bureau of Labor, Hoffman in 1927 painted a gloomy picture of child health and safety. (92) Hoffman declared his report to be "the first definite statement of its kind ever published revealing the true extent of the mortality from chronic lead poisoning among the American People. [Hoffman, F.L., Dpai-hc from I pad Pni<;oning, Bulletin No. 426, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Washington: Government Printing Office, 1927, p. 15). With statistics from the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., the U.S. Navy, and 14 cities and states, Hoffman's report listed occupations most associated with mortality from lead poisoning. Painters had about eight times the mortality of other occupational groups. Significant by their presence in the non-industrial grouping were the 19 deaths from lead poisoning among youths under 18 including seven from eating lead paint. The growing concern over non-industrial childhood lead poisoning prompted a survey in 1930 by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company of 45 "prominent pediatrists." A majority of these, reported the study's author, Louis Dublin, "agreed that chronic lead poisoning in infancy and childhood is by no means a rare condition, and almost all believed that wide publicity should be given to this fact through the press or the "popular" literature of health departments and private health agencies, with special insistence upon the dangers inherent in cribs and toys painted with material that contains lead." Dublin observed that lead poisoning "would be a more prominent item in both morbidity and mortality records but for the fact that the condition is often unrecognized by physicians." The Bulletin quotes a Boston physician [McKhann] who reported 50 cases at a single hospital beginning in 1924, noting that the diagnosis of lead poisoning from chewing paint from cribs, woodwork, or toys, was "proven beyond a doubt". [Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., .Statistical Bulletin XIflOl4-5. 19301 After the Depression began, yet another cause of lead poisoning became apparent: burning of used battery casings. A report from Baltimore based on 40 cases labelled lead poisoning "the depression disease." It had become a common practice among Blacks in Baltimore to burn battery casings as a source of heat. In view of the widespread poisonings over two winters, The city of Baltimore undertook vigorous protective measures, including radio warnings. Several other states issued warnings, an additional national warning was sent out by the Lead Industries Association. Twelve percent of the cases had encephalitis. Continuing work at Dohns Hopkins and elsewhere soon made it clear that the teacup theory did not apply to children. Aub's lament concerning meagre anatomical findings was challenged in 1931 by Caffey of Babies' Hospital, New York37 on the basis of radiological findings. Caffey gives credit to Aub and his co-workers for certain aspects of their work on lead, notably the selective deposition of lead in the skeleton, but provides evidence that Aub was wrong about effects of lead on 57 Babies' hospital (NY) appears to be an "allied" hospital in that several key Harriet Lane people studied there, including Chisolm. 46 the skeleton. Caffey cites the literature of radiologic diagnosis (100,105) and presents results of microscopic examination to showing "hyperplasia and packing together of bony trabeculation with partial obliteration of the marrow space" to support his findings of anatomic lesions resulting from lead poisoning. All three papers present radiologic evidence of specific lesions that are attributed to lead. Caffey makes a point of noting that Aub an co workers had failed to report anatomic changes resulting from lead poisoning in adults. Thus, in a two year period, three papers appeared showing that in the matter of lead being "harmless," to the skeleton, Aub's work did not apply to children. Two years later, the Australian literature produced haunting a follow-up on the many cases reported by Turner and Gibson. Grim confirmation of Gibson's alarums and confirmation of long-term pathological effects of lead on children came in LJJ Nye's report of 1,250 deaths from chronic nephritis in Queensland from 1917-1926 -- significantly more than in other Australian states. In his report, published in the Medical Journal...of. Australia, Nye examined all possible causes of the unusually high number of cases in Queensland, and concluded that the climate, architecture, decorative bent of the time and the custom of leaving children on enclosed porches for long periods of time combined to cause an unprecedented epidemic of debilitating kidney disease. Elaborating on Gibson's description of sticky-fingered children licking sweet poison from their fingers, Nye reported that many patients described licking bright sweet raindrops from dripping porches as a favorite pastime of their childhood. The significance of nephritis as a complication in U.S. deaths associated with lead poisoning was emphasized in H. L. Hoffman's review of findings of a 1925 study by the Census Bureau of lead poisoning related deaths. (154) In addition, 33 Chisolm suggested that fewer cases of chronic nephritis from U.S. cases might be explained by a higher cadmium content of the lead pigments used by Australian manufacturers. 47 Nye's report established emphatically that "the case against lead paint has been reasonably proven," and indicated that firms involved tried to suppress information about harmful effects of lead paint. Nye cited a paint manufacturer's response to his inquiry about sales of non-poisonous paints which describes 400% increases in sales of. non-leaded paints and adds "We believe that our experience with the increased demand for non-poisonous paints is common to all paint manufacturers with the exception of those who are almost married to the white lead interests." States Nye: "The whole issue has been clouded, the extent of the lead paint menace has been minimized, and on consequence, literally thousands of children have been allowed to run the risks of lead absorption." The most significant crack in the teacup, however, concerned brain pathology. Aub had rejected the earlier work on encephalopathy, saying lead encephalopathy is "infrequent," and adding that "no satisfactory explanation for lead encephalopathy has been found." p212. Aub favored the less serious diagnosis of meningitis, asserting that "The question, therefore, arises whether lead encephalitis is not really a meningo-encephalopathy, which is primarily a chronic productive meningitis, characterized during acute exacerbations by a degree of round cell infiltration varying with the severity of the attack. Certainly most of the recent pathological and clinical pathological observations seem to bear out this theory." More on Meningo- Encephalopathy is presented by Aub on pp. 189-192, concluding with "This discussion indicates that in so-called lead encephalopathy the meninges are primarily involved, or in other words that the disease is really a meningopathy."pl92 These passages were challenged in 1936 (162) and in 1937 (167) by Johns Hopkins' Blackman who makes it very clear in both articles -- based on autopsies -- that lead ingested by children caused specific brain lesions. The title of the later article "The Lesions of Lead Encephalitis in Children" might very well have given offense to Aub's group at Harvard. 48 In language that is unusually strong for a scientific article, Blackman chided Aub for complaining that there was "a discrepancy between the wellknown clinical manifestations and the meagre anatomical findings which had so far been described in the literature." p3 In reporting his results, Blackman stated "The Meninges. No especial primary lesions of the meninges have been found in any of the cases in this series and none of the microscopical lesions confirm [Aub's] suggestion that in lead poisoning there is a primary meningopathy." p29 Blackman's paper is highly significant in establishing specific pathological effects of lead paint poisoning on the child* brain and in dismissing Aub's attempt to focus pathology in the meninges. Within a year of Blackman's paper, one of Aub's co-authors, Ann Minot, acknowledged that lead encephalopathy was an important disease and that the effects of lead on the brain were potentially more significant than had been noted: "The pathology in outspoken lead encephalopathy, according to many investigators, gives evidence of severe circulatory disturbance and vascular injury. Such observations may indicate that the prolonged absorption of smaller amounts of lead might result in less marked but still significant abnormalities in the blood supply to the brain...There is also again the possibility that lead may cause permeability changes in nerve cells analogous to those demonstrated in other tissues. Such an effect could hardly fail to impair the optimal functioning of highly specialized nervous tissue." Minot calls for "a more delicate set of criteria than we have at present for the recognition of early slight injury from lead." p. 574. Both Blackman's and Minot's reservations about the applicability of Aub's work to pediatrics followed acknowledgement by Kehoe that childhood lead poisoning was in a class by itself. Kehoe had left a door open to possible adverse effects of small doses of lead in 1933 with the observation that "Whether or not the continued 49 absorption of minute amounts of lead has an influence on general health remains unanswered." (129). In addition, "complete freedom from such opportunity for lead absorption as would come from the use of lead paints on the outside or inside of dwellings, or on objects of general utility..." was one of five criteria he established when testing for lead levels in "primitive life." (128) Again in 1935, he opened the door wider with and outright acknowledgement that children exposures were different: "There is every reason for suspecting the existence of significant and dangerous lead exposure in the case of children with a history of pica. The occurrence of lead-containing commodities and the use of lead paints on furniture, toys, and other objects within the reach of small children is much too common to ignore. The existence of symptoms even slightly suggestive of plumbism should results in prompt investigation of the child and his surroundings." A considerable body of literature indicated strongly and consistently that the effects of small quantities of ingested lead on a child's organism were especially pernicious and enduring, [add 1938 british quote] By 1937, the teacup theory so elegantly crafted by Aub and Kehoe was shattered insofar as childhood lead poisoning was concerned. In ascendancy in the medical literature was a view that had been alive in U.S. medical literature since 1842: that the realm of lead, the child's brain was a sponge. However, there was virtually no one around to piece together a new paradigm oriented to protecting children or the public. Kehoe's careful wording helped define the problem as a minor curiosity, limited to defective children chewing on toys. As a result, despite efforts by one agency to warn the public about anything related to paint, the Lead Industries Association with medical backup at the Kettering Institute and at Harvard maintained control of mainstream medical and public health literature and policy through the fifties. 50 The Lady Doctors "During the past five or six years these lady doctors kept our Legislative Committee fairly busy with their efforts to avert legislation that would put not only the spray gun, but the entire paint, varnish and lacquer industry out of commission, if they had their way.'0* Even before the medical literature confirmed what many suspected, a group of women physicians in various cities and in the U.S. Government began to warn parents. The industry labelled these physicians "the lady doctors" and ridiculed their campaigns, but continuing efforts, especially in the Children's Bureau of the U.S. Government Federal Security Agency, kept on the trail. An early Children's Bureau publications entitled "Infant Care," by.Ella Oppenheimer, M.D., was apparently available in 1933, but unavailable in 1935. Dr. Oppenheimer repeatedly told correspondents that she was preparing a revision. But it seems not to have been re-issued. In 1933, a Mrs. Sacharoff of Beverly, Massachusetts wanted to purchase a crib from Sears, Roebuck, but she had read Dr. Oppenheimer's bulletin "Infant Care" which recommended using paint without lead for baby cribs and toys. She wrote to Dr. Oppenheimer asking for guidance. Dr. Oppenheimer wrote back regretting that she could not advise her whether or not the Sears crib was painted with lead paint, and that she could not provide names of firms offering children's supplies with leadless paint. "However, I have been informed by the Association of Toy Manufacturers in the United States that they are doing everything they can to make toys safe and a greater number of their manufacturers use paint which contains no lead." In September, 1933, Ella Oppenheimer wrote to the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, asking for additional information about the physician ". Heckel, G.B., Thp Paint Industry, Rpminisrenc&s and Comments. St. Louis: American Paint Journal Co., 1931, p.612. 51 survey mentioned in the October, 1930 Statistical Bulletin that might be helpful in preparing a "popular folder on the Prevention of Lead Poisoning in Children." A lengthy response from Louis I. Dublin, Third Vice- President and Statistician, reported that the survey had been sent to 75 physicians around the county and had elicited 33 replies including one from McKhann whose work was the study cited in the 1930 bulletin. In addition: "Dr. Arthur F. Abt, of Chicago, author of Abt's Pediatrics, wrote us that "lead poisoning in children is not uncommon." Dr. C.C. Crulee, Chicago, author of textbooks on childrens diseases, in referring to paragraphs a, b, c and d in our form letter, said "I think the points mentioned by the pediatricians are well taken, in fact, I agree absolutely in every way with them." Dr. Harold K. Faber, Professor of Pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine, wrote that he was "surprised that the subject had not come to the attention of your Company long ago," and that "every pediatrician of experience keeps it in mind when he is dealing with cases of convulsions without fever, secondary anemias with constipation and abdominal pain, and the like." Dr. Faber mentions four recent references in American Pediatric literature, together with one South American reference and one Japanese. Dr. A.G. Basler, Professor of Pediatrics at the Chicago Medical School, writes that the condition is well known and that he has "for 25 years warned parents as to cribs, toys, etc., painted with lead paint." Many other doctors wrote that they had seen cases of lead poisoning in children and mentioned cribs, toys, woodwork, furniture, lead nipple shields and breast ointment with a lead base as the sources." Dublin points out that the October Bulletin article "received a great deal of publicity against which there was strong remonstrance by the Lead Industries Association. You will readily understand that we wish to avoid any controversy with the lead people. Please, therefore, do not mention the Metropolitan [hand written insert 'either directly or by inference'] in connection with whatever releases you may make." 52 In the spring of 1935, Dr. Oppenheimer learned from Dr. Martha M. Eliot that Estelle Lauder, executive secretary of the Consumer's League of Eastern Pennsylvania had considerable information: first, that the American Standards Association had no standard for lead in paint; second that R.H. Macy was the most demanding retailer, with standards calling for less than a tenth of a percent lead content in childrens toys, and third that Macy's sent inspectors "going about the country testing out paints." Ms. Lauder indicated that she had advised the Playground Association of her findings. Dr. Oppenheimer wrote Ms. Lauder that she was preparing a bulletin on lead poisoning in children and wanted to talk with her; she scheduled a meeting with Ms. Lauder for 11 a.m. on Friday, March 29, 1935. Yet, the revision did not appear; another query received that spring refers to only the Metropolitan Life Insurance publication and states "I have been informed that a number of paint manufacturers are producing special nonpoisonous paints for the use of toy manufacturers." Additional evidence that the earlier bulletin was no longer available same that same year when another Children's Bureau respondent advised a Mr. Kendall 3. Bassett of New York City that he would send a mimeographed pamphlet printed by the Federal Relief Administration, and stated simply that "Several of the large paint manufacturers are putting out paints for the use of toy manufacturers who demand a non-poisonous product." Both letters suggest the writer ask a reliable paint dealer. Another letter from a law firm asked pointedly "Will you please let me know whether there is any kind of shellac for use on wood out of doors, which shellac is non-poisonous and non-injurious if sucked on and chewed by little children." Dr. Oppenheimer responded by saying that as far as she knew, the "finishes which are most dangerous are those containing lead pigments," but adds that "Shellac and varnishes are not a source of lead so far as is known, but one could not say categorically that they are perfectly safe when eaten." Oppenheimer's curiosity was apparently piqued by the continuing letters 53 of inquiry and possibly by her talk with Ms. Lauder, because she had a talk with Mr. lames L. Fri,director of the Toy Manufacturers Association, who provided her with names of paint and toy manufacturers; during the second week of April, 1935 she wrote letters to at least seven firms seeking information about the composition of paints. Replies were as follows: Shprwin-Williams: "Generally speaking, toy enamels are combinations of brilliant non-poisonous pigments or colors." Glidden: Mentions a "danger of poisoning" years ago involving a green oil stain. "We then started to manufacture oil type enamels, and of course in manufacturing these enamels the subject of poisonous properties of lead was kept in mind, and these toy enamels were made lead free." Npwark Varnish Works: "About five years ago the Embossing Company of Albany, New York, to whom we had been supplying toy finishes for several years, asked us if it were possible for them to obtain these finishing materials free from lead. We agreed to investigate the problem and later reported these facts to our customer. "We found that lead in the form of Lead Chromate was being used extensively in colored finishes. This pigment ranges in color from a very pale yellow to a deep orange. Besides its use as a primary color, Lead Chromate was used with Prussian Blue in the production of most green pigments. It also found rather wide application as a tinting material used in relatively small quantities in the matching of a large variety of shades. To eliminate the so-called harmful pigment we found it necessary to reformulate every finishing material in which it was being used. This change could be done only by the use of higher priced pigments... "Without themselves passing judgment on the question of health hazard, our customer nevertheless directed us to use thereafter only coloring pigments that were absolutely free from lead. Such a change was made by use in the formulations of these paints and out customer willingly paid the increased cost... 54 "In spite of the extreme pressure on every hand for lower production costs since then, no painting materials that we have furnished this company for use on any toy items have been made with lead pigments. This same procedure is applicable to the manufacture of paint, enamel and lacquer finishes for all kinds of toys and nursery furniture." The toy company referred to in the Newark Varnish letter is the Embossing Company of Albany, New York. The letter from the Embossing Company to Dr. Oppenheimer adds two interesting items: one is a bold statement that "...we certainly would, if we were using toxic agents in our paints, try to keep that fact from being known..." The other is mention of R.H. Macy & Company, the New York City department store. The reference to Macy's -- that Macy's requested in 1929 that the Embossing Company discontinue its use of Lead Chromate in paints and enamels -- is significant because it signals early awareness of a problem. Srhnpnhur Company A detailed response to Oppenheimers's letter from the Schoenhut Company of Philadelphia provides a glimpse of interaction between retailer, manufacturer and paint suppliers during the early BO's. Writes Schoenhut: "In 1931 we received quite a large order from R.H. Macy & Co., New York City for colored Play Blocks. These Blocks were assorted colors; red, yellow, blue and green. They sold about three fourths of the quantity purchased from us and then in Feb., 1932 they returned one fourth of the quantity unsold, stating they had been tested by their Director of their Bureau of Standards and found that some ofthe colors contained lead. This was quite a surprise to us because in 1931when we received the order from Macy we definitely took the matter up with the paint manufacturer and told him to be sure that none of the colors contained lead, because thatwas our agreement with Macy to have colors which did not contain lead, and the paint manufacturer positively promised that he would only supply such material. "This naturally aroused a suspicion in our mind whether the paint manufacturer had actually cheated us or whether Macy simply wanted to unload 55 on us their superfluous stock, a thought which was natural after they had sold 75% of their purchase before Christmas without a complaint and only returned those that were unsold after Christmas. Nevertheless, we wanted to get to the bottom of the matter and we had some of the painted toys tested by a local chemist and his report was that the lead content was as follows: Green Yel1ow Lead (pb) 1.58% 11.71% In answer to this our paint manufacturer claims that some mistake must have happened in his Mixing Department. On the other hand he claimed that as the paints we were using were lacquers and would not be soluble if a child would place the toy in its mouth and, therefore, insisted that the materials would come under the non-poisonous class [sic]. After this a long controversy started with the Bureau of Standards Department of R.H. Macy and they insisted that if the paint materials contained any lead they could not use the goods." "We took this question up with quite a number of paint manufacturers and everyone was willing to sign an agreement that the paint furnished would be non-poisonous, but only a few agreed that they would furnish materials that were entirely free of lead. We finally tied up with a paint manufacturer who definitely agreed to furnish us with a paint made from pigments that did not contain lead, arsenic, etc., and he further agreed to carry liability insurance covering us for any damages that may result if his paint materials were found to contain lead, arsenic, etc." After this agreement, Schoenhut had the material tested again but found it would be impossible to produce paints that would not show a slight trace. An agreement forged with Macy's listed amounts in excess of 0.1% of lead or mercury to be grounds for rejection. But Schoenhut notes ruefully that late in 1932, he purchased blocks manufactured by a competitor at Macy's and found 0.73% lead content in a green, and 0.87% lead in a yellow paint. "This appears to our mind that Macy's Bureau of Standards was not so particular with our 56 competitor as they were with us." Schoenhut asks Oppenheimer for a standard or a rule on lead content; she replies that "the only thing that can be said is that lead should, as far as possible, be eliminated." The Children's Bureau activity elicited what can only be described as an Ad Hoc policy on lead paint, expressed as footnotes in medical articles, or as an informal honor code among toy and paint manufacturers not to use lead paint too much on toys and cribs. The industry seemed very responsive to this approach and "rallied" to prevent non-industrial exposures to lead from Toys, Woodwork & Furniture. For example, in 1930, apparently in anticipation of President Hoover's National Conference on Child Health, the Lead Industries Association conducted its own survey manufacturers of children's cribs, beds and furniture. Of twelve respondents, most indicated they did not use lead paint. [Reported in Hoffman, F.L., Lead Poisoning Legislation and Statistics, Prudential Press, 1933. Columbia University, Rare Book and Manuscript Collection, Box 19, Item 149.] Apparently operating on the honor system, the industry seemed to think that matters were under control. But as the Children's Bureau correspondence reveals, the absence of any written standard or any mechanism to enforce it continued to pose problems. In November, 1935, Alice Hamilton wrote to Martha M. Eliot, M.D., assistant chief, on behalf of the wife of a third-year Harvard medical student who was interested in lead poisoning in babies, noting that "furniture and toys were painted with enamel paint, lead-free [and]...that the poisoning caused by lead paint in nursery furniture was traced to amateur painting on the part of the parents, not to the factory paint." Interestingly, noted the woman who was Harvard's first female faculty member, "this may not be true, of course." She said that Percy Walker of the Bureau of Standards told her that the enamel might have contained lead in the varnish. "This would mean that tests would have to be made of furniture paints and toy paints." That type of testing, however, lay beyond the purview 57 of the Bureau, The conventional wisdom that had held for two decades and more was probably best articulated by Dr. Joseph Aub in 1947 when he told a New York City Health officer that if there is a problem with painted furniture it is with parents who re-paint, not manufacturers. Dr. Blum wrote to Dr. Aub after trying unsuccessfully to buy lead-free paint for his child's crib, and expressed surprise "at the implication that childrens' furniture today is painted routinely with a lead-containing paint. Aub wrote back saying "__the lead content of paint for children's cribs are [sic] pretty well known. The amount which is present in them is so small that I have never thought that any deleterious effect could come from them. Most of the enamels and Ducos used contain so little lead that no trouble could come. I do not believe that lead up to three or five percent would make any difference although I have no absolute quantitative data on that....The paint manufacturers are so alert to the problem that they are seeing to it that the lead content of paints for children's toys and interior painting is kept at a low level; so that as you put it, it is rendered safe for all practical purposes. In my experience, the children who get in trouble are those who get it from re-painted cribs done with high lead paint. [Aub, J.C. Letter to B.M. Blum, M.D., District Health Officer, New York Department of Health, January 28, 1947. Archives GA4, Box 5.] Having "solved" the poisoning problem with the blessing of Alice Hamilton and Joseph Aub and with an unwritten code of honor in industry concerning toys and cribs, the burden was on the consumer to find nonpoisonous paints. However, the paint industry and the lead industry vigorously opposed any formula labelling. 58 From the turn of the century through the present, the Lead Industries Association protected the industry from restrictive legislation while at the same time cultivating medical experts in ways that perpetuated the notion that lead poisoning did not exist or was of only marginal importance. These associations were funded by the firms that produced, smelted and refined lead as well as white lead and paint companies that manufactured and sold white lead pigments. These associations effectively dominated the legislative arena into the 1950 and their activities were direcxted tro preventiing any formula labelling or health and safety regulations. Directing these associations were men with unshakeable allegiance to their fellows and lengthy tenures, providing continuity to the various promotional campaigns and lobbying initiatives. Ernest V. Trigg, who retired in 1947 after 14 years as director of the National Paint Varnish and Laquer Association did so after 55 years in the paint industry. Henry A. Gardnerm the eminent director of the Scientific Section of the Educational Bureau and author of more than 700 articles on paint, held his office from 1909 until his retirement in 1945. The association's highly regarded secretary George B. Heckel, published a "Paint Catechism" booklet that offered definitions and advice on paints. This highly popular item first appeared in 1934 and entered its 11th edition in the early 1950s. In a rambling reminiscence of his years in the industry, Heckel in 1931 recalled that "From 1900 onward bills for proposed paint laws appeared regularly in a dozen or more states." The "regular procedure" for G. B. Heckel, "was for my correspondent (usually a paint man at the State Capital) to mail me a copy of any paint bill introduced and on its receipt I would reproduce it and mail it to the Legislative Committee and to manufacturers in the State. Frequently also I would write the chairman of the committee having charge of the bill, pointing out its objectionable features. And until North Dakota stepped into the limelight not a single paint law in any State 59 got past the Legislature. Heckel, G.B., 1931, p321-323. The North Dakota law, while not directed to health and safety issues, required formula labelling which would have given consumers the opportunity to make informed decisions if they chose to do so. The legislation emerged from the North Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station which built and tested a series of paint test fences. These wood fences were tested with specific formulas of paint including white lead alone, zinc oxide, and combinations. After a year's weathering in the North Dakota climate, the various paints were compared. The results showed unequivocally and in clear scientific manner that white lead was not the superior paint. This law created "tremendous chaos" (Trigg p49) and Heckel was one of a contingent sent to negotiate with Dr. Ladd. Dr. Ladd would not yield and the case went to the circuit court and on to the U.S. Supreme Court where it was upheld. The industry managed to stave off formula labelling in virtually all states (New Jersey and Virginia were notable exceptions) until 1938. Some industry pundits that the brouhaha actually helped to augment the sales of white lead by forcing popular discussion of its faults and merit as a protective coating. Felix Wormser doubled as a legislative trouble-shooter. In addition to advising Dr. McKhann at Harvard that lead paint is not used to children's toys or furniture, Wormser had other business in Massachusetts: When a new director of occupational health threatened to adopt regulations concerning the reporting of lead poisoning, Wormser went into action. Manfred Bowditch had been appointed as the Massachusetts Department of Labor's Occupational Hygienist with the charge of revising rules and regulations. Among the achievements of the Department was the first legislation on benzol. Bowditch also tackled lead, and Wormser reported in his 1934 annual report that "During the year an effort was made by the Massachusetts department of Labor to establish regulations which would have seriously affected the use of white lead in painting buildings. This subject was discussed by the Secretary 60 (Wormser) with the State official having the matter in hand and a satisfactory adjustment procured. It was particularly important to obtain a hearing and settlement in Massachusetts otherwise we might have been plagued with an extension of similar restrictive painting legislation in other States, affecting the use of white lead," The relationship with Bowditch would endure for many years, especially after Bowditch left the public sector and went to work for the lead industry. 61 LEAD IN PUBLIC BUILDINGS the industry in the 1930s proceeded to promote the use of white lead for domestic interiors and ultimately, to ensure its required use in public housing. lust a few weeks after the Lead Industries Association survey concerning lead paint in toys and childrens furniture, it declared at its December 12 meeting that it would seek to convince the government to use lead more liberally in government buildings and contracts. White lead sales had peaked in the mid-twenties, and then began a decade-long decline. In addition, it appears from LIA minutes that there was beginning to be some strong competition from substitute pigments, notably zinc oxide and titananium dioxide. The organization's resolve was to preserve its markets as long as there was a substantial production capacity. The nation's largest lead producing region, southeastern Missouri, was unique in that it was very pure. St. Joe's plant at Herculaneum could efficiently produce pig lead ideal for conversion to white lead. The network Of refineries, railroads and white lead plants, owned by the principal lead producers gave an advantage to white lead interests. Other lead producers controlled substantially the zinc trade although the existence of larger and more widespread zinc producers made is possible for development and marketing of some zinc pigments. Indeed, eastern deposits in New York State and in New Jersey are lead-free. St. Joe acquired the lead-free zinc mines in New York State in 1926.35 In the Tri-State area, dominated by Eagle-Picher, there were zinc plants as well. And in the far West, zinc frequently occurred with silver, gold, and other metals. Anaconda began building zinc plants in 1922, but the market was39 39. St. Joseph Lead Co., A Short History of thp St. 1n;pph I pad Cn., New York: The St. Joseph Lead Co., 1950, p.5. 62 primarily for the rubber trade.*0 The situation prior to World War II was that the companies that owned the mines, mills, smelters, refinferies and production factories controlled the market for lead and, to a lesser, extent, zinc. At a time of growing competition with a fairly mature production system, the lead industry proceeded to develop markets in the public sector which would require the use of lead products. When widespread public housing programs became a priority of the Roosevelt Administration, the paint industry saw opportunities. Describing opportunities in post-depression public works projects the National Paint, Varnish and Lacquer Association's representative in the Federal Housing Administration, T.E. Damm, asked "paint manufacturers to once again consider the various phases of the national housing act, with but one end in view, namely, 'How can we profit from it.'" Mr. Damm exhorted this colleagues to win some of the $200,000,000 in predicted expenditures on painting.4410 When the Public Works Administration published instructions to private buildings, the architects instructions specified: "All wood and metal, inside and out, 2 coats lead and oil or enamel over priming..." specified in "Instructions to private architects for low rent housing projects by the housing division, Public Works Administration (Plans and Specifications Branch).42 Rent estimates for public housing "...include wall painting with lead and oil every four years."43 40. Mineral Resources of the United States, 1922, Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1925, p77 41. Oil, Paint and Drug Reporter, October 21, 1935, pp. 27.42B. 42. NARA RG 190, Series #3, File PWA. Undated. Estimated to be 1934-1937. 42. U.S. Housing Authority, Interoffice Memoranda, NA RG 196, Series 14, Interoffice Memoranda Thru February 1941, May 8, 1939. 63 In 1935 the National Lead Company promoted lead for plumbing and interior walls in a trade publication. After describing many historical architectural uses of lead, the authors, both with the National lead Company pointed out important modern uses such as vibration absorption. "In one recent building in New York, 160,000 pounds of lead were used so that the building would not be shaken by subway trains." The article warmly recommends the use of lead for plumbing work because of its pliability and corrosion resistance. Concerning paint, the authors note "Lead Pigments are used extensively for structural metal paints, exterior house paints, and many interior paints because these pigments impart to the paint films a marked degree of toughness and elasticity which is retained even after the films have aged for a long time." In the description of White Lead, it is noted "The painter prepares a paint to meet his particular requirements by mixing the white lead paste with suitable paint vehicles and tinting colors. By using various vehicles, various types of paint can be made, including interior flat paints of great beauty as well as durability from the point of view of adhesion and washing properties."44 Two years later, the Lead Industry again promoted white lead interior paints. As part of a Lumber Products - Better Paint Campaign, an exhibit in a car-drawn trailer toured Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana early in 1937. The novel promotional idea was designed to "promote the wider use of lumber by educating lumber dealers and the public in general to the importance of good paint...Outstanding among the exhibits are six model house exteriors and six interiors, the color schemes for which were carried out by National Lead Company's Dept, of Decoration." The industry magazine also reported in a photo caption that the Palatine Hotel in Newburgh, New York "was redecorated on the interior with Dutch Boy materials -- White Lead...,M5 Although the Lead Industries Association received newspaper clippings almost on a daily basis about reports of lead poisoning, it embarked in 1939 44. Hiers. G.O., and Rose, C.H., "Lead in Building and Construction," Industrial and Fnginppring rhpmistry 27:1133-1135, October, 1935. 4!. Dutch Roy Quarterly 15121:14, 16, 1937. 64 on a $250,000 White Lead Promotion Campaign,, the largest in LIA history. A model home covered with lead paint was featured in the Duly issue of Better Hnmpc and Cardens and other publications. As part of the campaign, white-lead paints became avai 1 able in colors/5 Through the 1930s and into the Second World War, the production of white lead continued to be concentrated among four large companies: National lead Company, accounting for more than half, Eagle-Picher, Sherwin-Williams Co. and Glidden Paint Co. accounting for about 20 percent, and accounting for about 13 percent. As late as 1943, Publication produced jointly by the U.S. Government and the Lead Industries Association recommended white lead for farm buildings and domestic interiors. While the publication mentions other paints, it provides precise instructions for using 100% white lead for exteriors. Simple, clear line drawings show how to mix the white lead. The section on interior paints explicitly recommends white lead. The booklet also provides handy formulas for making "home-mixed interior paint."*f * 4 Meyer, H.M. and A.W. Mitchell, U.S. Department of the Interior, "Lead and Zinc Pigments and Zinc Salts," Minerals. Yparhonk,.T94Q, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1940, ppl52. 4\ Ross, W.A., (Federal Security Agency), Don Crutchfield (Lead Industries Association) Painr-ing Farm Rnildings and Fqinpment "Prepared and Published by Lead Industries Association in cooperation with the U.S. Office of Education, Federal Security Agency, 1943". Thanks given to "specialists in the U.S. Bureau of Standards (piv). LC No. TT305.R6 65 MEDICAL HEGEMONY Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, the lead industry through its trade association, the Lead Industries Association, cultivated medical experts in ways that perpetuated the notion that lead poisoning did not exist or was of only marginal importance. Funded by the firms that produced, smelted and refined lead as well as white lead and paint companies that manufactured and sold white lead pigments, the LIA and its energetic secretary, Felix Wormser, preserved the hegemony over medical research established during the 1920s by the work of Aub and Kehoe, and by the training in public relations gained during the tetraethyl lead controversy. The promotion of white lead by the National Bureau of Standards during the 1920s -- including its apparently perpetual use on the White House -- and by industry during the 1930s indicates that the lead industry intended to fight to maintain the market for exterior and interior paints. The contestants were white lead, in a class by itself as a metallic covering, versus "paints," generally portrayed by white lead people as cheap imitations. The strategy for dealing with the troublesome issue of lead poisoning was to vigorously contest claims of lead poisoning, and to further the view that lead in the human body is normal. Wormser was the industry's liaison to the medical community, and he seems to have seen himself as a corporate troubleshooter who primary purpose was to follow up reports of lead poisoning and show that they were erroneous or false. Felix Wormser coordinated anti-legislative activities and medical research from the early 1930s until his retirement to join the St. Joseph Lead Company in 1947 as an Assistant to the President. He came out of retirement in 1953 to serve as Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Mineral Resources, a position he held until returning to the St. Joseph Lead Company in 1957. In June, 1962, he testified before Congress on matters of lead pricing policies. Earliest public evidence of Wormser maintaining the Harvard contacts, came in a 1933 report from Harvard's Department of Pediatrics by Charles F. 66 McKhann and Edward Vogt. Beginning in 1924McKhann had published a number of cases reporting widespread lead poisoning in children, a total of 89 cases at the Infants' and Children's Hospital in the period 1924-1933. Although he acknowledged various sources such as lead nipple shields, water, and inhalation of fumes from the burning of storage battery casings, he noted that "most frequently the ingestion of lead is a result of the habit observed in small children of eating unusual substances." In his previous paper, McKhann had explicitly described "toys, cribs or woodwork of the house." After "personal communication" by Felix Wormser, McKhann reported in 1933 that "The lead industry and the manufacturers of cribs and toys, informed of the danger to small children from the ingestion of lead paint, have cooperated by substituting other types of pigments for the lead pigments formerly used. New cribs are seldom painted with lead paint, the better grades of toys are largely free from lead pigment." Wormser and the lead people were quite upset by the flurry of articles reporting the use of X-rays to diagnose lead poisoning. Wormser was thrilled that he found an error in a paper by E.A. Park and visited him several times in an effort to persuade him to take care of the "defect" in the paper. Park and others published several papers in the early 1930s describing fatalities due to lead poisoning and clearly and explicitly associating lead ingestion with chewing on toys, cribs and furniture. Wormser looked into the matter and eventually found an error which he claimed affected the findings of lead in bone by two orders of magnitude. He pressed Park for a correction, wrote to Aub, "Dr. Park tells me there are quite a few 'genuine' cases of lead poisoning among children and I am, naturally, anxious to do everything I can to correct this situation." When in 1942 the National Safety Council in its journal Safety..Education published a report on fatalities due to lead poisonings in Chicago, Wormser and the LIA made an inquiry. As Wormser later reported "On investigation by the Lead Industries Association, it was shown that there was no lead poisoning of the kind described, nor were lead toys or lead painted cribs involved..." The children had died from inhaling the fumes from burning battery casings. Safety Education. published a retraction a year later. Correcting the situation was a major pre-occupation of Wormser, and 67 Joseph Aub was an essential ally, advising Wormser repeatedly that cases of reported lead poisoning were probably not. In 1940, Aub wrote a letter to the editor of JAMA protesting a recently published report on lead poisoning was misleading. "I write this vigorous letter," he stated, "because too much publicity is being given to minor exposures to lead these days. This is particularly true with regard to lead taken by mouth, which is so much less toxic than inhaled lead. That lead may produce deleterious effects there can be no question, but there is no evidence that a small fraction of a milligram can produce the effects ascribed to it..." Aub served as the remote authority on cases of lead poisoning referred to the Lead Industries Association who could not be persuaded by coroner's reports. Some of the cases involved occupational and childhood lead poisoning. For example Wormser forwarded to Aub material concerning death of a black employee at the John R. MacGregor Lead Company. The coroner's report stated that the cause was "peritonitis with obstruction of the jejunum associated with chronic lead poisoning.. Said poison received during the course of 16 months employment at the John R. MacGregor Lead Co." Aub's analysis: the man "died of peritonitis, probably starting somewhere around the appendix...these are the things he died from." Twice in 1945 Wormser wrote Aub asking the Harvard physician's opinion on cases of childhood lead poisoning and Aub responded in carefully worded . replies that minimized the likelihood of lead poisoning: "...I would not consider it a clear cut case although, of course, the bones and paralysis fit in with a possible diagnosis of lead poisoning. Still I am suspicious of the fact that this child died of an infection, just barely possibly of a meningococcus." In the case of a ten month-old infant who died in Texas in July, 1945, the medical report showed a leadline, anemia, and stippling of the blood cells, classic signs of lead poisoning. Wormser wrote indignantly "Frankly, I do not see how can call this a genuine case of lead poisoning, do you?" To which Aub replied "...autopsy ought to prove the problem of whether or not the child had lead poisoning, if they do lead analysis of the liver and bones. Up to now, the evidence is inadequate." 68 Meanwhile, evidence concerning the effects of lead on childrens' mental development began to appear. Although the effects of lead on mental development had perplexed physicians since the seventeenth century, had particularly troubled Tanquerel des Pianches in the nineteenth century, and had alarmed Oliver early in the twentieth, the first scientists to compare pre and post-exposure behavior were Byers and Lord in 1943. Randolph Byers, at Harvard and Elizabeth E. Lord at Yale published a study of 20 children who had been poisoned by lead in infancy, and associated subsequent mental and behavioral deficits with this exposure to lead. Referring to Aub's physiological studies and his assertion that lead was "harmless," Byers and Lord suggest that "under chemical shifts common in childhood, concentrations of lead known to be significant may be recurrently liberated into the circulation." The study also explicitly refuted Aub's contention that children who eat lead paint are mentally deficient to start with. The study received wide publicity in a TTMF magazine article (TIME, December 20, 1943, p49). Entitled Paint Eaters, the article warned that "If your child is slow with building blocks, but quick on tantrums, he may be a lead eater." In choppy language, the article indicated that children "may start chewing paint off windowsills and othernplaces," but went on to place blame on parents who re-paint cribs with leaded paint. The result of eating paint, reported TIME, was "stupidity." Within two years, the Children's Bureau decided to warn the public. Late in 1945 or early in 1946, the Children's Bureau published a two-page flyer entitled PAINTS, PIGMENTS, AND DYES. The text warned that some paints were poisonous when swallowed and actually listed types of paints -- but not brand names -- that were usually considered harmless or poisonous. "With this list as a guide," the anonymous author noted, "a harmless paint can be selected in most paint stores." In his report to the Lead Industries Association in April, 1946, Wormser warned that if attacks on lead go unchallenged, "they may very easily lead to the sponsoring of totally unwarranted state and federal legislation of a regulatory or prohibitive character...this is an unending battle from which we can only withdrew at our peril." 69 Soon after the flyer was published, Wormser was pianning medical conference to be jointly sponsored by the Lead Industries Association, the American Medical Association, and Harvard Medical School. For a February 7, 1946 pi anning meeting, Wormser registered Aub in a New York Hotel, paid the deposit and secured tickets for Dr. and Mrs. Aub to The Cl ass Menager-in At the meeting, an agenda for the symposium was developed and the AMA representative asked the LIA to prepare a paper "on the general subject of the occurrence of lead in the United States so as to give the doctors a background on the subject and express the industry's viewpoint." Wormser agreed to undertake this task. The next week, Phil Drinker wrote to Harvard School of Public Health Deans suggesting Harvard host the symposium, adding "You will remember that the studies on lead poisoning which resulted in the publications by Dr. Aub and others were sponsored by the Lead Association. They have consistently been out very good friends." During the thirties and forties, LIA contributions to Harvard were on the order of several thousand a year, averaging about $3,000. The Symposium was conducted on September 30, 1946 at Harvard. Several papers from the symposium were published in Occupational Medicine in 1947. The lead article, by Felix E. Wormser, is entitled "Facts and Fallacies Concerning Exposure to Lead." In it, Wormser points out that not all paint contains lead, and that "Prepared interior paints, furniture paints and enamels are usually free of lead." Exterior paints usually contain white lead because "it is necessary." Wormser carefully reviews the various sources of lead in spciety, including storage batteries, pigments, and automobile fuel, and concluded that "it is apparent today that despite the large amounts of lead used in everyday life...the lead hazard in industry and to the public is relatively small and can be effectively controlled when it cannot be eliminated." Dealing specifically with reports of childhood lead poisoning, Wormser ridicules and dismisses Byers and Lord ("Certainly there was no proof here of lead exposure.") Another speaker at the Symposium was Robert Kehoe who presented data 70 from numerous studies which continued to demonstrate that some lead intake is normal. He denied other medical reports that lead accumulates in the body, stating that "no such accumulation occurs or it is so slight as to be insignificant in the course of a lifetime". Kehoe was convinced and tried to convince his audience that lead posed no public health threat to the general public. While medical researchers could rebut his work in medical journals, it was more difficult for individuals, communities and schools to obtain information about lead poisoning from what should have been a good source, the American Public Health Association. However, Kehoe and Aub both were senior members of the Associations committee on lead poisoning. Aub frequentlly referred queries about lead poisoning to the American Public Health Association position papers. In 1943 on behalf of the American Public Health Association, Kehoe provided authoritative bibliographies on lead in which lead paint poisoning is significant in its absence. The 1933 bibliography provides 18 separate categories on the occurrence of lead including "Certain Unusual Sources of Lead" and opens with a parenthetical explanation that the following citations refer to "Lead introduced into flour from the use of defective millstones repaired with metallic lead. Lead introduced into food by painted wood employed as fuel." The three citations that follow are European. There is no mention of any U.S. Medical report concerning cases or fatalities from ingestion of lead paint. Although Kehoe's bibliographies consistently ignored the considerable literature from Harvard and Johns Hopkins, one paper from the Kettering Laboratory in 1940 listed nine references in support of the statement that "Lead in toys and in paint used on toys and household articles was also responsible, formerly, for many cases of poisoning in small children, and in spite of a vigorous campaign waged against this practice, poisoning from these sources still occurs." (182) Her references include Thomas and Blackfan, McKhann, Blackman and others making it clear that in 1940, the Kettering Laboratory knew about the core literature of.childhood lead poisoning. Nevertheless, in a lengthy report on Occupational exposure published as 71 a separate document by the American Public Health Association in 1943 (201)"", Kehoe provided a separate category for "Non-Industrial Lead Poisoning," including two articles on battery casings, one on snuff, three on water, and three review articles, and an historical article. Here, he chose to omit references to lead paint poisoning that were clearly in possession of his laboratory. Anyone turning to the American Public Health Association for information on childhood lead poisoning would come up empty handed or learn that Kehoe and Aub were cited heavily as the underlying authorities. By the time he gave his paper at the 1946 Harvard Symposium, Kehoe was prepared to state that "...the safe level for the ingestion of lead in food and in drink...is greater than 0.3 mg and less than 0.6 mg. per day." The 0.6 mg. per day is double the upper limit he described in 1933. *' Aub referred questioners to AHA papers. See Aub Papers memo, Item 36. 72 TRADE FOLLOWS THE PICK During and after the war, lead mining and the production of pig lead from which white lead was corroded remained in the hands of the the same firms that had dominated since the turn of the century. In 1945, nearly half of the domestic output came from southeastern Missouri where St. Joe owned most of the mines. Holdings included the Bonne Terre, Leadwood, Desloge and Flat River mines, and half ownership in Mine La Motte. Mills were also located in Bonne Terre, Leadwood, Desloge and Flat River.45 The famous Herculaneum smelter, built in 1891, lay only a few miles on the Mississippi. St. Joe also operated zinc mines in Balmat and Edwards, New York and a zinc smelter in Josephtown, Pa. National Lead Co. also had mines in the southeastern Missouri fields. The mining and milling operations were handled through National lead's subsidiary, the St. Louis Smelting and Refining Co., near Baxter Springs, Kansas and near Waco, Missouri, Picher, Oklahoma and Fredericktown, Missouri.*50 Smelters were located in Indianapolis, Indiana, St. Louis, Missouri, and Perthy Amboy, New Jersey. National Lead also owned a titantium pigment plant in Sayreville, New Jersey.51 Eagle-Picher Company operated mines in the tri-state district at Picher and Cardin, Oklahoma; Mineral Point, Mo. (?), Treece and Baxter Springs, Kansas. Mills were located in Oronogo and Wentworth, Missouri, near Commerce and Picher, Oklahoma. Eagle-Picher owned a lead smelter in Galena, Kansas, and Zinc plants in Henryetta, Oklahoma and Van Buren, Arkansas. Fabricating plants were in Joplin, Missouri, Cincinnati, Ohio, Newark, New Jersey and in Argo, Chicago, East St. Louis and Hillsboro, Illinois.51 ". Minp<; Rpgisfpr, New York, 1946, p.245. 50. Minps Rpgisifpr, New York, 1946, p.246. 51. Minps Rpgistpr, New York, 1946, p.199. 51. Minps Rpgistpr, New York, 1946, p.106. 73 x ii xatj, uit; Hrictcunud \_opper mmng l o . operated mines in Butte and Kali spell, Montana; Conda, Idaho; Bingham Canyon, Utah; Rio Tinto, Nevada; Darwin, California and in Mexico and Chile. Mills and Smelters were 1ocated in Great Falls, East Helena and Anaconda, Montana." A wholly owned subsidiary. International Smelting and Refining Co. operated a lead smelter in Tooele, Utah and a lead refinery and de-siIverizing unit in East Chicago, Illinois. Anaconda's 35,600 tons of lead represented about five percent of refinery production from domestic ores. The Bureau of Mines estimated in 1945 that the National Lead Co. controlled about half of all U.S. lead production. Major smelting and refining interests were held by American Smelting and Refining Co. which operated lead smelters and refinferies in Selby, California; Leadville, Colorado; Alton, Illinois; East Helena, Montana; Omaha, Nebraska; Perth Amboy, New Jersey; El Paso, Texas, and Murray, Utah. Eagle-Picher, St. Joe, Hecla Mining Co., and Anaconda, through its subsidiary the International Mining and Smelting Company, and the Bunker Hill Comnpany were also listed by the U.S. Bureau of Mines as operators of lead smelters and refineries in 1945. National Lead Co. and Eagle-Picher were in first and second place in production of lead pigments, and both consumed about 60% of pig lead for pigment production. There were twelve white lead plants in 1945: Eagle-Picher Co., Cincinnati, Ohio Euston Lead Co., Scranton, PA (Acquired by Glidden, 1924 LES 28, closed, 1960, Scranton Times) W.P. Fuller & Co., San Francisco, Calif. International Smelting & Refining Co., East Chicago, Ind. (Sold to Eagle-Picher, 1946 (les 32). John T. Lewis & Bros. Co., Philadelphia, Pa. National Lead Co., Melrose, Ca., Chicago, 111. (2), St. Louis, Missouri, ". Mines Register, New York, 1946, p.34. 74 Perth Amboy, N. J., . Brooklyn, N.Y. The Sherwin-Williams Co., Chicago, 111. During the thirties and into the mid-forties, market share in lead was heavily skewed to National Lead Co., which held about 55 percent of the white lead market. Sherwin-Williams and Glidden held about 20 percent between them; Eagle-Picher accounted for 13 percent, and eight percent was produced by International Smelting and Refining, a subsidiary of Anaconda. The market for white lead had decreased dramatically since the heyday in the 1920s, when it accounted for the largest market share of major lead products. U.S. consumption of white lead declined steadily during the century, and by 1945, the 35,600 tons of white lead consumed were a tiny fraction of the white lead consumed in the twenties and thirties. Quite apart from the white lead business which controlled the Lead Industries Assocation, the other lead pigments continued to keep the lead pigment industry strong. Red Lead, used in automotive and transportation painting continued to be produced by American Cyanamid Co., Newark, New Jersey; E.I. Dupont de Nemours & Co., Easty Chicago, Indiana; The Eagle-Picher Co., with plants in loplin, Missouri, Newark, New Jersey, Galena, Kansas, and Cincinnati, Ohio; The John R. MacGregor Lead Co., Chicago, Illinois, Metals Refining Division of the Glidden Co., Hammond, Indiana, The Sherwin-Williams Co., Chicago, Illinois, and the National Lead Co. with plants in Melrose, California, Atlanta, Gerogia, Chicago, Illinois, St. Louis, Missouri, Brooklyn, N.Y., Dallas, texas, and Charleston, West Virginia. Included among the firms producing zinc oxide were The Eagle-Picher Co., with plants in Hillsboro, Illinoi and Galena, Kansas; International Smelting and Refining Co. (Anaconda), East Chicago, Indiana; the Ozark Smelting and Mining Division of the Sherwin-Williams Co., Coffeyville, Kansas, and the St. Joseph Lead Co. of Pennsylvania, Josephtown, Pa. Although the red lead people were not as organized as the white lead industry, they took up the case against the Children's Bureau. Soon after publication of the symposium papers, the industry developed a strong campaign to quash the Children's Bureau warning. Beginning in June, 75 1948, U.S. paint and pigment manufacturers began a letter writing and information gathering campaign with the apparent goal of protecting their markets. The campaign ended with removal of the publication from circulation. In June, an assistant librarian at Calco Chemical Division of American Cyanamid Company wrote to the Bureau of Child Statistics requesting a publication on the toxicity of pigments. In a cordial reply one week later, Marian M. Crane, M.D., assistant director of the Division of Research in Child Development sent along four copies of a mimeographed flyer on the toxicity of paints. She adds, "This statement was prepared several years ago and we have not had an opportunity to bring it up to date. If anyone in your Company cares to make any comments or suggestions regarding it, we should be glad to have them." In Duly, the librarian wrote back asking for additional copies. A notation indicates that four more copies were sent to American Cyanamid on Duly 14. By December, it appears that the legal department of American Cyanamid had been in contact with Dr. Crane concerning suggested revisions, specifically on wording surrounding the Lithol Reds. The paint companies raised technical questions which diverted the focus from dangers of lead to technical gobbeldygook: "The question arises as to whether subject exception refers to all barium lithols as representing the "medium" range between sodium (yellow shade) and calcium (blue shade) lithols, or to the medium shade barium lithols which are intermediate in shade between lighter and darker barium types." (D.M. Fasoli, Legal Dept., Calco Chemical Division, American Cyanamid Co., May 13, 1949). Dr. Crane contacted the National Bureau of Standards for some assistance and was advised by E.F. Hickson, chief of the "Paint, Varnish & Lacquer Section" that lithol red could be considered harmless but that Dr. Fairhall of the National Institute [sic] of Health noted that another red classified by the Bureau as "Harmless" had lately been criticized. Whether other pigments were discussed is not clear from the correspondence; nevertheless, Dr. Crane moved forward, and kept in communication with Dr. Fairhall. But revisions were apparently not forthcoming fast enough. Throughout the spring and summer of 1949, having shared a draft of the proposed revisions with certain industry 76 representatives, she was greeted by a hail Qf letters from chemical, paint, and other manufacturing companies all asking for copies of the pamphlet.54 Dr. Crane circulated a draft of the revised pamphlet in the summer of 1949, but the response from paint companies seeking clarification was apparently overwhelming. The correspondence shows that by the end of the summer, Dr. Crane was worn down by the technical questions posed to her by the various paint companies and perhaps by superiors. From the tone of her letters, one cannot determine why she became more compliant. By the fifties she was extolling the contents of a paint industry publication (see below). In late June and Duly she sent proposed revisions to Dr. Fairhall and to various people in industry. But the response appears to have been overwhelming against her revisions. By August, Dr. Crane was writing to the various paint companies that the statement/pamphlet/flyer has been withdrawn from circulation; technical questions were to be referred to Dr. Fairhall. In correspondence, Lawrence T. Fairhall was authoritative, familiar with the technology, and more importantly, perhaps, seemed to know the literature. In less than a year, the issue of adequate warning to the public about potential dangers of certain paints had been effectively eliminated. A letter from Dr. Crane to P. E. Sprague, vice-president of The Glidden Company summarizes the position of the Children's Bureau after a summer of tiptoeing through a minefield of complex pigment terminology: "Over a period of years the Children's Bureau has received many inquiries from parents regarding types of paint that are safe to use on children's toys, furniture, etc. For this reason, in 1945 we undertook to prepare a statement that could be used in answering such questions. The Children's Bureau has conducted no investigations in this field and has no one on its staff competent to evaluate the data available. We therefore turned to the Division of Industrial Hygiene of the Public Health Service and the 54 Letters in the file are from F.A. Putnam Mfg. Co., Inc., Keene, N.H. (May 13,1949); Holland Color and Chemical Company, Holland, Mich., (Dune 6, 1949); the National Paint, Varnish and Lacquer Association, Washington, D.C. (Dune 24, 1949); The Glidden Company, Cleveland, Ohio, (Dune 13, 1949); E. I. Dupont de Nemours & Company, Wilmington, Del., (Duly 12, 1949). 77 National Bureau of Standards for assistance,, which they gave very generously. The information given in our statement, "Paints, Pigments and Dyes," was therefore supplied and checked by these agencies. "Because of questions raised about some of the items" listed we decided about a year ago to revise the statement. I am sure you will understand the difficulties we encountered in preparing any lists of 'harmless' and 'possibly harmful' pigments. In addition, the fact that the Children's Bureau published this statement resulted in technical questions being referred to us that we are not competent to answer. It was therefore finally decided to withdraw the statement and to refer all questions on the subject to the Division of Industrial Hygiene of the Public Health Service." That same day, Dr. Crane also wrote to the National Paint, Varnish and Lacquer Association indicating that a Maryland statute, "Toxic Finishes . Labeling Law of the State of Maryland" contained some information that was particularly instructive. In a tone that is virtually contrite, Dr. Crane throws in the towel with the statement that Maryland law "convinces me, more than ever, that the Children's Bureau, should not attempt to publish any arbitrary lists of paints, etc. that are, or are not, considered harmful." To judge from Childrens Bureau correspondence from the early 1950s, frustration over attempts to publish a warning about what was becoming recognized as a common poison was a force in the development of national poisoning prevcention programs and, eventually, adoption of the first public and national standard in 1955 of an unenforceable guideline for lead content in paint to be used on childrens toys and furniture. The necessary medical literature continued to emanate from Johns Hopkins University and the Harriet Lane Home. "Apparently referring to the letters cited in footnote 1. 78 THE HARRIET LANE HOME The most consistent and enduring contributions to medical aspects of lead paint ingestion came from Johns Hopkins and the Harriet Lane Home. Aub in an interview acknowledged that in the early years of the 20th century, Hopkins "seeded" the United States medicine with fine minds trained by Sir William Osier. Blackfan, for example, was attracted to Harvard and one still walks on Blackfan Street to enter Childrens Hospital. But at while Harvard clearly supported the industry perspective, the Johns Hopkins pediatricians consistently produced substantive articles on the causes, treatment and prevention of lead poisoning. B1ackfan Hoit's The extensive of experience of pediatricians with lead poisoning at the Harriet Lane Home gained momentum in an outbreak of childhood lead poisoning that resulted from burning of lead-containing battery casings for heat. The widespread poisonings that occurred resulted in this particular form of lead poisoning being labelled the "Depression Disease." (135) An important consequence of this disease, first reported in 1933, was a refinement of laboratory testing methodology that placed Johns Hopkins in the forefront. Recollecting the events of the early days of the Harriet Lane Home, Dr. J. J. Chisolm, now a nationally recognized authority on childhood lead poisoning, tells the story of internist from Harriet Lane (Miriam Braley, deceased) who went to the neighborhood and an elderly gentleman pointed out the storage batteries that we being burned. Chisolm said that Dupont at about that time had developed Diathizone (?) and Emmanual Kaplan, chemist with the Baltimore City Health Department, approached Dupont and obtained the chemical and in 1935 blood testing began in Baltimore and Cincinnati. For the longest time, Baltimore was the only place in the country testing for lead. The key figure was Huntington Williams, MD, 79 commissioner of health of the city of Baltimore. Fairhall, who worked with Aub, and who criticized Kehoe's method, helped set up the methodology. At the time, all lead labs were in departments of industrial health and would only take samples from workers. He said "People wouldn't send [pediatric] samples to Kehoe," implying that the Kehoe lab was clearly occupational/ industrial. It was not cl ear whether Kehoe wanted to run pediatric lead tests. As a result, said Chisolm, "90% of all lead poisoning cases were in Baltimore." When he was a resident, in 1952, the Lead Industries Association left a sum of money with pediatrics to study lead poisoning. The lead industry, said Chisolm, "wanted to show that Williams was all wet." Dr. Harrison, Chisolm's [Dept. Chairman?] and co-author told him "we have to show them taking it in" and so Chisolm went door to door with pyrex dishes collecting stools. In an important paper (233), Chisolm and Harrison reported in 1956 that "little kids took in more lead than heavily exposed workers." In the text of the paper, Chisolm and Williams wrote "Even when allowance for differences in analytic and sampling technique is made, it is evident that the lead-poisoned children of the present study were excreting...far greater quantities of lead [about six times more] than do heavily exposed industrial workers."The lead industry was not pleased, according to Chisolm. "There were sharp arguments with Bowditch." Williams wanted legislation in 1949, but the first ordinance concerning the removal of lead paint wasn't until 1951. In 1954, Baltimore became the first city to place responsibility on property owner to de-lead the premises if a child's blood lead exceeded 60 micrograms per deciliter. "It was keyed to preventing symptoms." A prominent activist was Emanuel Kaplan, chairman of the Baltimore City Health Department's lead paint poisoning prevention committee. Lead poisoning became a cause celebre for Kaplan. "He sampled 600 houses in 1958, and 70%" had deteriorating lead paint (276). The 1965 report provides a useful summary of the history of activities in Baltimore beginning in 1935. Because it had the only lead testing laboratory in the country that tested children, Baltimore had data to support legislation. Baltimore was the 80 first city to adopt lead paint poisoning regulations, and Maryland was the first state. For the lead industry, events in Baltimore were troublesome, and it became a skirmish in the campaign to regulate lead. While Wormser kept the pressure on Park concerning the alleged error in radiographic analysis, the Maryland affiliate of the paint industry was actively involved in opposing the regulations. But even as the City of Baltimore kept picking away at the legality of using lead paint for interior surfaces through the forties and fifties, other cities began finding lead poisoning and regulating the use of lead paint. In Brooklyn, in 1952-1953, twelve cases were reported. In Chicago, Mel!ins (now at Columbia) made some dramatic findings. He went to the Epidemiology Intelligence Service at the Centers for Disease Control. He was sent to Chicago in 1954 to review deaths in the polio epidemic. But it sounded more like lead encephalitis. Mel!ins reviewed 400 deaths and at least 25 were lead encephalitis. That's what got Chicago started." In addition to documenting widespread lead paint poisoning in Chicago, Mel!ins reported "marked mental and emotional deterioration indicative of permanent brain damage" following lead poisoning (229). On the matter of low level exposures, Chisolm said it has to be considered in the context of the times. During the period 1965-1970, "the pediatric wards were full. These children had serious fatal diseases." It was difficult to measure low levels and widespread testing was impractical oh account of the large amount of blood (10 mis). In addition, it wasn't known how much was absorbed. The standard, set by Kehoe for adults was that the adult absorbs 5-10% of intake. According to Chisolm, the first study showing that children absorbed and retained more ingested lead than adults was Alexander 1974 (298) of absorption in young children wasn't until 1978 when Ziegler's metabolic balance studies matched dietary intake and absorption and made it clear that given known average dietary intakes of lead, half of the U.S. children would be getting excess exposure (298). It took more than forty years to demonstrate that adults and children differ in terms of absorption and retention. 81 82 The Z66 committee. In 1952, the Lead industry acknowledged that childhood lead poisoning occurred but stuck firmly to the defective chi1d point of view and stating that ingestion is less dangerous than inhalation: ..ingestion is by far the less important and is most often associated with children chewing on objects coated with paints containing lead. However, since most inside paints and paints used by manufacturers on children's furniture and toys contain no lead, a hazard usually exists only if children are allowed to chew outside painted surfaces, like porch railings, or if parents inadvertently repaint furniture with outside house paint. Pica (abnormal appetite in children) or teething may cause them to chew on painted surfaces and also on many other substances which may be injurious to health." [Lead-In Modern Industry, 1952, pl74. This source also contains information on standards for lead products.] Safety standards for the design of children's toys and furniture became fashionable again in 1954, and Marian Crane, who was now Chief of the Research Interpretation Branch of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, was asked to serve on a sectional committee to set standards for lead. Minutes of a meeting on November 15, 1954 at which Dr. Crane was present show that the group had spent considerable time debating the wording of certain passages that defined the scope of the standard. The issue of specific standards for childrens toys was raised, although the minutes do not make it clear who spoke in favor of it. Mr. Fansler of the National Safety Council moved and the committee voted to direct the chairman "to look into the question of toys and children's furniture, and to report back to the committee on the practicability of standardization in this field." Concerning the standard for lead, in its final act of the day, the group voted with one abstention (Toy Manufacturers), to approve Standard Z66.1, Specifications to Minimize Hazards to Children from Residual Surface Coating Materials. The wording clearly limits the standard to toys, furniture and 83 interior surfaces. The final standard, promulgated in 1955, and revised in 1964, set a standard of less than one percent of the total weight of solids in surface coatings, the same standard applied by R.H. Macy in 1929. Early in 1955, as part of an educational program that appears to have been part of the standard adoption process, the National Paint, Varnish and Lacquer Association published what Dr. Crane described as a "little booklet...so attractive it makes me want to wield a paintbrush." Painting Tny<; and Chilrirpn'c; Furniturp, seems to have satisfied Dr. Crane, because she was asked to endorse it and wrote to the Association "It is good to see that such prominence has been given to the subject of selecting the right kind of paint and the danger from using the wrong kind." Dr. Crane enclosed a list of agencies and child health programs around the nation to assist the Association in distributing the booklet. A few weeks later she graciously declined the Association's quoting her by name, offering instead to be an un-named "specialist in the U.S. Children's Bureau." The Association gushed back that they would "accede to your wishes" and change the letter. The Association appeared to be on the verge of releasing the industry booklet hpfnre release of the Standard. It is not clear if Dr. Crane was genuinely satisfied that the booklet addressed the matter of lead paint adequately or if she had been won over to the industry perspective. By late July, 1955, copies of Standard Z66.1 were forwarded to regional offices of medical directors of the DHEW Children's Bureau in the eight federal administrative regions. Within six months, the DHEW was stumbling over itself to issue booklets. In January, 1956 the Bureau announced "Protect Your Family Against Poisoning," published by the Food and Drug Administration. One week later, another memo went out to Regional Director with a copy of "How to Prevent Lead Poisoning in the Home," prepared by the Public Health Service, Food and Drug Administration and Children's Bureau in cooperation with the National Paint Varnish and Lacquer Association, Inc. It is not clear if there are three,, two, or possibly even one booklet, or if they were ever distributed. 84 With an unenforceable standard in place, the lead people continued through organized symposia to emphasize the low risks of any type of lead exposure. Dr. Robert Kehoe convened the Lead Symposiurn at the Kettering Laboratory in the Department of Preventive Medicine and Industrial Health, at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine on February 25, 1963 Sticking by his figures from 30 years earlier, Kehoe asserted that the intake of the average adult lead intake from food, beverages and air was about .33 mg/day, that excretion was about .30 mg/day, and absoroption was about .03 mg/day. He stated that "no effective absoprtion of lead occurs in the alimentary tract under ordinary circumstances." He noted that 5 to 10 percent of what is ingested is absorbed, and not more of 50 percent of what is inhaled is retained. "There is little or no indirect evidence of the retention or accumulation of lead in the body of the "normal" individual." 85 Patterson Article, 1965 Carefully documenting the tonnage of lead dispersed into the environment from industrial sources, automobiles, food, contamination of food crops, lead solder, lead arsenate insecticides, ceramics, pipes and paint, Patterson argued forcefully that the existing average lead levels reported in the early sixties to be .25 ppm in blood was due almost entirely to environmental consumption. He proposed that truly natural lead levels, that is, the absence of all industrial sources, to be 0.002 ppm. "The average level of 0.25 ppm of lead in the blood of our population fails by an order of magnitude to provide an adequate margin of safety even from classical lead poisoning when the crudely significant range of lead levels in our population lies between 0.05 and 0.4 ppm and the threshold for acute lead poisoning lies in the uncertain range of 0.5 to 0.8 ppm. "The above acceptance of typical lead levels in humans in the United States today as normal and therefore safe or natural is founded on nothing more than an assumption that these terms are equivalent. No acceptable evidence exists which justifies this assumption. On the contrary, as this report shows, such an assumption may be in gross error. The 09.25 ppm level of lead in the blood, which has been and still is regarded with ill-founded complacency, actually seems to lie between an average natural level of about 0.002 ppm and an acute toxic thershold of 0.5 to 0.8 ppm. This suggests that the average resident of the United States is being subjected to severe chronic lead insult. Patterson derided Kehoe's use of the primitive Mexican village as a "natural" baseline, noting that Mexican dishware contained lead in the glazes. Subsequent studies confirmed that natural levels were far lowed than those described by Kehoe. Patterson was co-athor of a 1979 report in The New Fngland inurnal nf Mpriirinp described lead in skeletal remains of Perivians buried 1600 years ago three orders of magnitude less than in average U.S. citizens. (Erickson, 3E, Shirahata, H., Patterson, C.C., NEJM 300:946-951, 86 1979). A year later. Science published Piomelli's description of blodo lead in the remota Himalayas. Patterson's work sparked: Criticism: A rasah of letters to the editor roundly criticized Patterson on a number of issues. Murozumi, M., 1969 - lead in polar ice layers had increased 200 fold over 3,000 yearsm paralleling use by humans. Robinson, E. & R.C. Robbins, 1971 - 90 percent of present day emissions of lead occur in the Northern Hemisphere. 1965 - Recollection by Harriet Hardy: "About this time (1965) c.C. Patterson attempted to publish his paper on environmental lead pollution. It quickly became clear that the lead industry was angry. Only by heroic means did Katherine Boucot, the editor of Archives nf Fnvirnnmpntal Health persuade the editorial board to publish this paper. Several industry-supported research workers and plant doctors who read the now-famous Patterson paper threatened dire consequences if it were published, as did Patterson if it were not." A meeting was called to "calm industry's fears of restrictive legislation. A few clinicians like myself were asked to a government-sponsored meeting, supposedly to talk informally...The meeting was held in a huge room in Washington. It was no "shirt-sleeve" session for there were two tables of press and more than 100 senior officials of the lead industry...The discussion was noisy, angry, and sometimes incoherent because of emotion. After lunch there were more talks by government staff trying to make the atmosphere less tense, and the meeting broke up. A few of us were asked to stay for the press conference, a very cold-blooded affair. I almost felt sorry for one of my industrially hooked, very senior colleagues. The press asked him what his salary was and who paid it and what money supported his laboratory. Unhappily, all his funds came from one large industry. This meeting was, I 87 think, a small-stage warning of the restrictions to come in control of environmental lead pollution in the Uni ted States...My favorite 1etter of many received was one from the president of a New York brewery, threatening a libel suit. I had reported a measurable amount of lead (0.1 mg/liter) in beer. I was pleased to supply the source of this statement since it came from a brewer's journal! The suit was dropped." Hardy, HL, Challenging Man-Made Disease New York: Praeger, 1983, 121-122. New York Times, Sept 8, 1965, 49:8 API & LIA Sept. 12, 71:1 Pres Johnson signs auto-exhaust bill, Oct. 21, 34:4, ed., Octr. 2, 46:2, Oct 4, 4:2. Exhaust controls within 2 years. 88 Monday, November 23, 1970. Walter J. Hickel, secretary of the Interior said he wasn't going to leave the Nixon cabinet. At Fort Benning, Georgia, a mi1itary court weighed the evidence that ultimately convicted First Lieutenant William L. Cal1ey of murdering 102 civilians at Mylai in 1968. Yukio Mishima, the Japanese writer, committed suicide. And Richard M. Nixon began to lay pians for the 1972 presidential campaign. At 10:15 a.m., Senator Ralph W. Yarborough, chairman of the Subcommittee on Health of the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare opened hearings on S. 3216, the Lead-Based Paint Poisoning Prevention Act, and H.R. 19172, the Lead-Based Paint Elimination Act of 1970. The best estimates in 1970 were that 200 children died each year from lead poisoning, and of the 12,000 to 16,000 poisoned children who didn't die, half were left mentally retarded. "We know that lead poisoning in children is caused by the repeated ingestion, of chips and flakes of lead-containing paint and plaster from the walls, windowsills, and woodwork of old and poorly maintained pre-World War II houses," said Senator Yarborough. In many U.S. cities, as much as 80& of old houses in slum areas contained dangerous quantities of flaking paint. From across the nations cities, surveys revealed that from 6 to 28 percent of urban children had elevated blood levels, and as many as five percent might have unrecognized lead poisoning. Much of the medical data was presented by Dr. 3. Julian Chisolm, Jr., an associate professor of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins Medical School. As a resident in 1950s, Dr.Chisolm had taken to the streets of Baltimore to identify the cause of the many cases of lead poisoning. He found lead-based paint peeling off the walls of inner city homes. Nearly twenty years later, Dr. Chisolm still recalls his amazement at findings he published in 1956 showing that lead-poisoned children excreted nearly six times the amount of lead excreted by industrial workers with severe exposure to lead. "Lead poisoning in children", Chisolm told the legislators "is 89 exceedingly difficult to diagnose.. .Clinical, symptoms in early childhood are subtle, non-specific and insidious in onset. During the first four to six weeks of abnormal ingestion, no symptoms are apparent. Thereafter, over the next four to six weeks there is the insidious onset of decreased appetite, unwillingness to play, increased irritability, sporadic vomiting and delay in development. None of these symptoms are specific for lead poisoning, so that they are often attributed to other diseases. Indeed, the child may be thought to have a behavior disturbance or some minor intercurrent infectious illness..." Chisolm identified the source of the problem as "Deteriorated pre-World War II house with old flaking lead paint on housing interior (especially windowsills and door frames)" p203 As the hearings continued, John M. Montgomery, general counsel of the National Paint, Varnish and Lacquer Industry representing 90 percent of dollar volume of paint and related products as well as major suppliers of raw materials acknowledged the Committees purpose in dealing with children ingesting chips of old lead-based paint in the form of "flaking chips of old paint and crumbling plaster from the interior surfaces of dilapidated residential housing built prior to World War II." (p220) "It is true that, prior to World War II, many structures were painted with paints which contained large amounts of basic carbonate or sulfate of lead (white lead). This type of paint has not been used on interior surfaces for more than thirty (30) years.(p221) Even tiny amounts of lead delivered to the brain by blood caused brain damage and produced a complicated constellation of behavioral, psychological and learning disorders. Most of the studies cited by Chisolm used 50 micrograms of lead per 100 milliliters of blood as a cut-off point for lead poisoning. As studies continued to demonstrate through the nineteen seventies, levels as low as seven micrograms were considered dangerous, and the effect of intelligence, difficult to determine, went as high as seven points on IQ tests. Conservative estimates determined that the net effect of chronic lead poisoning in affected populations might explain a 5 point drop in IQ scores. 90 91 LEAD IN THE SIXTIES In the mid nineteen sixties, domestic mine production was about half what it had been twenty years earlier, but production of secondary -- re cycled -- lead more than doubled, and total lead consumption remained fairly constant at about 1.1 million tons annually. Production from the ten leading mines accounted for 80 percent of domestic mine production. In order of production these were: 1. Federal Mine, St. Joseph Lead Co. 2. Viburnum Mine, St. Joseph Lead Co. 3. Bunker Hill, The Bunker Hill Co. 4. United States and Lark, United States Smelting & Refining Co. 5. Lucky Friday, Heel a Mining Co. 6. Indian Creek, St. Joseph Lead Co. 7. Star-Morning Unit, The Bunker Hill Co. and Heel a Mining Co. 8. Idarado, Idarado Mining Co. 9. Page Mine, American Smelting and Refining Co. 10. United Park City Mine, United Park City Mines Co. (Anaconda was a partial owner) Also among the top 25 were The Anaconda Company, at the Butte Hill Zinc Mines; and the Eagle-Picher Co. The U.S. Bureau of Mines reported in 1965 that "The U.S. Primary lead industry is composed of about 500 companies, engaged in mining, smelting and refining, and marketing lead. In mining, seven companies -- the St. Joseph Lead Co., United States Smelting, Refining & Mining Co., the Bunker Hill Co., American Smelting & Refining Co., the EaglePi cher Co., the Anaconda Company and National Lead Co. -- produce more than 65 percent of the domestic output. The first six of these companies own the 10 primary lead smelters and refineries in the United States, and the National lead Co., with American Smelting & Refining Co., operates secondary smelters having almost 50 percent of the total U.S. secondary capacity. The same seven firms together with American Metal Climax, Inc. and C. Tennant Sons & Co. (sales agents for important foreign producers) are leaders in competetive lead marketing, and all the companies except United States Smelting, Refining & 92 Mining Co., the Bunker Hioil Co., The Anaconda Company, and C. Tennant Sons & Co., have lead mines abroad."556 Pigments accounted for about 10 percent of domestic consumption, and white lead weighed in at 11,000 tons in 1960, about ten percent of all pigments that year, declining to 6,000 tons in 1970. The Bureau of Mines noted that "The development of materials rep!acing lead in paint pigments has proceeded rapidly and in many instances, especially interior and house paints, lead has been completely replaced by titanium and zinc pigments. As a basic paint for rust and corrision protection, lead base paints are still preferred."57 The view that the era of white lead was over was confirmed by the American Paint Journal- Company, which published an introduction to paint technology for the industry. The author stated flatly, "Straight white lead and oil is almost dead."58 5SU.S. Bureau of Mines, Mineral Farts and Prohlems, 1965 edition, Bulleten 630,Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office, 1965,, p. 491. 57 Ibid, p. 496. ". Fuller, W.R., Understanding Paint, St. Louis, The American Paint Journal Company, 1965, p.19. 93 LEAD IN 1970 Domestic mine production increased during the late sixties, reaching 578,550 tons in 1971, with Missouri mines contributing about 74 percent. The basic configuration of mine ownership remained more or less stable, but there were for the first time in decades, important changes. St. Joe had celebrated its centennial by upgrading the Herculaneum plant and opening new mines, most of them within 50 or 60 miles of Herculaneum. There were expanding operations at Indian Creek and Viburnum, and the Fletcher mine in Reynolds County was opened in 1967. Yet another mine at Brushy Creek was to be operational in 1972. The Herculaneum plant was upgraded in 1969, bringing the company's productive capacity to 200,000 tons of pig lead per year. Four mines, Fletcher, Federal, Viburnum and Indian Creek were among the top ten producers. St. Joe maintained a strong presence in zinc with its New York State properties, and annual productive capacity in 1970 was 200,000 tons. In addition, St. Joe owned lead-zinc-silver mines in Argentina and had interests in Peru. Together with Bethlehem Steel, St. Joe formed a mining company to develop iron ore deposits in Missouri. But first place in lead mine production went to the Buick Mine of Missouri Lead Operating Co., a joint venture of American Metal Climax, Inc. and Homestake Mining Co. The Buick Mine is in Iron County, Missouri, not far from the Viburnum and Fletcher mines of St. Joe. Other newcomers to Iron County were Cominco American, Inc., with its Magmont Mine and the Ozark Mine of Ozark Lead Co. (a subsidiary of Kennecott Copper ?). After 1968, Eagle-Picher was no longer among the top lead producers, and after 1971, it was no longer carried as an entry in Walter Skinner's Mining Yparhnnk. "Eagle-Picher's name does not tell you anything about its business nor about its enviable record of profitability and growth. Cincinnati-based eagle-picher is a solid ($400 million sales) maker of chemicals, machinery, and transportation products that has averaged a return on stockholders' equity of 16.5 Percent over the past 5 years, and earnings have kept pace. It has doubled in size over the last 10 years, both through internal growth and 94 acquisitions. Eagle-picher is divided into 3. groups - basic materials and chemicals (30 percent of sales), machinery and allied parts (35 percent), and transportation products (35 percent). These groups are subdivided into 22 divisions and further split into 48 product-lines, none of which contributes more than 2.5 Percent to sales. Typical products are diatomaceous earth, elevating scrapers, and vibration dampers." Forbes V120 N4 PP: 53,55 AUG. 15, 1977 In the far west, the major players were mostly familiar names: The Bunker Hill Co.'s Bunker Hill Mine, Hecla's Kucky Friday Mine and Star Unit Mines still produced lead in Shoshone, Idaho. In Utah, U.S. Smelting, Refining and Mining Co. operated the U.S. and Lark Mines in Salt Lake County and the Ophir Mine in Tooele County. Kennecot Copper Company operated the Burgin Mine, in Utah County. Hecla's Mayflower Mine in Wasatch County, Utah, was still in operation. In Colorado, American Smelting and Refining Co. re-opened Leadville, in Lake County, Colorado. Other Colorado producers were Idarado Mining Co., The New Jersey Zinc Co., Standard Metals Co., Federal Resources. Corp. and Homestake Mining Co. There were a few other producers in California, Virginia, Washington and Idaho. From the U.S. Bureau of Mines: "Domestic smelters which recover lead Bullion include: American Smelting and Refining Co., with plants located at Glover, Mo., East Helena, Mont., El Paso, Tex., and Selby, Calif. The Bunker Hill Co., a subsidiary of Gulf Resources and Chemical Corp., at Bradley, Idaho; International Smelting & Refining Co., a subsidiary of The Anaconda Co., at Tooele, Utah; St. Joseph Lead Co., at Herculaneum, Mo.; and AmaxHomestake Lead Tollers, Inc., at Bixby, Mo. The lead bullion produced at the smelters is refined at all of the above plants except East Helena, El Paso, and Tooele. In addition, American Smelting and Refining Co. operates a lead refinery at Omaha, Nebr., and the United States Smelting Lead Refinery, Inc., is located in East Chicago, Ind." 59 During the 1970s, Anaconda fell victim to South American politics and 59 Bureau of Mines, Minora! Farts and Problems, 1971), Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1970. 95 the expansion of U.S. oil interests into mineral production. In 1971, Anaconda's Chilean holdings were expropriated by the Chilean government. Then, in a widely reported move, ARCO (At!antic-Richfield Co. in 1977 acquired Anaconda. "Ray C. Adam joined the National Lead Co. as chief operating officer in 1972. At the time, the company had 79 major divisions. Today there are 26 fewer divisions, 5,000 fewer employees, and the company is over 7 times as profitable. NL Industries currently concentrates in metals, chemicals, and petroleum services and equipment. Restructuring of the company, which took 8 years, is almost complete. One of the divisions sold in the process was Dutch Boy paints. Adam plans to spend between SI and $1.5 billion over the next 5 years, most of it in petroleum services. He hopes to finance the growth internally. Adam does not feel that there is a danger in becoming overcommitted to oil. He says that the need to become independent from Arab oil countries leads the US to continue the search for oil, and that NL Industries is oriented toward the trend of deeper wells and highertemperature, higher-pressure environments. For his reward in the company's restructuring, Adam made $3 million last year and was the eighth-highest-paid executive in the US." Forbes vl28n2 PP: 40,42 Jul 20, 1981 96 LEAD IN THE EIGHTIES During the 1980s, lead mines in Missouri continued to dominate in production but onwership of the top producing mines had changed. Eagle-Picher was gone from the mining scene entirely, and mines from the Tri-State Area were not included in the roster. Several of St. Joe's principal mines continued in operation, but ownership of St. Joe had changed. In 1970, St. Joseph Lead Company changed its name to St. Joe Minerals Corporation (MY1971, p534) In August, 1981 St. Joe Minerals Corp., merged with Fluor Corp., based in Irvine, California. (FTMIY, 1983, pp338-339). Fluor Corp. was "engaged worldwide in providing a variety of services for energy-related industries and in the production of natural resources. In addition to its considerable interests in oil and gas, Fluor's natural resource operations include the production of lead, gold, silver, zinc, coal and iron ore." (FTMITY, 1983, p.158). In 1986, a new arrangement was created with the Homestake Mining Corp. Homestake's joint venture with American Metals Climax Corp., the Buick Mine in St. Joe's territory, Iron County, Missouri, had continued to hold a leading place in production. In 1986, St. Joe Minerals as a subsidiary of Fluor and Homestake established the Doe Run Co. which owned the St. Joe mines and the Herculaneum refinery. (SF CHron. Nov. 1, 1986, p5Q.). Homestake sold out to Fluor in 1990, which expressed interest in selling Doe Run. A report in American Metal Market stated that Fluor was planning to exit the lead business, and the consolidation would "make it easier for Fluor to find a buyer for Doe Run, which holds a 60-percent share of the domestic lead market." CAMM, May 14, 1990, p2). The move away from lead production was perceived as an important response to environmental concerns, and indicated that Doe Run was eyeing the secondary market which had been growing steadily. Later in 1990, Fluor announced plans to proceed wiuth a $34 million battery recycling plant in Boss, Missouri. The article also indicated that the sale represented a move by Homestake out of the lead producing business. Five of the top ten lead producing mines in 1989 were owned by Doe Run, all in southeastern Missouri: the Buick Mine, the Fletcher Mine, Viburnum Nos. 28 and 29, Casteel and Brushy Creek, 97 Other firms engaged in mining in southeastern Missouri were Cominco America, Inc., at the Magmont Mine and ASARCO at the West Fork and Sweetwater mines. In Idaho, Heel a Mining Co. still operated the Lucky Friday mine, Bunker Hill Mining Co. (U.S.) Inc. operated the Bunker Hill Mine, and Asarco operated Coeur mine, all in Shoshone County. In Montana, Montana Tunnels Mining Inc. operated Montana Tunnels mine in Jefferson County, while the New Butte Mining Co., Inc., ran the Butte Hill mine in Silver Bow county. There was also mining activity in Alaska by the Greens Creek Mining Co. In Colorado, ASARCO's Leadville Unit was still producing, and there were new entrants: Washington Mining Co., J.T. Lamping, Royal Camp Bird, Inc. and Mount Royal Mining & Exploration. However, the nine Missouri mines accounted for 89 percent of the nation's recoverable mine output. (Lead Minerals Yearbook 1989, p. 3) The Bunker Hill Co. had merged with Gulf Resources & Chemical Corp. (GRE) in 1968 and in 1981 "a decision was made to discontinue GRE's operations in the lead, zinc, and silver mining, smelting and refining business. Accordingly, immediate steps were taken which began the orderly shutdown of Bunker Hill Co.'s operations at Kellogg, Idaho." (FTMIY, 1983, p93) The environmental movement had hit Bunker Hill in 1975, when it was determined that the smelter at Kellogg had contributed to extremely high levels of blood in children. Bunker Hill began a program to reduce emissions, but a lawsuit ensued, and in 1981, it settled out of court in a $20 million case contending that the company's lead emissions had poisoned and permanently disabled nine children. Smelting and refining of domestic ores occurred at a handful of plants: Lead smelted at ASARCO's El Paso, Texas and East Helena, Montana plants were shipped to Omaha, Nebraska for refining. ASARCO's new plant in Glover, Missouri included both a smelter and refinery. AMAX (formerly American Metals Climax Co.) had a smelter-refinery in Boss, Missouri, and far ahead of all the others in capacity and production was the Herculaneum plant owned by St. Joe. The smelter and refinery owned by Bunker Lt. in Bradley, Idaho, closed in 98 1981. (Minerals Facts and Problems 1985, p.434-436). 99 Julian Chisolm still supervises a laboratory that tests for lead in blood and household dust. Twenty years after his testimony, children are still being poisoned by the lead on decaying interior surfaces, windowsills, and toys. In 1988, 50,000 school desks in Texas were painted with paint containing illegal quantities of lead. In 1990, Millie, the presidential springer spaniel was poisoned. "Lead Poisoning," said the President of the United States, "Flaking the paint, licking her toes. The paint falls - you know, they're re-doing the White House and she's licking her feet and she's ingested lead." After taking a visitor on a tour of his labs and talking about the frustrations of 35 years, Chisolm shrugged. "When the lead is all gone," he said, "they'll outlaw it." 100