Document N2KXdqpbjezaOwRQmdbVMR0Qb

J O H N D B R A O U E Y . RESIDENT K . W O R E E N . VICE P R E S ID E N T sF . M U L O C K , V IC E R R E S IO E N T F . E W O R M S E R . V ier. PRESIDENT R O B E R T L ttM O L E Y Z I E G F E L O . SEC R E T A R Y .T R E A SU R E R liM&rasrtbpi A s u s m s ia t la iiit 6 0 E A S T 54-2 ND S T R E E T NEW YORK 17, X.Y. MANFRED BOWDITCH DIRECTOR OF HEALTH AND SAFETY February 8, I960 Robert A. Kehoe, M.D., Director Kettering Laboratory of Applied Physiology University of Cincinnati College of Medicine Eden Avenue Cincinnati 19, Ohio Dear Bob: An eight-page reprint of five articles on air pollution in the Washington Post, reproduced and apparently widely distributed by the Public Health Service, has recently come to my attention. Only the first two pages of the reprint are germane to this discussion, and these are copied herewith. You will find underlined on the first page the names of two PHS scientists whose unsupported conjectures relative to "lead exposures.... associated with auto exhaust" are quoted at the conclusion of the passage marked for your attention on page two. I discussed this with Joe Costello on Friday, finding (1) that he felt much as I do about it, and (2) that, while his organization knew of the publication last June, they had not been aware of the articles in the Washington Post, or of their subsequent reproduction by the PHS. You will note that these two theorists fall back on the selfsame "any increment" argument in which their Cincinnati brethren found themselves obliged to take refuge in their comehell-or-high-water determination, in the face of the far more scientific work of Elkins reported on herewith, to lend support to the insupportable opinion of a departed colleague. This is particularly interesting to me in the present instance because, when you yourself (to my amazement and, in my honest judgment, most mistakenly) used the same reasoning at that ingeniously (and not too straightforwardly) railroaded ad hoc committee meeting, I was tempted to point out that the identical thing could be said of lead tetra-ethyl, and that, to follow through consistently on your pronouncement, we should ban not only TEL, but lead storage batteries, many paints and ceramics k f 0004927 Robert A. Kehoe, M.D. - 2- Fe: -u arv and indeed any and all lead products, however useful, which might conceivably add their .000001 to this frightening and omnipresent hazard. It's a long lane that has no turning. Sincerely, MB: es enc. K' S 0004928 V " if 'i . c x r^ ftr * 0^y;l'S, K%^ f^v.^rsA ,' These m o p were chemically d iffer^ . (Mrst o? t icrin.) / " 1 eat from the pollution created by auto: ` , exhausts, but the latter raise deeply By Merton Mint - A - ' troublesome questions in urban areas., eapacially for those made vulnerable: r S NATION has 70 million boars by age, illness sad cigarette smoking.; , Two scientists warned last Juan la by the tailpipe. It cannot let go a Public Health Service publication because tiw bears :are our motor \ that su fB 3 (K ^ o a ^ tritti< ^ ^ n , vehicles; and our lives are built around ' hsast fumes may lead to: ~ _ them. But so long as we hold on. we' _ Sickness, more sickness or death must breathe their exhaust fumes. .'' ' - la the frail,and the 111. ; e.Aa "unusual risk" In tobacco The House passed a hill last August : smokers imd persons exposed et werk directing the ; Surgeon. General to . , to.fumes with similar ingredients:/ determine the consequences of exhaust J i.v i'^ .e A 'emnpoonded. haMrd'ln,' .... " ' fumes "from the standpoint of the public health" and advise within'.two - years what can be done about them. A vulnerable in tiro or more way*. bill Introduced in the Senate would -- - . w . s c iE N T is n . n * " ' give the Surgeon" General broader.: -- Goldsmith;and Lewis H: v tutnotityA ^ also warned of serious eCfecUTtoad 3;..- Smog killed . 80 " Belgians fatAth* she.dlaeeveredjB dyl'^fte^yci^^..-.^ Ueuse V alley'in''1830,'IS to 00 pdsura. If the effect should happen.to dents of Dooora, Pa., In 1848 and 4000 ` Londoners in .1892. Like Pliny the j Elder, overcome by fsulphurous fames" :, near an'eruptlng'Mt Vesuvius la A. * J j were.f - . llL Preltelnary' dauTIndicate that la1 78, the victims were generally elderly' W m * * ^ p fla ^ g r^ 'k a g /h a E and bad ^preexisting disease. ' ` WA-. ^ ' v th S e rv lc ...... ,. !* , He has cited estimate* that eiga ^ -,,a i m ; for new .and continuing smoking causes 50 to 00 per cent of the - * o n in industry and j i .th a iftt ^ ^ medical research. V j| ; lung cancer in the Nation | (and air small and -persistent V. *PreventIve and control measures pollution 20 to 30 per cent! but has' Related with auto exhaust iriay tij that can be applied in many instances. " *V- ; ^Startling Comparisons 1 - : HERE ARE omc of ' lhe major .. . findings: * .. Cancer is the disease most often testWifAitevMd 4thMaP tv the.paiEI, VciIty-4ru44*rassla,- 4d4i4fLf4^e*4renceV^7 ..t . H i e r ^ , o th ePreppy rw fe "appears to be unrelated to smoking ft `burden; a ! toxkT habits" . ........ * frv; .ir J - i . Sr. . Air pollutants are. swallowed as well ` * 'fc' avs inhaled. In cities.'the death rate is higher also for cancer of the stomach, * a r b o n ; m o n o x i d e mentioned in connection with motor bladder, larynx and esophagus. tasteless.' coloriesa and poison Vi vehicle exhaust fumes. A major reason is the work of Dr. Paul Kotin in medi M any O th er S ources jjf \ If there Is-one! part of this gas in million parts of: the air you b re a th e ^ t Acal laboratories of the University of Southern California. He produced UTO EXHAUST fumes contain the blood's hemoglobin' hat' 0.10 per -ir about 200 different hydrocarbons.. cent less ab ility V c a rry oxygen fro n t;* cancer in animals by exposing them to The suspected carcinogens among them the lungs. ; 1' ' certain suspected hydrocarbons found in exhaust fumes and to synthetically produced Los Angeles-type smog. The experiments do not prove that are so tiny that they are measured in terms of the micromilligram--a thou sandth part of a millionth part `of 4 This is a summary of findings ,iyT:Drs. Prindle. Goldsmith and R o g e rs r% ^ If you live iiii a city, between 042* ' and 1.24 per cent of your hemoglobin . ; these suspected carcinogens cause can gram. This minuteness is not a reliable will be unable to carry.Sb^gert^tBut?^,.. cer in man. Men are not mice. They guide to the size of the potential the average range , in-vLoa Angeies i 'l l - are not exposed in the same ways to danger. : ; . , 4 County last year was f j f l f . 1 4 the same amounts. But, Dr. Prindle Those particles add to a cumulative cen t It is rising there a t the rat of * v says, this kind of experimental evi total of suspected carcinogens that 0.10 per cent a year.) dence is at-least as good (and as con each Individual absorbs each day from If you live in a city aad'jrou amokey . , troversial) as the- inconclusive labora other sources. Among the sources are, between 3.1 and 74 per cent of your, tory work linking cigarette smoking to to name but a few, coal, oil and gas hemoglobin will be ' i b i f o e t l ^ f ^ # i # ' ; lung cancer. burning equipment, tobacco smoke, :: The amount of hemoglobin"that ' The statistical evidence against ex Incinerators, leaf burning, petroleum in effect withdrawn from" circulation haust fumes is another story. It proves refineries, steel mills and asphalt is increased by traffic. Samples were ! no cause-and-effect relationship. It Is plants. taken of the air alongside five L o q \4 -, admittedly thin, both objectively and The amounts taken into the body Angeles freeways on steoggy*mornings..;: sa?-- in comparison with the thick mass of data that ties together smoking ant^ lung cancer. I t may always be that way, for the Intake of air pollutants varies infinitely; the intake of tobacco vary almost beyond calculation. How much do you smoke? How much time do you spend in traffic jams? Do you . live in an area where the topography and meteorology combine "to put a Ud in September, 1956. The maxinwjmi^Mi carbon monoxide concentratlonscosddv-v make between 0.07 and 14.9 per cent of ? a person's hemoglobin ineffective; the: v ; mean concentrations; between 2.40 and j ' smoke is determined with relative ease, on exhaust fumes, holding them down 5.76 per cent OCO Ob c Statistical evidence raises deeply troublesome questions nonetheless. Consider the finding of chemical engi- r_^neer Eugene P. Houdry that between "19M and 1950, lung cancer among white American men increased at about W ? 1? *?"! r,te " gasoline consumption. 3k,He cites these coincidental happenings in the air you breathe? And how eflArV does this happen? . Don't look for ,* easy vy""^ ' answers. You *_- might expect, for example, that the lung cancer rate in Lios Angeles would .' be higher than that in, say, Detroit - - Inside a car, the eoRcentratiocaol 'carbon monoxide run even higher, even. if no one is smoking and the exhaust system doesn't leak. (The same is true for suspected carcinogens. and poisons.) _ It isn 't But Dr. Prindle points out "}Cthat 03 per cent of Los Angeles' res! dents were not born there. For most ,y Periodic on-the-job exposures of , r v!.; to 100 parts per million are not con*" ` yin the World War II years of 1940-5: or part of their lives they have breathed sldered dangerous in healthy worker! *** -s? 03 .x'jf Cigarette smoking increased at a ; oth.eii.alr. ' ' ' This is enough: carbon monoxide to record rate. ' vv v- V I The problem of cumulative totals ' make 16 per cent .of the.!circulating o > .'V* Gasoline consumption declined at I applies to other poisons, including lead, ^ hemoglobin .unable to carry oxygen,;1^ o ' almost the tame rate (because of [and carbon monoxide. Both a_re pro; In persona with heart and circu_l_atory ,, , - ' - duced when' tobacco or leaded gaaoUnelif ,,dleeea, Drs.^Goidsmith and =Jtogi ..' =iIr'.u. n.S f tocree< M > ufat:,thefkre lo w tti rate In four decades (.5 pcr> Lead and lead compounds cim cau*#:f|' " t ransport function of the. bioodl \ u cent;!compared with a range of 9.4 to ' fiwiain,'f;ttv<^ may have serious^consequenee.* A udi X tf., - 5-