Document Xr1j4m6Rn6kLXYXDEM04Q2x

STANFORD UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER STANFORD, CALIFORNIA 9-4305 (415) 321-1200 St a n f o r d I'mv e r s u a Sc h o o l o f Me d ic in e De'parlme-'i' of Pharjn.Koiogy July 28, 1970 Robert A. Kehoe, M.D. Kettering Laboratory Eden Avenue Cincinnati, Ohio 45219 Dear Dr. Kehoe: Thank you very much indeed for making available certain recent reprints from your laboratory. I have read deeply in the literature of lead poisoning and related topics, and I am impressed with the extraordinary detail and care involved in your own work. I have concluded that inhalation of lead particles in polluted areas is a non-trivial problem. The absorption of lead from the lungs is quite efficient. As usual the data I want do not exist. Very little proper epidemiology has come to my attention. I want to know the body burdens of lead among people with renal impairment of different types, with liver damage, and with certain diseases of metabolism that affect the fate of chemicals-, in the body. Your data point to a saturable ex cretory process, but7 the &!e for elimination is elusive in the extreme. My position, usually conservative, is again conservative. I believe that lead should be removed from gasoline because it is a potential hazard, at least, and I honestly believe that its effects will prove to be additive to those other agencies that contribute to the anemias among susceptible groups. And lead is, I believe, non-essential in the production of gasoline. Yours very sincerely SMK:pd Sumner M. Kalman, M.D. Professor of Pharmacology