Document oDGYX43RJk9Le2g1OoaxXjQLw

July 3, 1972 Air. K. W. Ne Ison Department oi Environmental Sciences American Sinelting ana Refining Company 3422 Sou til - 700 West Sait Lake Ci ty, Utah 84119 Lear Ken: Thanks very mucn for your letter of June 22 and its enclosures, I can see from these that the matters in El Paso have turned out very well. With reierence to my illness and the question of your responsibility for contributing some stress to my activities, let me absolve you from all such responsibility. I had seen doing such work in consultation as had come my way for some time, and I aid not and do not n<ow regard it as any particular stress. The work I ipad been doing, on my own, in prep aring for the publication of the work of a number of years, might be so legarded, Lie m a p s , although I do not think so. I was not overburdened and beaten down by worn Rather, something of a strange type overtook me. I did not have the ordinary tyu e of "stroke,'' based on general vascular disease. There was no hypertension no uiffuse yascular disease, and on regaining consciousness, I had very little almost no - residual effects in terms of destructive processes. My eyes have given me uifficult y, and still do, and certain other, mostly sensory, disturbances are a source of tr uble, but this was no simple cerebral accident. I am at some loss to explain what actually happened to me. I doubt that I shall ever find out. However, I am quite sure my problem was not overwork or readily visualized stress. So you need not fee 1 any responsibility for my difficulties. I shall not comment, at this time, on the problems at El Paso or on the report which you sent m e . I 'm not up to writing long letters, or to engaging in critical scientific analysis. Perhaps, I could do so, but I am determined not to get involved in stressful wdrk for some time. A number of problems could be investigated and discussed, in the literature, but these would lead to more and more involvement, and I should soon be work ing as before. On this account I welcome the interlude presented by the InternationiM1 Congress in Buenos Aires. It will not involve me in anything new or exciting. can do as much and as little talking there as I feel up to, and certainly I shall pos tjpone my getting bacx into the harness of working full time, until I have returned hornie in the early autumn. I must then submit to a very complete "going over by my doctor friends, and be prepared to follow tlieir advice for my immediate future. I expect, tl:ierefore, to keep up on what is going on in fields in which I am concerned, without exeifting myself unduly. I am convinced that we will find ourselves deeply involved in environmental problems which are being handled by an irresponsible bunch of young members (and old members too) of the governmental agencies. Somewhere the bungling has to stop, if we are to emerge as a nation competent enough to handle our difficult and neglecteu environmental problems. V/ith kind regards Sincerely, N 6113 0001878 A M ERI CA N SM ELT I N G A N D R EFI N I N G CO M PA N Y DEPARTM ENT OF EN VIRON M EN TAL SCIEN CES 3422 SOUTH- 7 0 0 WEST, SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH 84119 June 22, 1972 Dr. Robert A. Kehoe University of Cincinnati Kettering Laboratory Cincinnati, Ohio ^5219 Dear Bob: Thanks very much for your letter of June 9* I am sadly remiss in not writ ing to you before now, but I was keeping informed on you and your remarkable recovery through frequent meetings with mutual friends. It was many weeks after your accident before I knew anything had happened to you. By then you had returned to Cincinnati. And it wasn't u:ntil the AIHA meeting, the last week of May, that I learned from George Rousch that your illness had actually begun during my last teleph one call to you about the El Paso situation. I've had pangs of comseience ever since, wondering whether your efforts in helping us with El Paso had anything.to do with the illness. I intended to write to you then, but immediately after the AIHA meeting my ife and I traveled to Tokyo, where I gave an air pollution paper, then to Nagasaki for first-hand information on environmental cadmium con tamination near- there, and then, as a last bit of business, to Taipei a nd southwestern Taiwan to visit an area where arsenicism . from natura lly-contaminated well water has apparently caused, and is still causimg, vascular disorders (arteriosclerosis obliterans and thromhoangi itls obliterans) leading to amputations. I hadn't quite believed the one publication I'd seen on this and I was not prepared for the sight of about 30 men and women in a charity hospital who had recent! y lost assorted limbs. Some of them had hyperpigmentation and keratos is, so there seems little doubt that arsenic Is at the bottom of all this though there may be other factors. . Dr. Wen-Ping Tseng, chief investigator of the arsenic problem, deserted al 1 his normal medical and teaching duties in Taipei to spend a 16 -hour day as my guide and instructor and even tried to pick up all the checks.; Such kindness I've rarely experienced. And he knew I was an engineer, not a fellow physician., N 6113.01 _____________ 1 ____ -2- Frora Taiwan my wife and I went on to Singapore where we were joined by our daugher, Karin, who came down from Bangkok. Then all of us went to Djakarta, Jogjakarta and Bali where the senior Nelsons said farew oil to daughter after having failed to persuade her to come home and resume something approaching the normal life of a 25-year ol.d. She insisted on continuing her solo travels to study the art an d culture of people in every country she can.manage to visit on w hat money she has been able to earn intermittently in Japan thes s past 10 months. She's had relatively little help from her parent We taught Karin to be independent but now"! think we overdid it. Back to the El Paso nightmare. It's over. Attached are releases sent out e.=arly in the trial and after settlement. They tell much of the story. The ten weeks of trial record would fill a wheelbarrow. The kids are all right. Neither the city's nor our pediatricians could find symptoms caused by the lead absorption. Dr. Bertrand Carnow of the Uni versity of Illinois said flatly that any blood lead over 27 [ig/100 g. in a child meant lead poisoning, but he was alone in his opinion and the judge didn't believe it. The news media, however, insisted o:n referring to "lead-poisoned children." I 'm.g lad to hear you're going to Buenos Aires. I had hoped to but doubt now that sue h a trip will be possible. I am tentatively planning to attend a symposium on lead to be held in Amsterdam the first week of October, A summary of the paper enclosed will be presented the re. If you have time to read it, I'd welcome your comments, The Compan y and I are not proud of the high blood leads and several anemia cas s found, ca used mostly, I believe, by the deterioration of usual cont rods during the phasing-out of operations, but they occurred and I beli eve all the facts should be reported. Once Fiore, it was a great pleasure to hear from you. I was touched by your feeling, totally unnecessary, that you deserted us in El Paso .and that you had amends to make. That kind of sense of responsibi lity is most rare, especially these days, and I fully appreciate it. Sincerely, KWN/bbc Enel.