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| TOXIC TRUTH A Scientist, a Doctor, and the Battle over Lead Lydia Denworth Boston: Beacon Press, March 2008 |
Rating: 5.0 High |
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| ISBN-13 978-0-8070-0032-8 | ||||
| ISBN 0-8070-0032-9 | 249pp. | HC | $27.95 | |
The scourge of lead poisoning was first identified in France in 1839, and first linked with leaded paint in Australia in 1904. Twelve countries had banned the use of leaded paint inside homes by the 1920s. The U.S. was not one of them.
Gasoline containing tetraethyl lead (TEL) was invented in the U.S. and first sold in 1923.1 The compound immediately became popular because it cured the knocking common to internal combustion engines of the time, and increased their power. Industry quickly realized what a moneymaker it was and organized to defend itself against claims that TEL was a health hazard. Denying there was a health hazard was impossible; employees in its manufacturing plant were dying, or were going crazy in a very specific way.2 Therefore, part of this defense was to sponsor studies purporting to exonerate TEL by shifting the blame to some other cause.
Time passed. In the latter half of the twentieth century, two American scientists began to tackle the problem by means of their disparate disciplines. One was a geochemist by the name of Clair Patterson whose first objective was to determine the age of the Earth. The other was Herbert Needleman, a pediatrician led to the battle by treating cases of acute lead poisoning in children in Philadelphia. And a battle it was. Many others, from many fields, were involved; but these two stand out for the persistence, even the ferocity, of their dedication to a comprehensive solution.
When upstarts like Patterson and Needleman questioned industry's cozy arrangement with the science and presented new data and new interpretations of it, industry changed tactics. It didn't stop producing its own studies, but it devoted considerable resources to attacking the critics and their science. In Patterson and Needleman, however, industry met determined opponents. "No matter where Patterson turned, you had a sense that his science was sound," says Mushak. "By God, he wasn't going to back down. You couldn't break him with a hammer. And Needleman, well, he was reluctant to relent." – Page xiv |
Reading this book, I was struck by the similarity of the tactics used by the lead industry to what I'm seeing today from those who struggle to delay action on climate change.
Pitcher says that he was surprised the issue of Needleman's work had come up again at all. "I thought this was really trumped-up stuff," he says. "It was the last gasp of what I consider to be one of the least responsible [trade] associations on the face of the earth (sic). They suppressed evidence. They [did] not deal with the consequences of what they've created." [...] He also points out that by 1992, there could be little question that Needleman had been right. "The bulk of the evidence is that even at very low levels lead disrupts the biochemical processes of the body—the calcium and iron pathways. You don't want that happening, particularly in developing children." – Page 195 |
Clair Patterson's first obstacle was technical: lead was everywhere. When he sought to use the methods of isotope assay to determine the age of pristine samples from meteorites, the lead in his laboratory swamped the minute quantities of lead isotopes in the samples, making accurate measurements impossible. He and his team spent months cleaning the lab, discarding all conventional instruments and glassware, scraping away leaded paint from walls to remove a source of lead dust. Store-bought reagents had to be purified, each by a separate procedure. Even the wash water had to be triple-distilled to prevent lead contamination. Seven years passed before he began getting satisfactory results.
When he finally did, the figure he arrived at for the age of the Earth was 4.5 billion years. That result of course had to be replicated by other labs — which meant they too had to be meticulously scrubbed. Confirmation was long in coming, but it did come; and the age was refined to 4.55 billion years, but no substantial revision was needed.3 Patterson began applying his techniques to other geological questions. This involved learning the distribution of lead around the planet. He soon found that one hundred times more lead was entering the ocean that leaving it. The implications of that were far-reaching. Ultimately, they forced him to turn away from his laboratory and become an activist.
As a physician, Herb Needleman was always an activist in the sense that he was engaged in fixing the world, if only one patient at a time. But almost from the start of his practice at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, he understood the pervasiveness of lead as a major public health problem. The lead industry, needless to say, did not agree. Industry officials used the standard tactics: sponsoring their own studies to cast doubt on Needleman's work, and that of other investigators; misrepresenting the content of their studies; attacking their methodologies; attacking their character. Industry leaders were able to delay regulations; but the facts were not with them. Study after study confirmed the pernicious effects of lead, showing damage from increasingly small doses. After much wrangling, the newly established EPA mandated a phaseout of leaded gasoline. Almost immediately with the reduction of lead emissions from America's tailpipes, the body burden of lead in Americans began to fall. Removing lead paint is a much tougher problem, but progress has been made here too.
In telling the story, Denworth alternates between Patterson and Needleman, chapter by chapter. Their lives overlap to a considerable extent in later years, of course, and complete segregation is impossible. But they worked independently for most of their careers, and this way of organizing the book works well. She writes a very readable narrative, handling the technical descriptions clearly without getting bogged down in jargon. There are some mistakes, but nothing so serious as to cause me to downrate the book. It contains a five-page timeline of significant developments in the story of modern use of lead (beginning in 1839.) After that come extensive notes on sources and a very complete index. I recommend Toxic Truth and consider it a keeper.
To contact Chris Winter, send email to this address.