The Public Health
Service’s decision to allow tetraethyl lead
back on the market in January of 1926 after
Kettering and others had removed it for a time,
was based on a physical examination of service
station workers pumping leaded gasoline that was
conducted in October of 1925. Most of the
men appeared healthy, but evidence of blood lead
contamination in widespread “stippling”
of blood cells was not understood as a warning
sign at the time, and no blood lead tests were
then available.
The final committee
report on leaded gasoline found “no good
reason” for continuing its prohibition, but
the committee strongly recommend further
independent study. The recommendation was
ignored, and meanwhile, the Ethyl Corp. claimed
that the committee had given Ethyl a “clean
bill of health.”
Research on the health
impacts of lead that took place between the 1930s
and the 1960s was funded by, and heavily biased
toward, the industry. The research was aimed at
proving that high levels of lead in the average
American’s body were both normal and
harmless. Most of the research was carried
out at the Kettering Laboratory at the University
of Cincinatti by scientists with strong industry
connections.
This research was criticized
as deliberately deceptive in the 1960s and 1970s
as the health impacts of leaded gasoline were
reconsidered. [i]
For example, the blood lead levels of people who
lived in nonindustrial nations, far from auto
exhaust and lead paint, were reported
inaccurately as being similar to those who lived
in the U.S.
[i] William Graebner,
"Hegemony through Science: Information
Engineering and Lead Toxicology, 1925 -
1965," in David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz,
eds., Dying For Work: Workers Safety and
Health in 20th Century America, (Bloomington,
Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1989), p.140.
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