[Rockhounds] Did she have lead poisioning?

[Rock Currier]

Some years ago as part of my mineral business we also got into the business 
of casting pewter figurines of various kinds that we would glue onto cheap 
mineral specimens like pyrite and amethyst and sell as gift items. The kind 
of metal we initially used was a tin alloy that contained 32% lead, or at 
least that is what the specks said. The metal pots that contained the molten 
alloy were right outside the offices where my secretary worked. The office 
ceiling was one of those suspended panel ceilings made from that punky fiber 
material. We used to periodically flux the metal in the pot with an organic 
substance, butter worked find if you had nothing else and the process would 
generate a fair amount of smoke that would dissipate after a few minutes. 
Val started having head aches, she had had them on and off for years and she 
started to think that the fluxing smoke might contain lead that was getting 
into her system. We gathered dust from the top of the office just above the 
metal pots and had it tested. She also went and had her blood tested for 
lead. The test on the dust came back with no measurable levels of lead and 
her blood test actually showed that her lead levels were lower than normal. 
I kidded her that I had some old wood at home covered with lead paint and 
that I would bring some of that in and she could chew on it to get he lead 
levels up to normal.



A few years later after we had moved into a new building we were still 
casting figurines, and a guy from the local OSHA office showed up and said 
that my workers were being exposed to unnecessary levels of lead because of 
our casting operation. We told him about our previous concerns about lead 
exposure, but he insisted on having our guys wear little devices on their 
belts that had little filters in them that would suck in the surrounding air 
and dust and capture any lead particles on the filters which would then be 
analyzed for lead. All the analysis came back with no detectable lead 
levels. He then than wanted my guys to go down to Los Angeles and have their 
blood analyzed. I finally put my foot down and told my guys the results of 
the air filter lead analysis and that this OSHA guy wanted them to go down 
and have their blood analyzed. I told them that if they wanted to do it, we 
would give them time off with pay to go and have it done, but they were not 
required to go and have it done. After a day of two of discussion among 
themselves and asking me and Val more questions they elected not to have 
their blood tested. We eventually got out of the figurine casting business 
so that was the end of that.



I think people love to be scared and therefore the popularity of horror 
movies and novels. They want to worry about stuff. The press gets into it 
and writes about the most egregious situations they can find and that makes 
the public think that they are surrounded on all sides by monsters and 
threats and that feeds back to the press. Pretty soon all you have to do is 
say something like "lead" or "asbestos" or "mercury" and people start 
running for the hills or dialing up lawyers. Whole industries have been 
created to "remediate" these "dangerous" materials. Imagine shutting down a 
school because someone drops a thermometer that has a cc or two of mercury. 
Completely ridiculous. Before they understood much about asbestos, some 
plans were proposed to surround portions of San Benito county with double 
chain link fence because of the natural "asbestos" fibers that had been 
blowing around naturally for thousands of years.

Rock