[Rockhounds] Re: Did she have lead poisoning?

[Bobslgn at aol.com]

Did she have lead  poisoning? 
Rock, 
I am an Environmental  Engineer so I see and have seen all kinds of issues. 
Many years ago lead  solder was used to make food cans.  These were large 
scale high speed processing lines.  Facilities actually had cyclones and bag  
houses just to collect the lead dust.  Workers were determined to have lead 
related health problems and high  blood levels of lead; some long past the time 
when soldered cans had been  replaced with welded ones.  Even  today after some 
15 to 20 years, high levels of lead dust is found in buildings  where soldered 
cans were once made. 
Many of the regulatory  inspectors, today, are too young to have any actual 
experience with the large  scale historical industrial uses of lead; they may 
only know the regulations and  a few old stories.  Unfortunately,  some 
industries have lied and ignored risks making the regulatory community  suspensors.  
Also, generally, OSHA  does not just show up.  They respond  to complaints and 
allegations made usually by unhappy employees.  Consequently a small casting 
operation  may be treated with the same regulatory actions and requirements as 
a large  industrial facility.  I don’t think  the regulations and inspectors 
are necessarily bad, they just require the  application of logic and real 
experience.  Something, which can be hard to find in the high turnover government  
jobs. 
By the way, ignoring  lead, the smoke from the fluxing, depending upon what 
is used, can be hazardous,  an irritant, or provoke allergic responses.  For a 
sensitive person the sinus  headache is a common allergic response. 
Thanks, 
Bob 
>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





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