I’ve mentioned Kevin Drum’s interest in lead in the environment. But I had always thought leaded gasoline[1] was simply a mistake made through ignorance.
Turns out it’s the same old story we’ve seen over and over: man’s individual interest in wealth trumps the collective health of society.
In this case, the man in question is Thomas Midgley, and he not only invented and patented TEL (tetraethyl lead), but he knew it was poisonous, as Fred Pearce notes in NewScientist (10 June 2017, paywall):
From the start, medical researchers warned that it could poison the nation. In early 1923, William Clark at the US Public Health Service predicted that lead oxide dust would build up along busy roads. The following year, toxicologist Yandell Henderson of Yale University prophetically warned that “the development of lead poisoning will come on so insidiously that leaded gasoline will be in nearly universal use… before the public and the government awaken to the situation.”
And some of his workers died or were taken away in straitjackets, but he denied, with aplomb, that there was any danger at all. It’s a fascinating article, and too bad it’s behind a paywall. It has a lovely ad emblematic of corporate advertising at its deceptive worst, and I managed to find an image of that ad on the University of Virginia website, so I don’t feel so bad reproducing it here.
I think the older man may already be suffering from lead poisoning.
Source: University of Virginia
Midgley also invented Freon for Frigidaire, although perhaps he didn’t realize how much that would endanger the world in the future. His fate? To commit suicide after catching polio.
Sutori has a presentation on leaded gasoline here, including some more fascinating ads.
1The lead diminished the “knock” which made internal gasoline engines run poorly, but is also a neurotoxin. This is not the same as the “lead” in pencil, which is actually graphite.
