In 1924 five workers at a New Jersey refinery died after exposure to the gasoline additive tetraethyl lead, and the industry answered with a press conference where its inventor washed his hands in it. Industry-funded science held sway for four decades until geochemist Clair Patterson showed lead contamination was man-made, and catalytic converters forced the phase-out. One estimate puts the cost at 824 million IQ points.
Who's who
- Thomas Midgley Jr.GM engineer who discovered tetraethyl lead's anti-knock power
- Charles F. KetteringHead of GM research and champion of Ethyl gasoline
- Robert A. KehoeIndustry-funded physician who set the lead safety paradigm
- Alice HamiltonFounder of American industrial toxicology; early critic of leaded gasoline
- Yandell HendersonYale physiologist who warned of chronic lead poisoning
- Clair PattersonCaltech geochemist who proved modern lead contamination is industrial
- Herbert Needleman+1 more episodePediatrician whose baby-teeth study linked lead to lower IQ
- Edmund MuskieSenator who chaired the 1966 hearings where Patterson and Kehoe clashed
Where it happens
- Bayway, Elizabeth, New JerseyStandard Oil refinery where five workers died in 1924
- Dayton, OhioGM lab where tetraethyl lead was discovered; first Ethyl gas sold
- Deepwater, New JerseyDuPont plant nicknamed the House of Butterflies
- GreenlandSnow strata recorded rising lead deposition
Timeline
- December 1921Midgley's team finds tetraethyl lead silences engine knock.
- October 1924Five workers die at the Bayway refinery; Midgley washes his hands in the chemical.
- May 1925The Surgeon General convenes a conference; a committee is given seven months.
- 1965Patterson publishes his paper on contaminated and natural lead environments.
- March 1979Needleman's baby-teeth study links lead to lower IQ.
- January 1996Lead is banned in on-road gasoline in the United States.
Still debated
A claimed link between gasoline lead and the rise and fall of violent crime is contested; a 2022 meta-analysis found publication bias and a modest effect at best. The 824-million-IQ-point figure is a model with stated uncertainty, and historians differ on how deliberate the industry's suppression was.
