I guess the answer to the above question is now actually quite simple, but I’ll leave the answer for later.

I’d like to tell you how I got here, why I’m posing this this question.

I was concerned enough about the news of lead-poisoned water affecting the children in Yarrabah to get involved. Like Flint Michigan, lead in the water was due to acidic water leaching lead out of plumbing, but unlike Flint, the acidic water was due to the failure of the pH adjustment machinery in the water treatment plant, and there were no lead pipes involved just brass fittings and maybe lead solder, and widespread lead poisoning of the children. I had the opportunity to speak to the public health people in Cairns and I came away impressed. The problem at Yarrabah was minor and thanks to the Health Minster going there and allocating finds to replace the pH adjuster is now resolved. The fact that the lead poisoning was reported in a number of newspapers had nothing to do with it I’m sure. Actually it has everything to do with it. Any positive actions about lead are almost always triggered by media exposure of a political uncomfortable situation.

During our conversation the QH people mentioned children in Mt Isa and that started me down a different path. It was quite obvious that kids in Mt Isa were exposed to a lot more environmental lead because of lead in the soil, and additional lead due to over 90 years of mining and smelting operations. While there hadn’t been any recent studies, previous ones had shown that a significant number of children had worrying blood lead levels. It was disappointing to learn that the Health Department had little to ensure that children in Mt Isa were protected from harm due to lead.

I re-approached the Health Department, and found my emails, to multiple people, were no longer even generating a receipt email. I re-approached my local member, whose office had set up the initial meeting, so I could talk to some at Health about the situation in Mt Isa. But nothing has happened yet. I get assurances, but no action. Ok, back to seeing what else I could find out about Mt Isa.

It turns out I had a relative in Mt Isa, and he told me about the workplace health and safety procedures for lead workers in Mt Isa. I didn’t like what I’d heard, in fact I thought it was insane to be honest.

I’d already spent a lot of time getting current with the latest information on lead. I’d even managed to get a copy of “Hunters Diseases of Occupations” because my brother-in-law was suffering from manganese toxicity from welding high strength steel. That turned out to be useful.

Back to the story.

I got hold of the relevant WHS regulations for lead risk workers in Queensland. Two things were obvious; WHS mandates in Mt Isa were being followed reasonably rigorously and whoever was responsible for the WHS provisions at RSHQ either didn’t understand the biohazard issues, or didn’t care. I think the first draft of this blog post had the term “slobbering idiot”.

So, I contacted WorkSafe Queensland ( and Resources Safety and Health) who told me they were following the guidance of the Safe Work Australia model regulations. It’s not their role to think about whether the regulations are harmful or not.

“Hunters Diseases of Occupations” states quite categorically that lead accumulates in the body and that 95% of the lead in the body was in the bones. And yet, the WHS provisions seemed to assume that lead left the body relatively quickly, because blood levels fell after lead exposure. It turns out that that misconception has been around for at least the last 43 years, and no one bothered finding out if it was true. You do realise we pay these people, and their slogan is “Zero Serious Harm”.

Then again you have to have both the integrity to care and the intelligence to question. I haven’t seem much of either attribute. Instead we have people who claim to care and are too lazy or frightened to question.

I absolutely get the idea that raised blood lead levels will indicate acute exposure, and will therefore provide a really useful indicator that lead exposure reduction has failed. But aside from blood lead kevels indicating raised body lead burden in the absence of lead exposure, it doesn’t indicate what’s really happening, namely lead is being stored in the bones of the lead worker.

In the absence of continued exposure, blood lead DOESN’T LEAVE THE BODY to any meaningful extent, it just drops because the lead has gone elsewhere, like the brain and bones. The makes the idea of removal from lead exposure totally meaningless, except maybe to “reset” BLL as an acute exposure indicator. It doesn’t do anything to protect lead workers from the long-term effects of the lead they’ve accumulated. Lead risk workers are “mine canaries” whose blood lead levels indicate excess exposure to lead.

The Safe Work Australia documentation is interesting as it provides a lot of information about the health hazards from the bioaccumulation of lead, but then it goes on to describe the decision process that ignores the biohazard. What are you if you know something is wrong but decide to keep doing it anyway? Were they, like many bureaucracies, in a place where between inertia and denial, things are set in concrete, even if they’re wrong?

So I’d bombed out with the Health Department and RSHQ. Does anyone else care? Let’s see, I’d tried various Unions and got buck passing or no response at all. I even tried the Lead Alliance, no response, but I didn’t really expect one.

The last chance was Glencore, who mine and smelt lead in Mt Isa. I contacted their media adviser, stating everything I’d found. I had no luck until I threatened to involve Bob Katter in what was now turning into a pretty sad debacle. That was a hollow threat because Bob only responds to his local constituents, but it worked.

I was invited to a meeting on the 23^rd floor at the George Street office. A couple of corporate people were present, plus two by video conference,  I presented my case about the fatal flaws in the RSHQ WHS provisions, and pointed out that it left the company liable for a class action by workers if workers were to realise they had received a potentially deadly legacy by working under the current WHS conditions. I presented supporting documentation, and also talked about what could be done. Mission accomplished I thought. They’re interested and things will happen.

That was exciting, because if we came up with a revised WHS program that protected workers, that would force Work Safe and the Health department to take notice.

Nope. After a lot of prodding I got the following formal reply:

This is a matter that Glencore takes very seriously and we welcome rigorous academic and scientific recommendations that promote improvement in health and safety.

We invest resources and effort into risk mitigation measures that are not just outcome focused (eg blood lead monitoring) but focus on improvement at the source and the implementation of adequate and effective controls.

Thank you for sending some information through – you did make reference to additional information, if you could please send this through and provide adequate time for us to review and consider.

I did as requested, and supplied a lot more technical documentation, which also outlined an improved lead detection technique which used x-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF) to measure bone lead. It would take 2 minutes, was non-invasive and would estimate the total amount of lead in a workers body.

The second part  of the solution was what we could do about the lead that was absorbed and maybe do something about preventing lead from accumulating in the body. The proposed solution was an oral chelator, which would not only ensure lead didn’t accumulate any more, but would also reduce the existing amount of lead in a worker’s body.

While the XRF gear is expensive, it can be leased and costs less than a couple of big truck tyres. Getting things calibrated would take time and money, but not a lot more. An oral chelator might very well achieve both prophylaxis (no more lead accumulated) and lead removal and it is dirt cheap, about 10-13 cents per capsule per day.

Cheap, cost-effective and overall I thought it was a very satisfying solution. A win-win for everyone, particularly the lead workers.

Unfortunately, my satisfaction wasn’t shared. Despite the flowery good feeling statements above, actions speak louder than words and I basically got stiffed by Glencore.

I tried a bit longer, got pissed off and have given up for the moment.

Actually, I haven’t really given up, because I got this neat idea to start a blog. Maybe I could embarrass them into becoming good corporate citizens and live up to their own statements. If I can get the blog noticed by lead workers, they might be inspired to ask for a better safety solution.

I guess we’ll see.