I’m going to start a series of blogs where I discuss scientific papers that outline the various bad effects that lead can have on your health. But before I do that, it would obviously be useful if we had an idea of just how much lead we had on board. I said we rather than you, because I’ve done enough stupid things with lead in my life to be fairly certain that I’ve probably got a reasonable amount of lead on board. Hopefully not as much as lead workers, but I used to be into shooting, had a go at making lead weights and sinkers, used lead flashing, soldered plumbing and electronics, sanded an old house and so on. All the stuff you’re supposed to be super careful with, wash your hands after handling., dust mask. Except I never took any particulalr care with lead. Bummer.

I can’t help wondering if my gout is due to the lead, and it’s entirely possible my aortic valve calcification is worse due to lead, but at least I’m doing something to get rid of the lead.

Unless you guys and girls do something to rid your body of lead, there WILL be medical consequences.

I’d love to know just how much lead I’ve got on board. You’d think that would be easy, go to the nearest GP get a referral for a whole body lead measurement and there you go. There’s a small problem though. At best you’ll got a blood lead measurement and nothing else. But unless acute lead exposure is suspected, you’ll be lucky to even get a blood lead test done. That’s why you are tested every few weeks isn’t it?

I hope I’ve already indicated that in the face of continuing exposure to lead (lead dust of whatever), blood lead levels are useless for estimating the total amount of lead in your body. IF you leave Mt Isa or whatever lead work you’re doing, your blood lead will fall to a level that reflects your total body lead, most of which is in your bones, and secondarily in your brain. But it doesn’t tell you how much lead is actually there.

We can measure the lead in your hair, but that still only indicates lead exposure. Hair analysis did however indicate that Beethoven probably died of lead poisoning, and Napolean died of arsenic poisoning. Did you know that the Borgias used lead as an undetectable way to slowly kill their victims while making them mad in the process?

In kids in Mt Isa we could measure the lead in their baby teeth, but that is still only an indication of exposure, not how much lead is on board. Measuring lead in bone in cadavers is the most accurate, but it unfortunately requires you to be dead, which is what we’re trying to avoid here.

There’s a technique called chelation challenge where you get a dose of chelation agent which grabs toxic metals like lead in your body, and they measure the heavy metals that come out in your urine. That can be a real eye-opener in terms of what’s there and, if urine lead is high, you’ve probably got a fair bit of lead on board. Doesn’t tell you how much though. I’ll talk about this some more in a future blog about lead neurotoxicity.

Anyway, It turns out there is a way to do it, something I proposed to Glencore.

X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (XRF) was first invented in the 1920s but it wasn’t used in a medical context until quite a bit later. Early lead measurement with “traditional” XRF meant you were strapped in a chair for 30 minutes at a time, while watching a movie or video. After that you had a pretty accurate idea of the lead amount in bone, and that could be extrapolated to the total amount of lead in a person’s body. The XRF equipment was huge and hideously expensive, and pretty much only used in research labs. There is an excellent paper on XRF in biological systems, which you can get from here: X-ray fluorescence imaging of metals and metalloids in biological systems – PMC (nih.gov) . This article not only has some very good explanatory diagrams of XRF it introduces something I didn’t know about, XRF microscopic imaging.

But let’s get back to something that is relevant to lead workers.

Portable XRF spectrometers, that really are portable and use a much smaller dose of x-rays became available. They were small, handheld and incredibily useful to quickly assay metal content in alloys or ores. You will now find portable XRF absolutely everywhere in the mining and metallurgy industries because it is so fast and useful.

Apparently Glencore Australia doesn’t have one, at least according to their health and hygiene people. Do they just not know or… let’s not go there.

Anyway, quite a lot of work has been done to see if portable XRF could be used to measure body leas. One of the leading research groups to do this is at Purdue University, led by Professor Linda Nie. They’ve even calibrated portable XRF against cadaver bone lead and have validated that XRF can be used to accurately estimate body lead. Professor Nie has even offered to send a post-graduate student over to help Glencore get set up with XRF bone lead measurement. She was excited at the prospect of all the research papers that could result from XRF investigations in Mt Isa.

Cool. Glencore could measure your body lead when you start employment, monitor you to make sure you don’t pick up any more lead and then measure how much lead you’re taking with you when you leave. That sounds like a win for everyone.

But as I said, Glencore have said they don’t have an XRF spectrometer, and they feel it would be risky to you to the small dose of x-rays that XRF uses. I pointed out that you are exposed to a lot more radiation (and risk) from the U235 and Pb210 in lead ore dust, but I guess they’re trying to be super careful on your behalf. It must feel good to be cared for so thoroughly.

Besides, if it turns out Glencore’s lead workers have a lot of lead on board, then what? Does Glencore (or the workers) do something about removing the lead, or are we going to see a lot of legal cases because workers weren’t monitored and protected properly while working for Glencore.

I see this as a really interesting situation because if Glencore have no idea how much lead a worker already has on board when they join the Glencore workforce, AND if a worker subsequently finds out they have a lot of lead on board and sues Glencore, what proof do Glencore have that you didn’t pick up the lead in Mt Isa.

Imagine a scenario where you leave Mt Isa and go to a clinic to have your body lead measured with XRF. If your body lead levels are high, you know who to blame. The XRF clinic is my plan B provided I can get the funding. I’m pretty sure a University would be interested in population lead studies.

Glencore at the moment are damned if they do, and damned if they don’t. Even if they don’t do something to reduce worker’s lead levels, at least their legal position would be a bit better if they embraced XRF, but we are talking about a big mining company here. Do they have a conscience or not? I there such a thing as common sense?

I think that implementing XRF and lead removal could absolutely happen if they get the regulatory go-ahead and they feel they need to do it.

That’s one of the reasons for this blog anyway, Gentle nudges in the right direction. Mind you I’m rapidly reaching the conclusion that gentle isn’t going to work.

The more lead workers read this blog, the more interesting things will get.

Spread the word, because you have nothing to lose but your lead.