Gross negligence refers to a person’s or organization’s conduct where an act or failure to act creates an unreasonable risk of harm to another because of the failure to exercise slight care or diligence.

That definition raises some interesting issues with regard to lead exposure.

If a business becomes or is aware of a situation that is causing harm to it’s employees, is stating that they are following all the rules enough? It can be argued that in the face of an honest and reasonable belief that all regulatory mandated procedures are being followed, then the actions are not negligent.

But we have evidence in documentation from Safe Work Australia (SWA), as well as many other sources, of lead bioaccumulation. Even the reference book for occupational workplace hazards, “Hunter’s Diseases of Occupations”, states quite clearly that lead accumulates in the body and most of it ends up in the bones.

I brought this fact to the attention of Glencore and of Resouces Safety and Health Queensland (RSHQ). Both organizations fell back on the defense that they were following the regulations provided by RSHQ or the regulatory model provided by SWA. I guess that’s fair enough at one level, except that BOTH organizations make claims about how they care about the safety of workers. Where lead biohazards are concerned they don’t care.

But if they are no longer ignorant of the flaws in the regulations that fail to deal with the continued accumulation of lead in lead risk work and the increasing risk of inevitable harm to lead workers, then they have no credible defense in the face of a claim of negligence.

If anyone reading this is a bit upset by the thought of the potentially deadly legacy they are carrying in their bodies due to their lead risk work, I am happy to provide you with copies of the documents from both organizations and copies of my emails and letters informing of your health risks. It is probably easier to make individual claims of negligence because they are likely to be settled out of court, but that’s your decision. The only point of a class action is to bring something to the public notice, and make legal firms a lot of money at your expense, but it might be worth while to force a change.

To the people with children that may be affected by lead, the course of action is reasonably simple, but you’ll probably be finding a different organization liable for negligence. The recent case of Seaton vs MIM (Glencore) showed quite clearly that most reasonable measures to minimise lead contamination in Mt Isa have been made.

The efforts are hardly as good as they could be, since Broken Hill managed to reduce infant exposure by 65%. But it’s pointless to try and blame Glencore, UNLESS you’re a female lead worker and you’ve had a child while or since working in Mt Isa. In that case, Glencore’s negligence can be proven because the lead in your body has been passed to your child in utero or by breast feeding. A safe way to measure a child’s lead burden is something called a chelation challenge, where a safe oral chelation agent is administered, and lead can be measured in the urine. Isotopic examination of the lead will often identify the source.

Queensland Health used to publish the number of non-occupational blood lead levels that exceeded 10 ug/dl (now 5 ug/dl)? I’ve looked and haven’t been able to find any numbers after 2015. There is a document, DOH-DL 17/18-048 that has recorded details about the issues of child lead levels up to 2018, but there have been no official notifications.

I know that Covid put huge pressures on Queensland Health to deal with a far more immediate health issue, but there are still children growing up in Mt Isa and it’s lead-affected satellite, Townsville, that are being harmed by the presence of raised levels of lead, some environmental, some due to lead paint on older houses. Maybe it’s time to revive the interest in reducing lead exposure as much as possible and possibly even treating sub-clinical cases of children with raised blood lead levels.

Broken Hill has a program where up to 80% of the children have their blood lead levels tested every year. This has been invaluable in the program to reduce lead exposure as much as possible. While similar programs exist in Mt Isa, less than 30% of Mt Isa children are tested and the urgency seems to have disappeared with the possible exception of opportunistic testing of left-over blood sample from children being tested for lead. Dr Steven Donohue convinced Queensland Health to do that, otherwise no one would have an idea of the extent of the problem. Existing voluntary testing levels are near non-exitent.

Mind you QH haven’t released the results, so we seem to have had at least 5 years of silence about the scale of lead poisoning in children in Mt. Isa.

QH need to wake up and realise that ignoring a silent epidemic of disease states due to lead affects everyone. It’s time to take notice rather than appear like they’ve closed ranks to avoid any suggestion that their lack of action might be doing harm.

There is a quote that may be relevant to the lead poisoning in children in Queensland and the relative inaction of Queensland Health:

“There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.” —Nelson Mandela

What kind of people are we if we are prepared to sacrifice children’s futures and health for a perceived economic gain? That’s what they do in third-world countries and sometimes not even there.