The title of this blog is fairly confronting, but I’ll let you make up your own minds as to whether it’s apt of not. Thanks to Elizabeth O’Brien of the Lead Group, I’ve been put in contact with a number of people who have been severely lead poisoned at work. They have quite a lot in common; they weren’t warned of the medical dangers they faced as a result of their work, their work conditions were manifestly unsafe, the health risks pertaining to their work weren’t monitored and when they suffered severe ill effects, nothing was done. I nearly forgot one extra thing, that they survived despite the fact that their lead exposure was so severe that they should (could?) have died.

The first story is about Brian Arndt in New Zealand. I have his permission to tell his story.

I’d like to supply some background information about the hazards of working in the manual blending plant at Marsden Point, then owned by New Zealand Refining (NZR, now Channel Infrastructure). The plant produced leaded petrol while Brian worked there from 1965 to 1975.

During that period the manual mixing plant combined petrol refined at the refinery with various imported components to produce leaded petrol. The additives consisted of tetraethyl lead (TEL) and other alkyl lead compounds; the antiknock components, and ethylene dibromide and/or ethylene dichloride, which scavenged lead and lead oxide from the combustion chamber.

The blending area consisted of roller beds for emptying drums which were brought into the area by Brian. The drums contained antiknock agents and scavengers. There was a single breathing mask on the wall and a nearby toilet with a drinking fountain.

These antiknock agents and scavengers are extremely toxic either via inhalation, or direct absorption through the skin. TEL in the body is rapidly converted to trimethyl lead in the liver and trimethyl lead and it’s metabolites are slowly converted to inorganic lead. Most information about TEL assumes it has similar toxicity to inorganic lead, but this is a grave misconception. Alkyl lead (TEL and metabolites) is lipid soluble so its initial distribution in the body is quite different to inorganic lead, and this also means that it can be “stored” in body fat.

Ethylene dibromide has it’s own legacy of toxicity, as it was also used as a stabiliser in fire-fighting foam. Firemen exposed to ethylene dibromide are now receiving compensation because it causes infiltrating cancers in the body.

It would be appropriate to call the components added to petrol a true witches brew of toxic agents as they combined unique hazards in addition to the hazards of inorganic lead exposure.

Now for the story.

Please take the time to listen to Brian Arndt’s interview with the New Zealand Herald https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/ex-marsden-point-oil-refinery-worker-with-cancer-wants-compensation-claiming-lead-poisoning/MNGNJA633S3WPF5SHU4QZFFYQE/.

There were a number of things not mentioned in the interview, like the violent nightmares that began shortly after starting work in the plant, and waking up one morning to find his wife bleeding and crying. There were also balance problems and sexual inadequacy.

He worked at the plant for ten and a half years.

He went to a dentist in 1977 because of his worsening dental problems and was told “You must be one of the refinery boys, I see a lot of you” .

When he finally had his teeth removed in 2016, analysis of his teeth indicated a lead level nearly 17 times normal levels. That was most certainly an indication of severe lead poisoning.

Brian suffered many tumours (skin cancers, lung cancer, breast cancer and prostate cancer) in the interim. As he mentioned in the interview, in 2013 Brian was relating his work history to his oncologist and when he started to mention tetraethyl lead, his oncologist said “Good god no, ethyl lead, not here in New Zealand, I checked the records and there no record of such a plant, but I worked with the stuff in Canada, and there’s your tumours, there’s your problem.”

Other conditions included weakened bones (osteoporosis), cardiomyopathy and major stomach problems. There’s a lot more to tell, but suffice it to say that Brian ended up with a combination of medical effects usually seen with severe inorganic lead poisoning plus those from severe poisoning from the leaded petrol components.

New Zealand Refineries closed the chapter on the manual blending plant in 1977 when an automated plant was set up, something that should have happened 20 years earlier, but I guess people are a cheaper optionn.

Records of the manual blending plant were lost as were the work records of the 150-odd people who had worked there. Brian considers himself as the last of the “Old Leaded Men” who worked at the refinery. That might very well be true.

As bad as this story is from a medical viewpoint and from the viewpoint of gross negligence, there was worse to come. Brian applied for compensation to the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC), a government body set up to provide compensation to workers injured at work. ACC provides no-fault personal injury cover for work-related conditions, diseases, and infections caused gradually, but the claimant needs to demonstrate a direct link between their work and the lead poisoning. 

That was a bit difficult because the work records had been lost. It was up to Brian to provide evidence that he had been lead poisoned. When he attempted to get a complete lead poisoning profile, his requests for blood and bone lead levels were denied by a number of physicians and specialists with claims like “They were not allowed, or we can’t do them or, they are not available.”. In the end he he had saved up $5000 and he used that to go to the USA, to New York, to get his bone lead levels measured at the Mount Sinai center. The x-ray fluoresence spectrometry (XRF) measurement of Brian’s bone lead levels was carried out, but the results of the test, and even evidence that the test had been done was lost. ExxonMobil was a significant shareholder of what was New Zealand Refineries and a major sponsor of the Mount Sinai facility, but that may be a coincidence.

Compensation was denied, as was an appeal. One highlight was an ACC “expert” testifying on behalf of ACC. He suggested that Brian’s very high tooth lead levels were due to lead tooth fillings, something that hasn’t been done for over a century, even in New Zealand . ACC’s “expert” was either incompetent or had been instructed to lie so the ACC could avoid paying out compensation. of interest is that ACC was the fourth largest shareholder of New Zealand Refining, now Channel Infrastructure.

What I’d like to establish now is an understanding that sufficient information was available for the refinery management to realise that the working environment for employees handling or exposed to leaded petrol components (including TEL) required stringent safety action.

In 1964, a Department of Health medical officer identified the dangers of extremely toxic tetraethyl lead (TEL) and tetramethyl lead (TML) at the New Zealand Refining Company site. The information below followed concerns about potential lead poisoning from handling leaded sludge at the Marsden Point oil refinery.

The leaded sludge was in the bottom of a tank that had contained leaded petrol. The following recommendations relating to this matter were made:

It is essential that men working on this tank shall be under adequate medical supervision as the risk of lead poisoning is considerable.

Organic lead compounds pass freely through the skin and produce a rather different symptom complex to inorganic lead poisoning. There is no rise in stipple cells and the earliest symptoms tend to be psychiatric in nature. The warning sign is considerable dreaming, usually of an unpleasant nature. Surveillance is through urine or blood leads”

An accompanying letter adds:

“Careful consideration must be given to the provision of personal protection of operatives”.

In early 1966, the Octel SS Limerick, carrying a cargo of leaded petrol additives had the cargo damaged in a storm and some spillage resulted. A refinery decontamination squad and an Octel representative from Melbourne assessed the spill aftereffects. Included in the documentation provided was an Octel information bulletin on TEL and TML dated May 1964. The balletic outlines personal protection equipment (PPE) including rubber gloves and boots, protective coveralls and an approved canister mask as appropriate, for workers exposed to TEL/TML.

No significant PPE was provided to workers in the manual blending plant.

New Zealand Refineries KNEW about the dangers of TEL/TML and chose to ignore them, for whatever reason. There was obviously concern on the part of various Health Department personnel, but no monitoring or enforcement of recommendations appears to have been carried out, except perhaps for refinery personnel cleaning sludge out of tanks.

50 years ago was still the wild west as far as workplace health and safety is concerned so there were few regulatory constraints on the refinery. The fact that refinery management chose to apparently ignore safety standards when it came to exposure to TEL and TML is not unusual, though ignoring recommendations from the Health department does suggest a degree of moral turpitude.

It’s perhaps surprising that the Health department didn’t appear to follow up on its recommendations, but we can speculate on reasons why there was a lack of supervision.

I’d like to quote part of an article concerning the phasing out of leaded petrol in New Zealand (N. Wilson and J. Horrocks, Environmental Health volume 7, Article number: 1 (2008)) It concerns the relationship between Associated Octel, whose only concern was to sell petrol additives including TEL, and New Zealand government departments: “The British chemical company had the support of New Zealand’s Department of Health, including the Director of Public Health, his deputy, and the country’s Chief Air Pollution Control Officer.”

The Chief Air Pollution Control Officer felt that New Zealand’s wind would adequately dilute any TEL emissions to the point where they weren’t dangerous. That was rather optimistic since a published study of lead contamination along a lightly used road well away from the cities indicated significant lead contamination along the road for at least 50 metres to either side. The lead didn’t all blow away.

I haven’t been able to get the total figures for the amount of lead as leaded petrol used in New Zealand. New Zealand used a higher concentration of lead antiknock additives and per capita car numbers exceeded those in Australia so extrapolating from Australian figures is a bit of a guess. Australian use of leaded petrol released 240,000 tonnes of lead into the atmosphere. A reasonable estimate of New Zealand’s comparative lead contamination could be as high as 60,000 tonnes. But why hide the figures?

There is also the matter of the relative “ignorance” of medical authorities, a lack of knowledge about the dangers of lead and as a result minimal testing for blood lead levels except in the case of suspected severe lead exposure.

There appears to be a widespread impression in the medical profession that lead isn’t particularly dangerous. One of the factors could very well be extensive evidence provided by a Dr Robert Kehoe (USA) who championed the idea that leaded petrol was safe and that lead was of little medical concern. His lies about the dangers of lead are a fine example of the saying that if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes fact. The real tragedy is that his assertions, his “facts” repeated over 60 years, have been embraced by the medical fraternity who by and large are not concerned about the dangers of lead. They should be concerned because there are many sources of lead exposure in the community, and the medical effects of that exposure constitute a silent epidemic. A greater tragedy was the incorrect knowledge that the effects of lead poisoning were irreversible, so treatment for anything but near lethal lead poisoning isn’t attempted.

Nevertheless, there are rogue physicians that have realised that the effects of lead poisoning are at least in part reversible. Brian has been receiving oral chelation therapy to remove lead, and to quote him “he’s feeling better than he has in 50 years”. It’s more than a pity that his lead poisoning couldn’t have been detected and treated 50 years ago.

If I wanted to summarise my impression of what happened to Brian, then criminal manslaughter, corruption and collusion might describe the situation quite well. Considering existing workplace health and safety regulations pertaining to lead risk work, it is however doubtful that that much has changed. Workers handling lead, in whatever form, are still being harmed, and still being ignored.

Let’s hope this changes sometime soon.