Lead exposure and lead poisoning in the Bell Telephone System

This website originally published at www.bellsystemleadpoisoning.com and  republished with kind permission on www.lead.org.au

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This guide is intended as an aid for the reader trying to determine if they or a family member (perhaps now deceased) unknowingly experienced lead poisoning from lead supplied by the Bell System.

A guide to researching a family tree for evidence of previously unrecognized lead poisoning in family members

How lead-safety was addressed (or not addressed) in 11 Bell System safety manuals issued between 1922 and 1974 ^{(*) (**)}

The eleven safety manuals were issued by various Bell System companies for use by employees, many of whom had occupational exposure to lead. Together the manuals cover the period from about 1922 to 1974, and together they hint at the diversity of attitudes toward lead-safety within the Bell System at the time.

Three of the manuals, one from 1943 and two from 1946, document the changes in occupational lead-safety at one Western Electric factory. The 1943 manual devotes a total of 14 words to lead-safety and only addresses hand washing. The other two manuals, one published in June and the other in August 1946, each devote about 125 words to the topic of lead-safety. Between the two manuals they address hand washing, fingernail cleaning, showering, respirator use, prohibitions against eating or chewing tobacco while working with lead, warning against swallowing even small quantities of lead or allowing lead to simply come in contact with the skin, warnings about inhaling lead dust, and an admonition to use gloves while working with lead. The two manuals while not identical in content address lead-safety in much the same way. Between 1942 and 1946 both the American Public Health Association and the Michigan Department of Labor and Industry issued public warnings about the rising danger of lead poisoning in industry. These warnings may have partly explained the stepped-up awareness of lead-safety in the 1946 manuals, an increase in awareness that is evident when these two manuals are compared to the 1943 manual. 

The other eight manuals controlled safety operations outside the factory for six Bell regional operating companies plus Western Electric, Bell Canada, and AT&T Long Lines respectively. The eight safety manuals are as follows.

The Western Electric manual, issued to field employees at a time when many telephone switching centers, still under construction, had yet to go into service and therefore remained under the control of Western Electric, devotes 37 words to the topic of lead-safety. It states only that employees should not touch their nose, eyes, or mouth with hands contaminated with lead. The other seven manuals devote ZERO content to lead-safety even though operations that required the handling of lead-covered cable and solder are addressed in all seven. Solder had been identified as a potential source of lead poisoning as early as 1922 by the U.S Department of Labor ^(****). A section of the Bell Canada safety manual is particularly helpful in that it cross-references entries in the safety code with entries in Bell System Practices (BSP) that dealt with safety. The cross-reference shows that neither the code nor BSP discussed lead-safety either directly or indirectly via discussions concerning the safe handling of solder and cable. 

The original owner of the New England Telephone safety manual, a 30-year Western Electric employee, reports that this was the manual he was required to study. This hints at the possibility that as more and more telephone switching centers came online - resulting in work shifting from job sites controlled by Western Electric to job sites controlled by the local operating companies - Western Electric field employees would have been required to follow the safety guidelines of whatever local operating company they were performing services for at the time. This would have been in place of guidelines established by Western Electric itself. This had a certain logic to it. If a Western Electric field employee was injured on the job while engaged in work on local operating company premises, there could not have been a debate as to which safety code that individual should have followed. The downside to this change, however, was that control over the safety of some 24,000 + (in 1942) Western Electric field employees would have been lost to Western Electric's corporate safety managers. Since there were over 20 different operating companies plus Bell Canada, each completely autonomous within its own territory and each with its own unique understanding of lead-safety (or lack thereof in the case of the 6 regional operating companies listed in the table above along with Bell Canada and AT&T Long Lines) this meant that for the group as a whole there was theoretically any one of over 20 different safety codes that could have been followed. It also meant that the hard-learned lessons on lead-safety made by Western Electric's manufacturing division probably failed to disseminate to Western Electric employees working in the field, because to disseminate would have meant sidestepping the authority of managers in other Bell System companies, a potential provocation that Western Electric management might not have been willing to risk.

A word about the 1941 Bell Telephone Company of Pennsylvania/Diamond State Telephone Company “Safety Practices” manual. When the manual arrived in the mail it was noted that its stiffened naugahyde cover was quite soiled. The cover was tested with a LeadCheck ^TM swab. When applied to a surface contaminated with lead the LeadCheck ^TM solution will turn the swab pink to red. The manufacturer states that any pink color indicates the presence of lead with a high degree of accuracy and that roughly speaking the darker the color the higher the lead level. The results of the test are shown in the photographs to the right.  

When the cover was first tested the swab came back almost black with just a hint of a pink/red color beneath a layer of grime. However after the swab was gently rinsed in a stream of cold municipal tap water the grime was washed away revealing the color seen in the photos. Similar results were seen following the testing of one of the Western Electric factory safety manuals. The covers look ordinary and harmless…but they’re not.

Bell System Management acknowledged the dangers of uncontrolled occupational lead exposure
In December 1979, more than eighty years after the Bell System first began using lead in quantity ¹, System Management finally acknowledged for the first time that uncontrolled occupational lead exposure was dangerous. This new found knowledge almost arrived too late, for a scant 4 years later in 1984 federal regulators succeeded in dismantling the Bell System.

Read Management’s acknowledgement of the lead hazard as it was published in Bell System Practices 620-100-010 “Occupational Exposure to Lead – Cable Removal” ². This document can be found on the "Scanned Document Library" page of this website. 

Blood Lead Levels in a Group of Bell System Employees – 1976 to 1980 NHANES II

Anyone the least bit familiar with fiberoptic networks knows that little if any lead is used in their construction. That doesn’t mean that today’s telecommunications technician can’t come into contact with lead in the telephone workplace however. Old lead-covered telephone cable ^[1] and even lead-soldered circuits still exist in some places and handling lead, especially for extended periods, is still a hazard. In the absence of clear direction from your company’s safety department here are dos and don’ts when handling lead. 

[1] A report of an in-depth study of the history and environmental impact of lead-sheathed power and telephone buried cable can be found at http://www.epriweb.com/public/000000000001009513.pdf. The study was completed and published in 2004 under the sponsorship of the Electric Power Research Institute, Palo Alto, CA. Alternatively a PDF copy of the report can be obtained by sending an email request to md@bellsystemleadpoisoning.com.

An investigation of circumstances surrounding an alleged case of lead poisoning

This in turn led to an increase in the number of cases of lead poisoning.

By mid-1944 the tin shortage, the result of a Japanese embargo and merely inconvenient in 1941, was becoming serious if not critical. To the maximum extent possible tin was being taken out of solder and replaced, chiefly with lead but also on occasion with small amounts of cadmium, bismuth, and antimony. Cadmium in particular is extremely toxic. The U.S. government contracted with the National Academy of Sciences to study various low-tin and tin-free alloys in order to determine their suitability for use as solder in different industrial applications. A wide variety of types of solder were tried by many different industries and companies, including the Bell System, to find the right combination of cost, utility, and ease of application. The authors strongly suggest that the Bell System finally settled on a rosin-core solder containing approximately 78% lead, 20% tin, 1.2% silver, and 1.5% antimony. ^(**)

* Solder with 97% lead was often used in the aircraft industry. See National Academy of Sciences " The Advisory Committee on Metals and Minerals - Metals and Minerals Conservation and Substitution Group, Report No. 10, 1941".

** See table 3, solder # 4, PDF page 42; and PDF page 43, paragraph 3, in the "Final Report on Investigation of Industrial Uses of Tin-Free and Low-Tin Solder: Part III".

A simple experiment shows how quickly lead oxide can form on the surface of solid 70/30 rosin-core solder (from the roll pictured on this web site). Read about the experiment and then view a short video clip that shows the ease with which lead oxide can transfer from lead solder to bare skin.

the rapidity with which lead oxide forms on the surface of solid 70/30 Bell System rosin-core solder

Requires Windows Media Player or RealPlayer

Extremely hazardous Bell System lead solder is being sold on Internet auction sites!

(refer to the lefthand picture, above) Bell System solder found to contain 70% lead. A thin film of lead oxide coats the solder and comes off easily in the hand. The solder was purchased on an Internet auction site. While a roll of lead-free solder can be purchased at any electronics store for a few dollars, old rolls of Bell System solder just like this one are selling at Internet auction sites for as much as $140 a roll and higher. This could be by design. High prices keep the solder out of the hands of casual uninformed users such as young teenagers. Such persons would probably be completely unaware that the solder contained dangerous amounts of lead.

(refer to the righthand picture, above) End view of roll of Bell System solder found to contain 70% lead (certificate of analysis is available). Naussau Smelting and Refining Co. was a Bell System company. The stamped alpha-numeric code is likely an engineering specification reference. Note the absence of a zip code or street address, plus the name "Nassau Smelting and Refining Co." instead of "Nassau Smelting and Refining Works, Ltd.". This together with the lead content places the time of manufacture for this roll sometime between the very late '30s and the early  1950s.  Note also that the label fails to indicate that lead is present in the solder. "The presence of lead in commercial products is sometimes unknown to...the foreman or the workers", wrote the authors of Lead: Health Practices Pamphlet No. 3 in 1942, "because the label or description gives no indication that lead is present. As a result, employees may, through ignorance, be exposed to a serious lead hazard." (see National Safety Council entry on this website; quote is from paragraph 8 of the pamphlet; a copy of the pamphlet has been posted to the "Scanned Document Library" page of this website). Since Nassau Smelting and Refining was a Bell System company, this is yet another indication of a Bell System safety program with serious failings.

The National Safety Council and lead-safety in the Bell System 

Bell System executives were active members of the Council at a time when many telephone company employees both in and out of manufacturing were daily being exposed to lead. ¹ 

¹ National Safety Council documents are posted to the "Scanned Document Library" page of this website

Leonard Woodcock, president of the United Auto Workers from 1970 to 1977, speaking on lead-safety in the American workplace

In April 1977 Leonard Woodcock appeared before the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, U.S. Department of Labor,  to give comment on OSHA’s proposed standard on occupational exposure to lead. Although his views on safe lead levels are now out of date (not surprising after 30 years) most of his observations and insights are timeless and to the point. They could be applied not only to lead but to many workplace toxins and could serve as a blueprint and source of inspiration to anyone seeking a safe and healthy workplace. 

The speech focuses on the need to reduce airborne lead levels, which is of course important. For many Bell System workers, however, hand-to-mouth exposure was as important or at times more important than airborne exposure. The reason for this is that work material containing lead was often handled bare-handed. In that case ready access to hand-washing facilities is of paramount importance.

Click below to read Leonard Woodcock’s testimony