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As American factories churned out war
material, the American Public Health Association’s Committee on Lead
Poisoning, while faithfully sounding the alarm on the ongoing
problem of occupational lead poisoning, had by 1943 already shifted
support away from workers and towards management. Whether intended
or not this change - made obvious by comparing the committee’s
published guidance from that year with that from 1930 -
by the nation’s preeminent public health watchdog group,
would have made any claim of disability from lead poisoning much
harder to prove at a time when unprotected lead exposure was in
sharp ascent.
Concerns about lead poisoning's long
term consequences, suspected but unproven in the middle of the last
century and treated with derision and scorn in the 1943 document but
with respect and caution in the 1930 document, have subsequently
been shown to be valid. Read the American Public Health
Association’s Committee on Lead Poisoning’s guidance from APHA
LEAD Poisoning 1930 and
APHA
Occupational Lead Exposure and Lead Poisoning 1943. |