PDF version of this file: New strategies needed to cut lead pollution

The particles of airborne lead from traffic are extremely small and are inhaled deep into the lungs (Cribb, 1994). An abundance of studies has shown that lead in all forms (including from vehicle exhausts) is both inhaled into the lungs and absorbed. Though it’s a long quote, it's worth reading the following from NRC (1993, p144-6):

Having been one of the instigators (O'Brien, 1992; Gordon 1992; Greenpeace 1992) and also a community representative at Ros Kelly's Lead Roundtable, one of the present writers, Elizabeth O'Brien, can vouch for the fact that the 1992 Sydney blood lead study was brought to the attention of Ros Kelly. But no blood lead studies were actually considered at the Roundtable (CEPA, 1993a). Instead, the conclusions of the review of 600 lead studies, by the International Program on Chemical Safety (IPCS) of the World Health Organisation (WHO, 1992) and the directive of the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC, 1993) were accepted as the starting point. As Ros Kelly (1993) said in her opening speech, "The purpose of our meeting today is to talk about how we, as a nation, can reduce the amount of lead in petrol and increase the use of unleaded petrol. In this way, we can begin to solve the very serious problem we have of a large number of children in Australia being adversely affected by lead." The graph showing the lock step reduction of US blood lead and petrol lead levels (Annest, 1983 - see Figure 19.1 pp 1500 at http://www.who.int/publications/cra/chapters/volume2/1495-1542.pdf) was not actually considered at the Roundtable meeting at all, though it was one of the 600 studies reviewed by WHO.

The price differential was regarded as a fair and equitable move for the government to make because it had been shown in a number of OECD countries that a price differential led to a more rapid phase-out of leaded petrol. The OECD had stated in 1992 that: "because the phasing out of leaded gasoline has led to dramatic decreases in atmospheric lead levels, it is clearly the most important single measure for lead risk reduction. Ros Kelly herself noted (as did the CEPA Options Paper, 1993) that though people who owned older cars would be the hardest hit by the price differential, as the lowest socio-economic groups are also the most likely to be lead poisoned, the poorest people in the community would have the most to gain from the new levy, in terms of reduced lead pollution.

The mixture of stakeholders at the Roundtable all understood the logic that if you add lead to petrol, it will raise air lead levels, everyone breathes, so blood lead levels will be raised throughout the community - we can call this the baseline blood lead level. Then if you add on to that lead from any other of a range of sources, some people in the population will have a high blood lead level. So public health policies are currently ensuring throughout the world that the baseline (the lead contributed to blood by lead from petrol) is as low as possible - because eliminating lead from petrol is one of the cheapest and most cost effective ways of reducing the number of people with high blood lead levels. That's why, to our shame, 55 countries will have eliminated lead from petrol before Australia does, that is, by 1st January 2002 (LEAD Group, 2000).