The Man Who Killed the Most People in History
Below is a link to a 25 minute YouTube video on the life of Thomas Midgley Jr. As explained at the beginning of the presentation, Midgely was a scientist who is credited with creating "three inventions that accidentally caused the deaths of millions of people including himself. Not only that, they decreased the average intelligence of people all around the world, increased crime rates and caused two separate environmental disasters that we are still dealing with today."
Midgely was hired by Charles Kettering, the head of the research department at General Motors, to come up with an additive that would address engine knock in automobile engines. In pursuing this directive, he invented TEL (tetraethyl lead) in December of 1921. Though Midgley knew lead was toxic and despite scientific evidence attesting to the dangers of this additive even in very small doses, he and his business partners chose to place personal and corporate profits over human health and the public good. When speaking to Kettering about his discovery, Midgely stated, "Can you imagine how much money we're going to make with this? We're going to make 200 million dollars maybe even more," a sum that would exceed 3 billion dollars in today's currency. (8 min 50 second mark in video)
"Doctors and public health officials from MIT, Harvard, and the U.S. health service wrote to Midgely and warned them about producing tetraethyl lead. They called lead a creeping and malicious poison and a serious menace to public health. Their concerns were dismissed." (At 12:00 minute mark in video)
Midgely and Kettering ignored these warnings, choosing instead to partner with General Motors, Standard Oil and DuPont to form the Ethyl Corporation. The risks to human health posed by this known toxin became readily apparent. In 1924 five people died and dozens of workers involved in the production of lead at a New Jersey manufacturing plant fell ill. Despite these staggering losses the Ethyl Corp continued to produce and distribute TEL.
Some of the key points in the video presentation are:
"Lead is dangerous even in small doses."
"The organ most sensitive to lead is the brain. Lead breaks down the myelin sheath around axons and prevents the release of neurotransmitters."
"Children are particularly susceptible. Lead exposure can cause permanent learning disorders and behavioral problems."
"The dangers of lead have been known for hundreds of years."
Research reveals that twentieth century Americans were found to have "1000 times more lead in their bones than their ancestors."
"Globally lead is believed to be responsible for nearly two-thirds of all unexplained intellectual disability."
"The world is less intelligent today because of leaded gasoline."
"We know there is a causal connection between lead exposure and antisocial or violent behavior."
"A study from 2018 found that lead was likely responsible for 250,000 heart disease deaths per year in the U.S. Assuming a constant rate over the past century, that amounts to 25 million deaths in the U.S. alone. Globally, the figure may approach 100 million. Most of those deaths are due to Midgely's decision to put lead in gasoline. A substance he knew first hand was toxic but he did it anyway to maximize profits. And the problem is not over. Current estimates of deaths caused by lead range from 500 to 900,000 per year. A 2020 UNICEF report states that around 1 in 3 children—approximately 800 million globally—have blood lead levels at or above 5 micrograms per deciliter…"
In closing, the video points out that leaded fuel is still being used in piston-engine aircraft, which are now responsible for 70 percent of all airborne lead pollution in the U.S.
This means that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the aviation industry—knowing there is no safe level of lead in a child's blood, knowing that the adverse impacts of lead poisoning are irreversible, knowing that children, pregnant mothers, unborn fetuses, minorities and low-wealth communities are disproportionately impacted by lead—intend to continue their decades long policy of pumping thousands of tons of this "creeping and malicious poison…this serious menace to public health" into the air through 2030 and perhaps beyond. In so doing, the FAA, aviation industry professional organizations, aviation lobbyists, airport owners and operators, port authorities, flight training schools, and pilots are choosing to carry on Midgley's terrible, destructive and devastating legacy.
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The Secret History of Lead
A 3/2/2000 Nation article authored by Jamie Lincoln Kidman, "The Secret History of Lead," provides additional perspective. The quote below speaks to the severe health impacts caused in the production of this pernicious toxin.
"On October 26, 1924, the first of five workers who would die in quick succession at Standard Oil's Bayway TEL works perished, after wrenching fits of violent insanity; thirty-five other workers would experience tremors, hallucinations, severe palsies and other serious neurological symptoms of organic lead poisoning. In total, more than 80 percent of the Bayway staff would die or suffer severe poisoning. News of these deaths was the first that many Americans heard of leaded gasoline—although it would take a few days, as the New York City papers and wire services rushed to cover a mysterious industrial disaster that Standard stonewalled and GM declined to delve into."
The report included a number of salient points:
"The US government was fully apprised of leaded gasoline's potentially hazardous effects and was aware of available alternatives, yet was complicit in the cover-up and even actively assisted the profiteers in spreading the use of leaded gasoline to foreign countries."
"The benefits of lead antiknock additives were wildly and knowingly overstated in the beginning, and continue to be. Lead is not only bad for the planet and all its life forms, it is actually bad for cars and always was."
"For more than four decades, all scientific research regarding the health implications of leaded gasoline was underwritten and controlled by the original lead cabal–Du Pont, GM and Standard Oil; such research invariably favored the industry's pro-lead views, but was from the outset fatally flawed; independent scientists who would finally catch up with the earlier work's infirmities and debunk them were—and continue to be–threatened and defamed by the lead interests and their hired hands."
The report also described some of the widespread damage and economic costs associated with lead.
"Lead is poison, a potent neurotoxin whose sickening and deadly effects have been known for nearly 3,000 years and written about by historical figures from the Greek poet and physician Nikander and the Roman architect Vitruvius to Benjamin Franklin. Odorless, colorless and tasteless, lead can be detected only through chemical analysis. Unlike such carcinogens and killers as pesticides, most chemicals, waste oils and even radioactive materials, lead does not break down over time. It does not vaporize, and it never disappears."
"For this reason, most of the estimated 7 million tons of lead burned in gasoline in the United States in the twentieth century remains—in the soil, air and water and in the bodies of living organisms. Worldwide, it is estimated that modern man's lead exposure is 300 to 500 times greater than background or natural levels. Indeed, a 1983 report by Britain's Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution concluded that lead was dispersed so widely by man in the twentieth century that 'it is doubtful whether any part of the earth's surface or any form of life remains uncontaminated by anthropogenic [man-made] lead.' "
"While lead from mining, paint, smelting and other sources is still a serious environmental problem, a recent report by the government's Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry estimated that the burning of gasoline has accounted for 90 percent of lead placed in the atmosphere since the 1920s. (The magnitude of this fact is placed in relief when one considers the estimate of the US Public Health Service that the associated health costs from a parallel problem–the remaining lead paint in America's older housing–total in the multibillions.)"
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Take Action
Contact your federal elected officials. Remind them that they have a moral, ethical and social responsibility to honor this earth and to protect current and future generations from the irreversible impacts of lead. Urge them to publicly support the petition urging the EPA to issue an endangerment finding for leaded aviation fuel as well as an immediate ban on the use of leaded avgas.
Tell them to stop accepting money from the Airline Transport PAC. In addition, ask those who are currently serving on the Congressional General Aviation (GA) Caucus to terminate their membership and instead devote their efforts towards promoting public health by eliminating leaded aviation fuel and also addressing the noise, global warming, and other adverse effects of general aviation aircraft.
There are 20,000 airports in the U.S. Of that number 500, only two and one half percent, are classified as commercial airline passenger facilities. The remaining ninety-seven and half percent are categorized as general aviation (GA). These GA airports primarily serve the less than one-quarter of one percent of the U.S. population certified to fly out of these facilities. It is this demographic, this minuscule but affluent minority, that is responsible for spewing 460 tons of lead into the environment every single year. Many have the financial wherewithal to own, rent or charter helicopters, fixed wing aircraft, and private jets.
The members of the Oregon delegation currently serving on the GA Caucus include:
- Senator Ron Wyden
- Senator Jeff Merkley
- Rep. Peter DeFazio
- Rep. Suzanne Bonamici
- Rep. Kurt Shrader
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