"REAL" experiences of lead poisoning....

Eutectic

Active Member
The "I'm not buying it" thread had some good lead hazard conversation. I thought a thread about personal experiences with lead poisoning would be interesting as well as helpful. I'm not talking about 'you' personally (but that's fine too.) I'm thinking more on the line of real! Something you know for a fact is really fact! I express this because I know much of what is talked about is based on some agenda for some other goal. I'll start..... Please add to the list!

My father went to work at Standard Oil when he got out of the Navy in 1946. Lots of old oil technology then.... Low pressure distillation, stills, acid treating... The most modern thing were "Thermal Crackers". Lube oil stocks were refined with both acid and caustic treatments to purify so to speak... Even in 1961 when I went to work for them this lube oil process was that way. Sulfuric acid was a big one and many vessels were lead lined. Many 'leadburners' (lead welders) were there when my Dad started but maybe only a dozen were left when I started. Those 12 only did specialty work then like lead sinks, funnels, emergency repairs, but lead lining a tank was contracted out.

Standard Oil built a rifle range on their property for employees in 1953... Had to imagine such a thing now huh? I'll start about that time then. Some old school good shots worked there then; a high percent were WW2 vets. They had a big 'turkey shoot' planned and it was one weekend away! We were out practicing (I was 11 years old.) One guy who I would work around some 7 years later was shooting off the 200 yard bench. I saw he had a purple fingernail... He was looking off the side of the bench and saw me. "Hey young Pete! Come help me find my brass!" I run over for the good assignment! I found it and as I got off my knees I saw Brickner's hand on the bench. All his fingernails were purple! I asked my Dad about it later at home. "Brick's a leadburner....and a good one! Does it all the time. Lead makes your fingernails purple. Most the leadburners are that way." He was one of the best shots out there and won a turkey the next weekend. He seemed healthy to me 8 years later until he retired. I think of him often when lead poisoning comes up.
They were tearing out that old process as the tanks and piping wore out in the 50's. My Dad must have salvaged a literal ton of lead from the scrap! I still remember my Mother yelling at him. He smelted in the garage and it stunk! I later would know that smell as Sulfuric Acid! I still shoot bullets with a little of that old lead in them!
We built a Chevron fertilizer plant in Wyoming in the 80's. Our process made sulfuric acid first to react with phosphate rock and create phosphoric acid for fertilizer. I stayed a while after startup and was hiring people for the maintenance department. I was sick of interviewing people for sure! A big ol' kid come in... I could see he was as strong as a bull. He was visiting his brother there. This guy worked in San Manuel, AZ for a copper smelter (Phelps Dodge I think) "I do any maintenance work... Weld, millwright, piping, electrical, crane operator.... But I like to leadburn the best!" His last sentence hit me between the eyes. He kept going at my silence....."I see a sulfuric plant over there." He pointed a thick finger out the window. "Got any lead lined equipment?" "Nope sorry..... Lined with some hi-tech polymer they say." His smile faded. Welder huh? I thought.... Good at everything huh? Only then I spoke. "I'm going to weld test you Jack" "OK" he says. He passed in flying colors and it wasn't an easy test! And he was the most versatile mechanic I even hired! He could do anything you wanted well!
A couple years later he said something about his 'downtime' in Arizona. I asked him about it. He leadburned all the time.... He loved it too and Phelps Dodge loved it because he was their best. But they blood tested him every 6 months...... Jack said welding lead 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, would raise his mmgdl up to the MSHA max. Six months lay off brought it back down! So he said he'd leadburn 6 months and usually operate the crane for 6 months. Good shot too...he hunted with us!

I heard lead paint is bad for kids and have seen a lot of kids chew on old painted cribs in the old days. May be true. but I haven't seen it.

What has anyone seen first hand on lead poisoning???

Pete
 

pokute

Active Member
Friend of mine ran a Western Auto store from after the war into the 60's. He washed his hands and arms constantly in leaded gas. He had all the chronic symptoms, but much worse than as normally described. He also had holes burned in his retinas from staring at a welder as a kid. Basically, if you told Jack not to do something... Lived to be over 100.
 

yodogsandman

Well-Known Member
I had "elevated levels" that went up to 20 but not completely sure why. I got tested every 6 months at work but, I hadn't done anything with lead during that period. I had gone digging in the berms in about 100*F heat, dusty and dry. I used a home made sifter and 5 gallon buckets to get the lead. It kicked up a lot of dust from oxidized lead remnants. The only other possibility is from using my vibratory
case cleaner quite a bit. Before hearing about cutting down on the dust and dirt with torn up pieces of old dryer sheets. It took almost a year away from lead work at work and away from
casting, drinking orange juice daily to return to normal levels under 10. My normal was around 3.


I made some changes, too. I'd always washed well after a session but, now I really scrub. I set up a new casting table closer to the barn door. I set up a ventilation over my pot (HATE IT). As said, I now use
dryer sheets in the vibratory case cleaner. I now leave the barn after any fluxing and let the smoke and fumes leave completely before I return.
 
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oscarflytyer

Well-Known Member
"The only other possibility is from using my vibratory case cleaner quite a bit"

This is what the local guys here chocked up their raised blood lead levels to. All started using pins, tumbling outside, using dryer sheets, etc. Haven't seen/heard of any issues lately.
 

RicinYakima

High Steppes of Eastern Washington
The only recorded Labor and Industry's (state OSHA) lead poisoning involving firearms is from an indoor range in Bellevue, WA. One of two for a metro area of 1 Million plus. When the range closed at night, a young employee was told to wet the floor, squeegee the wet residue into the corner and shovel it up into a closed top drum. All of this was while wearing a respirator. However, that was too much work. He sweep it up with a broom and dumped it into the drum with no respirator, no gloves and didn't wash until the next morning. After three years, he began having tremors and lead level was more than 15. So this one case is the basis for all the state's lead chemical action plan, regulation of air quality at indoor and outdoor ranges, no lead shot out side of trap and skeet ranges, etc.
 

oscarflytyer

Well-Known Member
The only recorded Labor and Industry's (state OSHA) lead poisoning involving firearms is from an indoor range in Bellevue, WA. One of two for a metro area of 1 Million plus. When the range closed at night, a young employee was told to wet the floor, squeegee the wet residue into the corner and shovel it up into a closed top drum. All of this was while wearing a respirator. However, that was too much work. He sweep it up with a broom and dumped it into the drum with no respirator, no gloves and didn't wash until the next morning. After three years, he began having tremors and lead level was more than 15. So this one case is the basis for all the state's lead chemical action plan, regulation of air quality at indoor and outdoor ranges, no lead shot out side of trap and skeet ranges, etc.

Pure stupidity, but nonetheless... All that, and only a 15 level? That surprises me! I would have expected it to be double that for that exposure... I would have to go back and check threads, but I want to say some here had levels at least that high and were just reloaders/shooters.
 

JSH

Active Member
All I know of local involved bovines.
Old batteries are hard to dispose of. They always ended up put in a pile along with other farm equipment along the fence row. Freeze up and break the case, UV breaks down the plastic even further. Cows go off of smell most times. If it smells good they will eat it. Salt is another weakness for them. Evidently it either smelled interesting or was salty. A dozen registered Holstien heifers in a pasture all got lead poisoning, all evidence pointed to the batteries. All were destroyed and buried.

The other instance also involved Holstiens. A lot of dairy farms around here at one time. They had a big lake and camping area. Below the dam was a nice flat bottom and they planted silage crops there every year. The dam was a good place to shoot trap. The corn got up high enough that the whirl of the plant would collect shot.
Silage was cut and put up. I believe they lost the whole herd, cows,heifers and calves.
 

blackthorn

Active Member
In the 1970's I worked in a plywood manufacturing plant. One of the products we made required the painting of the edges of the panels with a very heavy lead based paint. Clean-up was done using some sort of thinner. We had an older East Indian gentleman doing that clean-up and he did not use the safety gloves provided, rather just washing the equipment in buckets of thinner using his bare hands. He got a real bad case of lead poisoning due to the thinner being absorbed into his system, carrying the lead along for the ride.
 

pokute

Active Member
Not specifically an example of lead poisoning, but during summers in high school I worked for my crazy uncles Izzy and Julius. They had a "junk business". One year they made me the forklift operator. Out we went to a plating company that had a bunch of old lead-lined tanks "formerly" filled with all sorts of great stuff. I managed to get the forks under what turned out to be a huge overload in the form of a plating tank. As I tried to lift it, the side split and hundreds of gallons of fuming god-knows-what came flooding out of the hollow walls of the tank. It went sluicing down the roadway, where it got carried off on the tires of every truck and car to pass through for the next few months. Usually right onto the Pomona Freeway, heading East. I was probably responsible for the nationwide reduction in IQ that usually gets blamed on television.
 

RicinYakima

High Steppes of Eastern Washington
OF, it appears that metal poisoning is highly variable depending upon age and individual. Children and young people still growing and expanding the central nervous system are very easily effected. Remember that the standard treatment for syphilis and gonorrhea was forcing mercury metal into the bladder or mercuric oxide pills. The cure was complete when the fingernails or teeth fell out. When I was a kid mercury oxide (blue ointment or soap) was the standard for crabs and head lice.

In the Bellevue case above, I do not know at what point his metal level was taken in treatment or how long he had not worked. Those were not available in the information that I researched.
 

Eutectic

Active Member
I still think Merthiolate kept nasty scratches from festering better than anything else! But my wife made me throw my ancient bottle away! I see it still for sale now mercury free....... Probably doesn't work.

Pete
 

Pistolero

Well-Known Member
Blood lead of 15 milligrams/deciliter is not harmful to an adult. OSHA says no need to change business
processes unless an employee's blood lead reaches above 40. Too many docs freak out and scare the hell
out of their patients when they get something like a 12 or 15 test. The limit, often quoted, is
10, but only for young children. For adults it is 40. I know of many folks who shot in our indoor
range years ago who lived for many years with 15 - 25 blood lead, no problems at all.

We had one shooter reach 60, started on chelation, had some very mild symptoms, no permanent
effects.

I studied the literature on this in detail back in the 1980s when we shot all the time at an indoor
range. The key was to wash your hands after being on the range, and not smoke or eat on
the range. Ingestion if fine particles (every where on the range) is the route into the body.
Smoking or eating with lead contaminated hands is THE big error.

Bill
 

RicinYakima

High Steppes of Eastern Washington
Bill, absolutely correct! Cleanliness is the key, especially with casting. You can do fans, and blowers and outdoors (which help a lot for the toxins from the fluxing process) but it doesn't do anything for lead. No smokiee, no eatiee, no drinkie! Take your clothes off and put them in the washer.
 

oscarflytyer

Well-Known Member
I still think Merthiolate kept nasty scratches from festering better than anything else! But my wife made me throw my ancient bottle away! I see it still for sale now mercury free....... Probably doesn't work.

Pete

imho - mercury free is worthless... had an old bottle, may still have it (but don't think so). Not sure what made it work, but work it did!
 

oscarflytyer

Well-Known Member
Bill! REALLY?!? had no clue. guess I did know that it affects kids growing more than developed adults. And I can attest that the Doc says 0-9 - checked that just the other day. But not stated that is a developing kid level... I am way past any development! guess I am scott free! Thanx!
 

Pistolero

Well-Known Member
Most docs mean well but are not trained in this and grab the lowest number that they
see. I have had several shooters show up on one of our Friday night matches indoors and
say that this was the last time they could shoot, their blood lead had turned up to be 12 and
the doc had told them to stop shooting. All I ever do is tell them to spend some time online
looking up the standards for adults. They all found the same as I did. 10 is for children, 40 for adults.

It is possible that in the last decade or so, the powers that be have decided lower the allowable
level, but I am certain that OSHA rules were that lower than 40 on an employee in a lead-using
factory (we had a battery plant near here back then) there was no need to change procedures.
Hand washing was the real key, although all the shooters I know had something like 10 to 25 blood
lead if they shot every Friday night at that range. No ill effects. Some wore filter masks for a while,
didn't seem to make any real difference. We were shooting steel targets frequently, and the backstop
is an angled steel plate with fragments dropping into a water trough. It was common to have small
lead splatter hit you from the steel bounceback, and we required eye protection for even observers on
the range. Just lots of lead particles being put into the air, coating everything on the range. Washing
before we left the range was effective.

If you want your blood tested, they need to use the purple capped vials for lead testing. But most
of them know that. Oh, they will be concerned if you cannot explain how you are exposed to lead.
Having a level of 20 with no known exposure would be a bit scary, would mean something unknown
is going on. But if there is known exposure, then it is acceptable. Of course, lower is always a good
thing, I am careful to wash my hands after casting and loading, too.

Bill
 

RBHarter

West Central AR
My first screen was at 11 . The doc was pretty excited . Between then and the next test I was layed off for 7 months and did a lot of loading , casting and shooting . It was down to 6 . What was changed ? My daily contact with oxidized 60-80s OD green paint was taken out of the routine along with handling 3-5000 galvanized gun nails a week .

It certainly made me more aware of where I put my hands and getting new gloves more often .