The Lead Industries Association, Inc. is a non-profit organization of lead mining, smelting, refining and fabricating companies throughout the Free World and is incorporated under the Membership Corporation Law of the State of New York. Among other things, its purposes are to disseminate accurate information regarding lead products and how they may be used, to develop methods for the improvement of the welfare of those engaged in the lead industries, or in the use of its product and, in general, to promote the serviceability of lead industries to the community at large. LEAD INDUSTRIES ASSOCIATION, INC. 11 Senator HUGHES. Do your colleagues care to make any addition to your statement? Mr. COLE. No. Mr. SMITH. No. Senator HUGHES. If I may, what were the principal industrial uses for lead? Mr. ROBINSON. Of course, it is used as paint on structures, such as bridges, highway guardrails, steel structures themselves going up in buildings. A great deal of paint is used in the automotive industry, of course, for industrial purposes. Senator HUGHES. Can you tell us how miners are protected against the hazard of lead? Mr. ROBINSON. I will let my manager, if I may, answer that, since he is more technically competent in those areas than I am. Mr. COLE. Very infrequently do miners develop high lead levels because, in the main, the ores which are lead-bearing ores, or sulfide ores, are almost totally insoluble in the body. Therefore, there is very little occupational problem among lead miners. There is, however, in some cases a lead problem in the industry, an occupational lead problem. The standard means of protection would be improved ventilation, also biological monitoring to determine what the concentration of lead in the body is, and also in severe cases, the use of respirators or other personal protective means. Senator HUGHES. Is this used in guarding against fumes? Mr. COLE. Yes; fumes may be a problem, or it may be lead burning or something like that, or dust; very dusty operations. Senator HUGHES. Do they apply those procedures to lead-paint poisoning? Mr. COLE. Essentially, they are being applied, at least insofar as biological monitoring; because the basis for the screening programs is the biological monitoring or the analysis of lead in blood. Senator HUGHES. Can you tell us, Mr. Robinson, to what extent the members of the LIA would be affected by the decreased use of lead to 0.06 in the paint? Mr. ROBINSON. Obviously, for interior applications, we would be somewhat affected. It is not a significantly large quantity for us. Senator HUGHES. Exterior paints make up the primary part, do they not? Mr. ROBINSON. Yes. Senator HUGHES. This is also true in all highway paints, is it, as well as bridge construction? Mr. ROBINSON. You mean yellow lines, that sort of thing? Senator HUGHES. Yes. Is this the major outlet, really, for this type of paint? Mr. ROBINSON. Would you like to answer that? Mr. SMITH. Certainly, industrial applications are by far the largest area for lead. Very little goes in the interior. Senator HUGHES. Did you testify last year at the Chicago City Council hearings? Mr. ROBINSON. Mr. Smith did; yes. Senator HUGHES. Do you view that ordinance as any problem for the industry? Mr. SMITH. Again, the main object of our testimony there was to clarify the definition of lead-based substances. Again, we left the determination of the level to those in the industry who are far better acquainted with this subject than we are. Senator HUGHES. Has the industry supported research in these areas? Mr. ROBINSON. In the areas of paint? Senator HUGHES. In the areas of lead-poisoning resulting from paint. Mr. ROBINSON. Oh, sure. I think Dr. Cole would like to speak to that to some extent. Mr. COLE. Over the years, the lead industry or its sister organization, International Lead Research Organization, has sponsored a number of research projects aimed at a better determination of why lead is toxic, the concentrations which are required to produce toxicity, et cetera. As far as a specific research project to try to determine what the concentration of leaded paint ought to be, we do not have a specific project in that area. Our projects are in the main more basic research to try to define some of the unknown factors about lead toxicity. Senator HUGHES. You comment in your statement, Mr. Robinson, on the first page and in the second paragraph, that there is no sound toxicological basis for the proposed 0.06-percent level; and you hope it will be recognized that this level is not a magic number above which toxicity will result. I think we generally agree here, but can you tell us how we find the level, or how you help us find it? Mr. ROBINSON. I think some of these studies that Dr. Cole has been talking about on some of the broader more basic problems with toxicity with lead perhaps it may in some measure evolve that type of information. Again, because I am so recently new with the association, and Dr. Cole is so much more versed in this, I should like to have him comment on it, if he would. Senator HUGHES. Also perhaps he could tell me while he is doing it, I will just add another question on which you might want to comment-what are you doing, if anything, to make sure the users of the products are given an adequate notice of what the potential effects of this could be? Mr. COLE. The users of all lead products? Senator HUGHES. The users in the paint industry primarily. This is the thrust of this hearing. You are supplying material to the manufacturers of paint. Mr. COLE. We as an organization are not. We have over the years supplied much information and, as Mr. Robinson pointed out, over 100,000 copies of these [indicating] booklets have gone out. Certainly they have gone out also to all the paint manufacturers who are well aware of the problem of pediatric lead poisoning. I think the question which you asked originally was our objection to 0.06 percent, and I would like to point out that we do not feel this is any kind of magic number. Under one set of particular circumstances this number may have some validity. Assuming that a child's intake from food or water is 150 micrograms per day, and we know that the variation in the lead intake in food is great; in addition, we know it ranges from 100 to 500 micrograms per day in adults, and so we assume a similar range might be found in the child's intake. Also, we assume a child takes in 1 square inch of leaded paint every day continuously for months and months. Also we assume that a six-layer, 1-square-inch of paint weighs 40 milligrams, and the degree of absorption from the alimentary tract into the bloodstream is the same for this dried chip of paint as it is for aqueous solutions of lead salts. It was on a study of these aqueous solutions of lead salts that the basic data regarding the absorption of lead and the degree of increase of lead in the blood was based. I think that it would be difficult for anyone to substantiate, then, a claim that a reduction from 1 percent to 0.06 would have any effect on a reduction of pediatric lead-poisoning cases, because the cause of pediatric lead-poisoning cases in the 20- to 50-percent level of lead in paints which are today on the walls, and which are peeling and chipping. I think what we are talking about here is highly theoretical, but we have not opposed the reduction from 1 percent to 0.5 percent; we are not opposing a reduction to 0.06 percent. We just want the committee to recognize that this is a very theoretical calculation, and that this does not constitute a dividing line between safety and hazard. Senator HUGHES. Thank you very much. Senator SCHWEIKER. Will the Senator yield on that point? Senator HUGHES. Yes. Senator SCHWEIKER. I would concede it is theoretical; but someone has to make a judgment somewhere, and that is our job. You cannot make a judgment wtihout some theory. That is what we are faced with. Dr. Chisolm went through a very elaborate arithmetical process for his determination based on a child eating a chip a day with an average of 10 layers of paint. Do you find any fault in that specific series of assumptions? In other words, in some of our older projects and center city areas, is he off base or are his calculations wrong? Is there some theoretical assumption that you do not agree with on that? Because we have to make a judgment, you see. It is good to say you cannot make a judgment because there are so many variables, but we have to make a judgment. He made a series of assumptions. I would just like to know whether you challenge any of that series of assumptions or whether you feel that was not a fair series of assumptions. Mr. COLE. I think one could come up with another series of assumptions with equal validity to support a level of say 0.1 percent or 0.2 percent or some other percent. All one has to do is to decrease or increase the assumed layers of paint or change the level of the child's intake slightly from 150 to 125 or 100 or 200. This can be done because, you see, the ranges here are quite wide, quite broad. Also, I know one specific point I would challenge, and this is, certainly I do not believe that you can say that physiologically the ab sorption of dried chips of paint from alimentary tract enter the blood stream to the same degree as aqueous solutions of lead salts. Again, this aqueous solution is the material upon which the basic information as to the rise in blood level with increased lead intake was based. My point here, I think, is I would like to see the technical ability of the paint industry considered, and not just arrive at a 0.06 figure if this is technically impossible for them to reach. Perhaps they can reach .1. Perhaps not. I do not know. This is not in our field. But 0.06 is a highly arbitrary figure in our view. (Senator Kennedy resumed the Chair.) Senator SCHWEIKER. The one point you said you did differ with him on I am not sure as a layman I understood. I wonder if you would put it in layman's terms. Mr. COLE. As a child eats a chip of paint, it is a fairly old, fairly weather-beaten piece of material. This does contain some lead material. During the course of the passage of this piece of lead chip through the alimentary tract, lead must be absorbed into the blood stream. In my view, obviously the rate of absorption and degree of absorption of lead from this chip of paint is quite different from a solution of lead salts which is given to human subjects as well done in the Kehoe's work, which served as the basis for this choice of 300 micrograms additional lead. If you accept this difference in rate or degree of absorption, one could assume perhaps you could take more lead in in a chip of paint than you could in a solution of soluble lead salts, because it would not be absorbed to nearly the same degree. I am saying I do not know what the absorption rate is from a chip. of paint, but it does not strike me unreasonable to assume that it would be far less than a solution of soluble lead salts. Senator KENNEDY. Mr. Robinson, I apologize for missing your testimony and comments. I understood your position before coming here and appreciate very much your presence here. Perhaps some of this has been covered, and if so, please indicate this to me. Can you tell me to what extent your industry association will be affected by a lower reduction in the amount of lead? Mr. ROBINSON. I did answer that question earlier. I will have Mr. Smith, who is on my right, respond. Senator KENNEDY. I will review the record and read it. That will be fine. I want to thank you very much. I will look forward to reading the record. I apologize for not being able to be here. I just want to say finally that you deserve great credit and the Lead Industries Association deserves great credit for the help it has provided to Congress in this area. Many times industry associations have not been as cooperative in matters affecting their own industry, have not been nearly as positive or constructive as your industry has been; and I appreciate it. Mr. ROBINSON. Thank you. Senator KENNEDY. I would like to welcome next Hon. William Hart, mayor of East Orange, N.J. |