Lead Poisoning Puts Workers At Risk Thanks To Outdated Regulations

Huffington Post
In a letter to a friend dated July 31, 1786, Benjamin Franklin wrote of lead's "mischievous" effects on workers. He cited his own encounters with the heavy metal 60 years earlier at a printing press and bemoaned how unsuspecting plumbers, painters and other professionals continued to be exposed and harmed. "You will observe with concern," Franklin concluded the letter, "how long a useful truth be known, and exist, before it is generally received and practiced on." Health experts echo Franklin's laments today. They say scores of working adults continue to be exposed to high levels of lead, including recent cases at indoor gun ranges, as regulations lag decades behind knowledge of the metal's health hazards and budget cuts further hamper efforts to prevent poisonings. It turns out the danger is not from the lead bullets melting into the ground and getting into the drinking water, like the lying pro-gun fanatics said is not really a danger, it's the lead dust that gets into the air from the lead projectiles smashing into their backdrop. The air in indoor shooting ranges is poison, especially for the workers who breathe it day in and day out.