PAINTSQUARE BLOG

As one gets older, it’s interesting how people’s perspectives differ.

I recently read an article in the Cal/OSHA Reporter®, which reported that California’s Department of Health Services (DHS) had said: “Up to 10% of workers tested have elevated blood lead levels.”

“That sounds like an awful lot,” I thought.

From the headline, one might think that 10 percent of California's workers had elevated blood levels. So I tracked down the original report, actually published by the DHS’s Occupational Lead Poisoning Prevention Program.

By the Numbers

Now, DHS gets blood lead level (BLL) lab reports on about 50,000 individuals each year. Of those, the agency can identify about 17,000 as work-related, or occupational, BLL tests.

Here’s the DHS chart:

Source: California DHS

Based on these results, the Occupational Lead Poisoning Prevention Program concludes in its report: “Overexposure to lead continues to be a serious occupational health problem in California.”

Really?

The lead program is charged with monitoring, tracking and evaluating Blood Lead Level (BLL) reports from labs in California. I believe it used to be that levels over 25 (µg/dl) were reported to the program, but now it gets all of the reports.

From 2008 to 2011, the program received an average of about 17,500 lab reports from occupational tests annually.

I think there are probably a lot more than 17,500 workers in California.

In fact, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics,  there were 17,053,000 civilian workers in California as of June 2013.  So the tests received by the lead program covered only 0.1 percent of total workers. That means that the 10 percent with “elevated” levels is actually only 0.01 percent of total California workers.

How High is High?

Looking deeper, I considered the term Elevated. Historically, in the 1970s and 1980s, “elevated Blood Lead Levels” might have referred to workers with BLLs over 50 (µg/dl).  When the OSHA construction lead regulations went into effect in the early 1990s, only those workers had to be medically removed from lead exposure.

EPA

When the OSHA construction lead regulations went into effect in the early 1990s, only workers with BLLs over 50 (µg/dl) had to be medically removed from lead exposure.

But OSHA also indicated in the appendix to the original regulations that workers who were actively trying to have children should keep their blood levels under 30. So, maybe 30 µg/dl could also be considered Elevated.

During the 1990s and 2000s, the consensus of the painting contractors I dealt with was that workers should be able to keep their BLLs below 25 on all projects—even when the paint being removed had high lead levels—and that would help ensure that no one approached 50.

As you can see from the table above, however, the Occupational Lead Poisoning Prevention Program now considers any test at or above 10 to be elevated.

Really?

How Low is Low?

While some recent studies indicate that some adverse health effects show up at lower levels than we used to think, and that some of those effects start to show up in some people as low as 10 µg/dl, it’s not yet clear what constitutes a scientifically justified regulatory limit.

The long-held opinion that lower levels are better than higher ones, and that lead should be completely avoided to the extent practical, still holds. Unlike iron or zinc, humans have no need for lead.

Note that in this chart (from the Journal of Clinical Investigation) in 1976, the year lead in gasoline started to be phased out, the average BLLs in the U.S. were over 15 µg/dl.

Journal of Clinical Investigation

Amazing how things change with the perspective of almost 50 years.

Take 2

So my analysis of the numbers on the lead program's chart would go something like this:

Between 2008 and 2011, the number of workers with the highest range of BLLs (those over 30 µg/dl) declined to 95 from 191.  That's a reduction of 50 percent, to a total of 0.00056 percent of the workforce.

The number of BLL tests in the medium elevated category (20 to 29 µg/dl) dropped to 285 from 380—a reduction of about 25 percent.

The number of total BLL tests at or above 10 (what the occupational lead program now considers elevated) ranged during the study period from 1,866 in 2008 to 1,475 in 2011—a reduction of about 20 percent, encompassing a total of 0.0086 percent of the workforce.

Which Means...

So, rather than the lead program's doom-and-gloom conclusion that overexposure to lead is a serious occupational health problem, it looks to me like we continue to make rapid and steady progress to eliminate all vestiges of lead as a common worker health risk.

Elevated lead levels are now rare, and only one worker in 12,000 shows even the slightly elevated levels that would have been considered about average when lead was common in gasoline.

It’s a question of perspective. I certainly admit that one’s view may be impacted by who writes their paycheck, but I see real positive progress in this report.

Maybe we can now spend some of our limited government funds on more pressing problems.

Or maybe this really is a continuing serious occupational health problem.

What’s your take?

The author wishes to thank Cal/OSHA Reporter for allowing the free use of its article to PaintSquare News readers.

Editor's Note: Updated on Aug. 21, 2013.

ABOUT THE THE BLOGGER Robert Ikenberry Robert Ikenberry, PCS, has been in industrial painting and construction since 1975. Now semi-retired as the Safety Director and Project Manager for California Engineering Contractors, Robert stays busy rehabbing, retrofitting and painting bridges. His documentary on the 1927 Carquinez Bridge was the pilot for National Geographic’s Break it Down and an episode of MegaStructures. SEE ALL CONTENT FROM THIS CONTRIBUTOR