Childhood Lead Hazard Pioneer Researcher Herbert Needleman, MD
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Historic video collection of Mark Catlin
Videos
- A Little Song About Noise
- Carelessness Causes Accidents We all Know That
- Blaming the Victims of Workplace Accidents
- Trench Collapse Hazard
- Construction Workers Recall Working Around Asbestos
- Asbestos in building construction
- Uses of Asbestos: Examples from the 50s and 60s
- Testing an Asbestos Suit
- Canary used for testing for carbon monoxide
- Carbon Monoxide Death in an Underground Copper Mine
- Lead Exposure at the Bunker Hill Mine and Smelter
- Lead Palsy Wrist Drop
- Mold Problems after Flooding
- Radioactive Contaminated Turtles
- Decontamination after an Atomic Blast
- Radiological Site Cleanup Health and Safety Preservation Aviation Cleanup
- The Campaign to End Silicosis
- Fire Safety in a Paint Shop
- Painting Health Hazards and Their Control
- Proper Posture
- Hand Arm Vibration Hazard Alice Hamilton
- Vibration Hazards and Control
- Man and Sound 1965 DOD
- Boilermaker's Ear
- Trench Collapse Hazard
- Application of Built Up Asbestos Roofing
- Canary used for testing for carbon monoxide
- Lead Properties and Uses
- Preventing Lead Poisoning in Bridge Construction Workers
- Childhood Lead Hazard Pioneer Researcher Herbert Needleman, MD
- Spray Painting Hazards and Air Line Respirator
Summary Statement
Herbert Needleman, MD, is a pioneer in the history of medicine who has helped transform our understanding of the effect of lead on children's health. In this short opening statement at a1991 Congressional hearing on controlling the hazards of lead, Dr. Needleman reviews the history and politics of childhood lead hazards. In the 1970s, he revolutionized the field by documenting the impact of low lead exposure on the intellectual development and behavior of children. In 1979, he published a highly influential study in the New England Journal of Medicine1 that transformed the focus of lead research for the next generation and played a critical role in the elimination of lead in gasoline and the lowering of the CDC's blood lead standard for children. Building on a study by Byers and Lord in 1943 and those of Julian Chisolm and others in the 1950s and 1960s, which had documented a variety of chronic damage affecting children who showed acute symptoms of lead poisoning, Needleman's innovative study analyzed the lead content of the teeth of schoolchildren, correlating it with the children's behavior, IQ, and school performance. Not surprisingly, Needleman became the focus of the lead industry's ire. Beginning in the early 1980s, the industry's attacks on his research and use of public relations firms and scientific consultants to undermine his credibility became a classic example of how an industry seeks to shape science and call into question the credibility of those whose research threatens it. Industry consultants demanded that the Environmental Protection Agency and, later, the Office of Scientific Integrity at the National Institutes of Health, investigate Needleman's work. And then, in 1991, under pressure from industry consultants, the University of Pittsburgh formed a committee to evaluate the integrity of his lead studies. Ultimately the federal government and the university found no basis for questioning Needleman's integrity or the results of his research
1991
