The secret history of lead.

LEAD; GASOLINE; PETROLEUM products; EMISSIONS (Air pollution); SAFETY; HEALTH

Lead was outlawed as an automotive gasoline additive in The U.S. in 1986- more than sixty years after its introduction, to enable the use of emissions-reducing catalytic converters in cars and to address the myriad health and safety concerns that have shadowed the toxic additive from its first, tentative appearance on U.S. roads in the twenties, through a period of international ubiquity only recently ending. must be recounted now. The leaded gas adventurers have profitably polluted the world on a grand scale and, in the process, have provided a model for the asbestos, tobacco, pesticide and nuclear power industries. INSETS: The hall of shame;The amazing Mr. Midgley;The hall of fame;Lead kills cars, too