Conclusion

Dr. Angle and Dr. McIntire's work to find how lead exposure occurs, what the best method for blood lead testing is, and how certain blood enzymes affect blood lead levels revealed that normal urban blood levels had toxic effects on the body. This combined with the public aversion to unnecessary risk that is termed the precautionary principle served to help lower the lead level deemed 'safe' in the blood over time. Their data also revealed multiple distributive injustices including higher levels in those that live close to polluters, and that lead exposure occurs most often in household dust in decaying older homes. People who live close to polluters, typically in inner city areas, and in older homes tend to be economically disadvantaged, which led to the conflation of lead poisoning with class and often also with race due to many African Americans being trapped in lower socioeocnomic classes and older homes.

New research revealed that primary prevention is more necessary than ever before realized due to lead's ability to seep back out of bones and into the blood if remediation occurs. New research into secondary prevention has also made important strides in the sensitivity and scalability of testing technology, but the question of secondary prevention's ethical legacy remains given the strong lead effects found by Angle and McIntire and the research into bones.

As research came in on lead's toxic effects the public listened and sent up an outcry of activism. The federal government got involved in lead exposure's public health consequences at the tail end of the 20th century mandating testing for medicaid recipient children and holding a congressional hearing that investigated exposures from polluters like ASARCO. Prevention programs went in place all across the country with different piecemeal approaches, mostly focused on secondary prevention.

Half a century after the research of McIntire and Angle began, lead has still not been removed from every home or yard. Secondary prevention programs are plagued with inconsistency. More than ever before is known about lead's effects on the body, and activism has made some strides to lower the 'safe' level of lead, but more can be done to ethically contain lead exposures through primary prevention and more tightly controlled secondary prevention in Omaha and beyond.