Herbert Needleman versus the Lead Industry

Herbert Needleman versus the Lead Industry

Dr. Herbert Needleman was one of the first pediatricians to become concerned with the potential impact of long-term lead poisoning on children (Rosner, Markowitz B 331). His interest in lead originated from an experience with a young Hispanic girl he met during his residency as Philadelphia’s Children’s Hospital in the early sixties (Rosner, Markowitz B 331). She had extremely high blood-lead levels, and a mother that had no way to protect her. After recognizing that the girl received lead exposure from her home, he told the mother: “‘You can not go back to that house because if she has a second episode she’s going to be retarded.’ She looked at me and said, ‘Where am I going to move to? All the houses I can afford are the same age.’” (Rosner, Markowitz B 331). This experience helped Needleman understand the systemic nature of the lead crisis, and how it would disproportionately effect minority population who live in inner cities; in an interview Needleman recounts his experience, “The differences in teeth from the inner city and Northeast Philadelphia were so great that I used to play a little game. Irving Shapiro would collect teeth, analyze them, and send me the results. I could guess the kids’ race and where they lived. If [the lead level] was over 20 ppm, it was a black kid from the inner city. If it was under 5, it was a white kid from Northeast Philadelphia” (Rosner, Markowitz B 332). He was one of the premier researchers to examine the effects of low-level exposure and to prove its significance (Silbergeld, 166). He did so by “analyzing the lead content of the teeth of schoolchildren, correlating it with the children’s behavior, IQ, and school performance” which illustrated the long-disputed effects of low-level lead exposure (Rosner, Markowitz B 330). His study highlighted the fact that lead was not simply an industrial toxin, but also an environmental one.
As a result, he was constantly under fire from lead supporters and beneficiaries. His research posed a direct threat to their profit margin and they were determined to undermine him. The lead industry attacked his credibility and charged him with scientific misconduct, putting Needleman on the defensive (Silbergeld, 166). He was brought before a panel of the office of scientific integrity at the University of North Carolina under the charges of fraud and misconduct, it is important to note that the lead industry had no specific charges when they accused him and relied on the “confused mission and inchoate processes” of the court to undermine his credibility (Silbergeld, 166).
The lead industry wanted a closed hearing and restricted him from his own data in an attempt to stunt his defense. But Needleman fought this condition knowing that a closed hearing manipulated by lead executives would go poorly for him. After pressure from the scientific community “The hearings were then declared open” this caused several of the supporters of the lead industry to refuse to attend the hearing as “They did not want to be questioned in public” (Rosner, Markowitz B 335). However, for the hearing to continue the accusers had to be present, when Needleman questioned his accusers about the basis for their claim of scientific misconduct, they either dodged his questions or refused to answer (Rosner, Markowitz B 336). For all they could have said, their silence spoke an even louder message to the public about the very real effects of lead.
The attempts to discredit Needleman show how political public health science had become. Even though science prides itself on objectivity the people who preform it still have agendas. It also shows another example of commercial industries trying to protect their profit by influencing political bodies.