Jeffrey Bland honors Herbert Needleman's research showing that low-level lead exposure from gasoline damages children's IQ and brain development. Needleman's findings faced fierce opposition but now appear linked to dementia in adults too.
You know, I'm very fortunate in that I have many pioneers, champions and courageous individuals in our field that I greatly admire and have really guided my thinking over the years. One of whom you've heard me speak about on many occasions, and that was Dr. Herbert Needleman, a person who really is credited in discovering that lead causes a diminution in intelligence in children. And that particular association is a really, really powerful discussion of can you have healthy people in an unhealthy environment? And it really gives a case example to the fact that even low levels of substances in this case as a consequence of leaded gasoline principally could have a community wide effect on reducing IQ in adults. And you recall that it was a very long debate and discussion and Dr. Miedelin was vilified. And then more recently in 2016, on June 5, he was interviewed or his work was reviewed actually by NPR in a wonderful piece in which he was celebrated for his being the pioneer that led us to understand that low level lead exposure could have a dramatic adverse effect on neuronal development in children. And that ultimately has led into the field of lead toxicology, which I call really neuronal toxicology, as it contrasted to acute lead toxicity, where you have anemia and, and lead blocks enzymes that are involved in the formation of red blood cell hemoglobin. These are chronic examples of lead intoxication having functional effects on the nervous system. And then I most recently saw this interesting editorial that appeared in the Lancet, this is in the June 17 issue of 2017 entitled Exposure to Lead in Petrol and Increased Incidence of Dementia in Adults. And the reason that I again kind of rael when I read these articles is that now we are starting to recognize the widespread effect that this low level toxicant has on neuronal health. However, we never see in the citations of these papers any attribution given to Herbert Needleman, which I find a conspicuous absence. And maybe my righteous indignation is railing up. But it seems that we need to go back and look at the courageous people that have made these discoveries that really change that which is human history and the health of the individual and remind us again that it's very difficult to have healthy people in an unhealthy environment. So just a moment once again to celebrate Dr. Herbert Needleman, who is in the later ages of his life, but whose work stands, I think, sentinel to us, recognizing the importance in this case specifically of lead as a neuronal toxicant, but the whole theme of chronic toxicity and its impact on both the nervous and the immune systems thanks, Dr. Needleman, for your work.
