Organolead Compounds; Environmental Health Aspects

Since 1923 organolead compounds have been used as antiknock additives to gasoline, and few organic chemicals are now produced in greater amounts than organolead. Early cases of poisoning resulted in increased safety precautions, but augmented production and pollution have not been followed by adequate regulations in order to eliminate environmental health hazards.

Occupational and environmental exposures to inorganic lead is currently under debate, and the lead standards have recently been lowered in several countries. Organolead compounds are considered much more toxic than the inorganic lead compounds. Recent cases of organolead poisonings, and the discovery of organolead compounds present in brains of people, have questioned the safety of organolead as a gasoline additive.

As a result the authors were asked by the Swedish Environmental Protestion Agency to prepare a literature survey on organic lead in 1977. The present review is an updated and extended version of the 1977 survey.