How Big Oil Covered Up Lead Poisoning for Decades

Manipulating Science, Manipulating Us | Milbank Memorial Fund

2026.04.10Updated 4d ago

Four decades ago, I and Gerald Markowitz published an article in the American Journal of Public Health that attracted a fair amount of attention. The article was about the history of the introduction of tetraethyl lead into gasoline in the 1920s. The article detailed the controversy over putting lead, even then a known industrial poison and neurotoxin, into the gasoline that was powering the new automobile, particularly those that were produced by the General Motors Company.

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A landmark 1980s study exposed how General Motors and the oil industry knowingly added toxic tetraethyl lead to gasoline despite understanding its neurotoxic effects. The research published in the American Journal of Public Health revealed the deliberate suppression of safety concerns during the automobile boom of the 1920s. This historical investigation demonstrates systematic scientific manipulation to protect corporate profits.

Key topics:tetraethyl lead general motors oil industry neurotoxin scientific suppression

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