万物简史 第226期:把铅撵出去(15)

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　　荒唐的是，一个美国研究委员小组被指派来调查大气中铅毒的危险程度，他竟然被排除在外，尽管他这时候毫无疑问已经是美国大气铅问题的主要专家。

　　To his great credit, Patterson never wavered or buckled². Eventually his efforts led to the introduction of the Clean Air Act of 1970 and finally to the removal from sale of all leaded gasoline in the United States in 1986. Almost immediately lead levels in the blood of Americans fell by 80 percent. But because lead is forever, those of us alive today have about 625 times more lead in our blood than people did a century ago. The amount of lead in the atmosphere also continues to grow, quite legally, by about a hundred thousand metric tons a year, mostly from mining, smelting³, and industrial activities. The United States also banned lead in indoor paint, "forty-four years after most of Europe," as McGrayne notes. Remarkably⁴, considering its startling toxicity⁵, lead solder⁶ was not removed from American food containers until 1993.

　　幸好，彼得森从来没有动摇过。由于他的努力，最后提出了《1970年洁净空气法》，并于1986年在美国停止销售一切含铅汽油。美国人血液里的铅浓度几乎马上下降了80%。但是，由于铅是一种难以消除的物质，今天每个活着的美国人血液里的铅浓度，仍要比一个世纪以前的人高出大约625倍。大气里铅的含量还在以大约每年10万吨的速度继续增加，而且完全是以合法的方式，主要来自采矿、冶炼和工业活动。美国还禁止在家用油漆中添加铅，正如麦格雷恩所说，“比大多数欧洲国家晚了44年”。考虑到铅的惊人毒性，美国直到1993年才在食品罐头上停止使用焊铅，这是不可思议的。

　　与恶势力斗争到底

　　As for the Ethyl Corporation, it's still going strong, though GM, Standard Oil, and Du Pont no longer have stakes in the company. (They sold out to a company called Albemarle Paper in 1962.) According to McGrayne, as late as February 2001 Ethyl continued to contend "that research has failed to show that leaded gasoline poses a threat to human health or the environment."

　　至于四乙公司，它仍在发展，虽然通用汽车公司、美孚石油公司和杜邦公司在该公司已经没有股份。（1962年，它们把股份卖给了奥尔马尔造纸公司。）据麦格雷恩说，直到2001年2月，四乙公司依然坚持认为，“研究表明，含铅汽油无论对人的健康还是对环境都不构成威胁”。

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