“We were able to show through our hair samples what the lead concentrations are before and after the establishment of regulations by the EPA,” said demographer #link(“https://profiles.faculty.utah.edu/u0030780”)[Ken Smith];, a distinguished professor emeritus of family and consumer studies. “We have hair samples spanning about 100 years. And back when the regulations were absent, the lead levels were about 100 times higher than they are after the regulations.”
There’s been a lot of progress and it’s been ready for a while, there were just some assholes in the FAA whose piddly little egos got hurt, so they blocked progress for a decade, and it’s only now taking the final steps because everyone involved in that scheme has retired.
Mike Busch discussed this with George Braly (co-founder of GAMI) on his Aviation Masters podcast. I was honestly disgusted after listening to that. Years of lead exposure for pilots was completely unnecessary.