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http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2001/08/15/perception2.aspx
As reported in the excellent article The Doors of Perception: Why Americans Will Believe Almost Anything (a must-read regarding the impact of PR and marketing on your perceptions), in 1922 General Motors discovered that adding lead to gasoline gave cars more horsepower.
When there was some concern about safety, GM allegedly paid the Bureau of Mines to do some fake "testing" and publish bogus research that "proved" inhalation of lead was harmless.
Then, Charles Kettering, founder of the world famous Sloan-Kettering Memorial Institute for medical research, who also happened to be an executive with General Motors, entered the picture.
By a strange “coincidence,†the Sloan Kettering Institute began issuing reports stating that lead occurs naturally in your body and that your body has a way of eliminating low-level exposure.
Through its association with The Industrial Hygiene Foundation and PR giant Hill & Knowlton, Sloane Kettering opposed all anti-lead research for years. Without organized scientific opposition, for the next 60 years more and more gasoline became leaded, until by the 1970s, 90 percent of our gasoline was leaded.
Finally it became too obvious to hide the fact that lead was a major carcinogen, and leaded gas was phased out in the late 1980s.
But during those 60 years, it is estimated that some 30 million tons of lead were released in vapor form onto American streets and highways. Thirty million tons!
As reported in the excellent article The Doors of Perception: Why Americans Will Believe Almost Anything (a must-read regarding the impact of PR and marketing on your perceptions), in 1922 General Motors discovered that adding lead to gasoline gave cars more horsepower.
When there was some concern about safety, GM allegedly paid the Bureau of Mines to do some fake "testing" and publish bogus research that "proved" inhalation of lead was harmless.
Then, Charles Kettering, founder of the world famous Sloan-Kettering Memorial Institute for medical research, who also happened to be an executive with General Motors, entered the picture.
By a strange “coincidence,†the Sloan Kettering Institute began issuing reports stating that lead occurs naturally in your body and that your body has a way of eliminating low-level exposure.
Through its association with The Industrial Hygiene Foundation and PR giant Hill & Knowlton, Sloane Kettering opposed all anti-lead research for years. Without organized scientific opposition, for the next 60 years more and more gasoline became leaded, until by the 1970s, 90 percent of our gasoline was leaded.
Finally it became too obvious to hide the fact that lead was a major carcinogen, and leaded gas was phased out in the late 1980s.
But during those 60 years, it is estimated that some 30 million tons of lead were released in vapor form onto American streets and highways. Thirty million tons!
