Electrician’s Lead Level Traced to Chewing Habit
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COLUMBUS, Ohio — The mystery of an electrician’s lead poisoning was solved when he revealed that he liked to chew the plastic coating stripped from wires. The pigments used to color the coatings contain lead.
“It’s just a nervous habit, like chewing gum or something,” said Elmer Galbraith, 48, who had been bothered by tingling in his fingers and mild memory loss. Treatment has removed most of the lead from his body.
His case was documented in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a publication of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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