Can 100LL avgas give you lead poisoning?

Question

I work at a FBO as a line tech, dispatcher, and sometimes ATC...this guy came in and told me with as much fuel as I've been exposed to I'll be lucky to have kids later on in life, would probably die young, etc.

Now, I know this guy was tryin' to get a rise outta me but exactly what are the risks associated if any? He told me he was dead serious and that I should listen to him and quit my job. The nerve!

(And yeah, I told this guy to put a cap on it before I shoved the fuel nozzle somewhere where lead poisoning was the least of his worries.)

Answer 1

Gas Vapors can cause cancer, and lead leads to poisioning.

The only real concern if if your drinking it or breathing it in a a very confined area.

The greatest concern would be working at an airport is walking into a propeller or getting hit by a tug..

Answer 2

Poison is a strong word, in toxicology the phrase is "The dose makes the poison". I ended up here because I just became a student pilot, have taken some toxicology classes and was wondering roughly the same thing, though my exposure will be much less.

100LL has 4x the lead that mogas did back in the leaded days in the US. The reason the EPA took it out of avgas is because lead is a potent neurotoxin. But children are especially susceptible to lead, and it seems like each year, better studies come out showing that the current standard for children is still causing learning impairments.

What does this mean for adults? Who knows ;). I think as long as you practice safe hygiene you'll be fine. This means don't get it on your skin, don't eat after handling it, and wash your hands so you don't accidentally it eat after it rubs off on your food. If you have kids (or will be soon), you may want to consider having work clothes that you change before you come home. I personally am going to wear nitrile gloves when checking the fuel on the plane.

I've attached a couple of links below where I got this info from. Including a particularly tasty one from a family in the 80's whose children sniffed leaded gas and poisoned themselves!

Answer 3

No.  It will not hurt you if you don't drink it.  Not a good idea to let it stay on your skin too long, but that is not critical.  It's not carcinogenic in particular, but it can irritate your skin.  Most line crew wear gloves, anyway.

I gather you are female.  Lots of men will try to annoy you or scare you.  When I was first flying as a professional pilot I used to hear, "Honey, you won't be able to have children because of the constant exposure to radiation at high altitudes."

So I would explain that I have a degree in physics and I know enough not to worry about "radiation at high altitudes," and that not all women WANT to have babies, and that I am one of the ones that doesn't.

Usually they didn't get it, and kept on harassing me.  I finally got to where I just said, "You know, you ought to have a doctor look at that place on the side of your neck, just to make sure it's not cancer."  That usually shuts them up.

Answer 4

You'll be fine. Just don't drink the stuff.

Answer 5

The amount of lead in leaded fuels today is very low.  While leaded fuels are still the primary source of environmental exposure to lead for many people, and certainly for people handling leaded fuels, the levels are low enough not to cause any problems.  Avoid handling the fuel with bare hands or breathing the fumes any more than necessary.

Low levels of lead exposure, such as those mentioned here, usually produce no symptoms or visible toxic effects. The jury is still out on whether these extremely low exposures can cause problems over the long term (decades).  In any case, lead poisoning is much more dangerous to children than it is to adults.  I'd guess that your lead exposure isn't much more hazardous to you than your exposure to air pollution, if you live in a large city, but nobody really knows for sure.

Lead toxicity does not produce sterility, in any case. And low levels of lead exposure do not reduce life expectancy.

I would say that the guy who told you this overestimates the risk of your exposure to lead by several orders of magnitude, so you can just ignore him.

Answer 6

LL = Low lead,  i.e. less than in the gas you use in your car.

When forecourt attendants start falling over maybe you have a problem. You will probably die of old age first.

Ian M

Further to the comments bellow. The gas in my car certainly DOES have lead in it. My engine demands 5 star fuel (A Mini Cooper S, old style). Many parts of the world still have leaded fuels. I am not in the USA.

Ian M

Answer 7

unless you go swimming in the stuff, or you drink it(if you do then you have more problems than just lead poisoning) then i wouldnt worry. tell the guy he is full f***s.

oh and to ian m, you are nuts since automotive fuel has NO lead in it, and hasnt since the early 80's when the EPA required it be removed from automotive fuel completely. and the reason it was removed completely is that it tends to ruin the catalytic converters.