LA Times Breaks Story of Lead Exposure On Movie Sets Exposing Cast and Crew

Lead in bullet/hits and squibs puts cast and crew at risk for lead exposure without their knowledge. This message cannot be shared enough. In Scott Green's photo of stunt actor Damien Puckler featured in the L A Times article http://lat.ms/24LaxTx, Puckler explains how he did not give thought to the squibs routinely affixed to him and other stuntmen having the potential to expose them to lead. The irony is that usually we're making movies about other industries exposing people to toxic chemicals, contaminating homes and businesses with them, and trying to keep it hushed up, not doing those things ourselves.

On the whole, I think we're a pretty green industry with lots of well-intentioned people. We just seem to have a huge blind spot for this particular problem. I've worked closely with the movie health and safety system, both industry and government, literally for decades, gone to bat many times for our system, and had confidence it would do the right thing and at least warn those at risk. The system has known about this for years, and yet it took someone from New York to break the silence. Our system failed, and that's pretty outrageous to me. Now... that it's been in the LA Times and the lead crisis in Flint is on everyone's minds, hopefully things will change. I think filmmakers would do the right thing if they knew there was a problem, and that's where I'd like your help. Please spread the word and let everyone who might be affected know that there are alternatives, and encourage them to speak out against lead use. If you can get the same effect, right in front of camera, safely without it, why would you use lead? I think reasonable people will get that, and we'll be on the way to a solution.

Thanks! Tassilo Baur no-more-lead-in-movies.com