After news broke of the deaths, some states banned the use of leaded gasoline. It looked briefly as if GM would be forced to come up with an alternative (of which there were a few, including ethyl alcohol, though since this could not be patented it was also significantly less lucrative a prospect). But then, in an extraordinary stunt, the inventor, Thomas Midgley, held a press conference where he washed his hands in a solution of tetraethyl lead and spent a minute inhaling its fumes, to prove there were no ill effects. It was a bizarre pantomime, especially since, unbeknownst to the
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