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Norway decided to ban lead from paint half a century before the U.S., in the 1920s, the same period when U.S. public health officials were debating whether to allow General Motors to use tetraethyl lead in gasoline as an additive.

In 1921, General Motors engineers discovered that tetraethyl lead could make internal combustion engines run more smoothly and reduce engine knock.

In a 2020 article in the medical journal Current Problems in Pediatric and Adolescent Health Care, Mielke and his colleagues described soils contaminated by tetraethyl lead as "an insidious exposure reservoir," because the health impacts have persisted even after regulatory victories, primarily for low-income children and children of color who live in these urban centers.

She noted that the fuel and vehicle industries' rush to adopt tetraethyl lead, despite its grave public health implications, led to tremendous damage.

Similarly, several decades later, the introduction of tetraethyl lead into gasoline raised environmental concerns, but was tolerated as a necessary lubricant for the adoption of the internal combustion engine.