your opinion on the smell of gasoline? : )

From the Center for Disease Control / CDC: Between March 1983 and December 1984, six of seven children from a family of nine developed lead toxicity from chronic sniffing of gasoline (Table 3). The children ranged in age from 10 years to 17 years; five of the six were boys. Health officials became aware of the problem after neighbors complained that the children were stealing gasoline. Attempts to control their behavior by issuing locking gas caps and providing family and individual counseling were unsuccessful. Neither the parents nor an older sister, who denied sniffing gasoline had elevated blood lead levels.

The family lived in Virginia on an isolated lot in a rural, coastal county on the Chesapeake Bay. Despite a thorough investigation that included analyses of water, paint, and soil samples, no environmental source of lead other than gasoline could be identified. Abandoned automobiles, gardening machinery, and storage cans containing gasoline were easily accessible to the children.

One of the older boys introduced the practice to his siblings after discovering the effects of inhalation while siphoning gasoline. The children would sniff the fumes for 1-2 minutes until feeling the acute effects, which included euphoria, lethargy, loss of appetite, slurred speech, and blurred vision. These symptoms usually lasted several hours. One child reported occasional headaches and vomiting shortly after sniffing the gasoline.

Frequency of usage varied for each child, ranging from once a month to several times weekly. All the children tended to increase the frequency of sniffing during the summer months when they were out of school, and their activities were less supervised. Blood lead values obtained for three of the children during 1984 showed an increase from February through December. A similar trend during the same period was seen in the other family members who reported sniffing gasoline.

In November 1984, a physician found signs of dysdiadochokinesia (dysfunction of ability to carry out rapidly alternating movements) in two of the children, whereas the other four had normal physical examinations. After hospitalization and treatment, their blood lead levels decreased and the children were placed in supervised foster homes. Since placement, all have reportedly stopped sniffing gasoline. Reported by J Owens, MD, L Soles, Middle Peninsula Health District, J Conover, Div of Consolidated Lab Svc, C Armstrong, MD, G Llewellyn, PhD, K Wasti, PhD, G Miller, MD, State Epidemiologist, Virginia Dept of Health; Div of Field Svcs, Epidemiology Program Office, Chronic Diseases Div, Center for Environmental Health, CDC.