How did you feel about the negative attention your father has received? How do you feel now? My parents tried to shield me from the battles my father was fighting with the lead industry, the government and academia as a child.  My father was outraged by efforts to cover up the extent of the lead pollution and its source.  A lot of that frustration was difficult for him to conceal in his home life. This resulted in my father having many discussions with my mother about what took place during those early years.  As a result, I became aware of the vicious attacks on his character and research.  Looking back at all the battles he fought, and the incredible amount of time and energy he put into his research, it makes me proud that he was my father.  However in some ways it makes me sad and angry at the criminals in the Ethyl Corporation who made him work so relentlessly to disprove the claims by those they had influenced to discredit him.  The energy he expended, and the stress he endured shortened his life in his battle to save millions of people from certain lead poisoning.   Did you feel Dr. Patterson's work was important at the time he was working on it? Evan at a young age I knew that my father’s research must be important because of the passion and urgency he exhibited overcoming the many obstacles in his path to discover the truth. He was relentless, and I could sense the stress he felt in a race to prevent an impending disaster.     What do you think is his greatest legacy? My father’s greatest legacy was his dedication to the pursuit of the truth as a scientist in the purest sense.  His mind set, passion and dedication to the things he accomplished are a lasting example to future scientists and the truths they pursue.   What was his biggest difficulty getting rid of TEL? All of the research and data in the scientific literature related to lead in the environment prior to my father’s work in the field was highly inaccurate and misleading.  As a result, not only did he have to prove the causes and the sources of the increased levels of lead in the environment, he had to disprove all the data published up to that point.  All this faulty data claimed the body burden of lead in typical Americans was at or near the natural levels expected.  These claims were in spite of the increased levels of lead being produced and used in gasoline, paint, plumbing and food containers.  Proving what the natural body burden of lead should be, absent the man-made sources introduced into the environment, seemed an impossible puzzle to solve.  Once my father solved that puzzle beyond any doubt, convincing  the government to take action despite the lobbying and lies by the Ethyl Corporation was a whole new battle my father despised.  His righteous indignation about the situation, and his anger trying to get the attention of those whose responsibility it was to protect the public was difficult to witness, and took a toll on his health.  In order to get their attention, realizing many had no understanding of the science behind his research, he created a famous graphic depiction of how bad the situation had become.  This example called the “measles diagram” showed three silhouettesof a human.  The first silhouette was of an ancient human and had a single dot representing the natural body burden of lead.  The second silhouette showed a typical American and had one thousand dots, each individual dot representing the natural body burden of lead contained in an ancient human.  The third silhouette was of a human with clinical lead poisoning and had several thousand dots.  One glance at this diagram, and one could see how close we were to being chronically ill with lead poisoning.   Why was he so passionate about getting rid of TEL? 

Lead is a deadly neurotoxin, and my father knew continuing down this path in which we spew tons of lead into the environment would result in many deaths and unimagined suffering.  Most importantly, the one thing humans have that makes them unique is their brain, and its power of reasoning and self-awareness.  The lead in the environment would permanently compromise man’s ability to function rationally, resulting in a civilization whose collective minds would create a hell on earth.   What kind of leadership did he portray? My father’s research lead him to many countries and interactions with a whole host of scientists, laborers, politicians and environmentalists around the world.  He was a scientist in the purest sense of the word.  He had no interest in the limelight or being famous.  He became the ultimate teacher as a result of pursuing the truths about lead pollution.  His clean lab, the first of its kind, and his analysis of samples in it produced the first accurate data on lead levels in the environment.  However, in order for scientific findings to be accepted as fact, they must be reproducible.  No one else was able to reproduce my father’s results.  As a consequence he brought many scientists from all over the world to work and be trained in his clean lab.  His efforts to teach others, and spread the knowledge he possessed resulted in a whole new way that scientists worldwide collected and measured trace elements in our environment.  All those who had the privilege of interacting with my father, friend or foe, were left with a lasting respect for his honesty, passion, generosity and willingness to share his knowledge.    Do you believe his work is often unrecognized in today's society? Until recently, my father’s research has been recognized only by those in the scientific community who have benefited from that knowledge in pursuing their own research.  Until the recent publication of books, and national television programs about his battle with lead pollution, little was known about the man who saved the human race from lead poisoning.  Society takes little notice of silent lethal threats that have been prevented by heroes through their research, as opposed to those disasters that cause devastation and are later dealt with through scientific miracles or ingenious engineering solutions.   Who did Dr. Patterson look to for inspiration? My father like many true scientists, drew his inspiration from all those who mentored him as a young graduate student, and the well-known scientists at the University of Chicago he worked with.  When a scientist is able to solve one of nature’s mysteries, the emotions and feelings felt at that moment of discovery make a lasting impression, and lead to a lifetime of inspiration and pursuit of knowledge.  When my father discovered the true age of the earth, the emotions and exhilaration he felt knowing not what he had done, but what science had achieved gave him the inspiration and strength he needed to pursue his life long battle with bad science, criminals in the lead industry and the politicians they influence.  In his later years he sought out people like Saul Bellow the nobel laureate, neurobiologists, artists, musicians and young children for inspiration and clues into understanding human consciousness, thought and the non-utilitarian part of the human brain..  His next puzzle to solve, was proving the adverse neurological effects of lead in our environment on the human brain, and how it has changed the way we think and evolve as a civilization.   If society could only take one thing from your father's work, what would you want it to be? There is no question that my father’s research provided society with a striking example of the danger mankind presents to itself, and that future young scientists of the world seeking to solve natures mysteries can make the world a better place, in spite of the greed and ignorance that surrounds and discourages them.

   What do you believe your father could accomplish with today's technology? If my father had been given more time to pursue his theories using modern brain imaging technologies, and the advances in neurobiology at a cellular level, he would have been able to demonstrate how the lead in our environment has affected the way humans think.  This is yet another one of my father’s theories doubted by those in the field of neuroscience who would say, just as the environmental scientists did with his lead pollution work, that he is once again pursuing truths outside his field of knowledge, and in which he has no experience.  He would have proved them all wrong once again by undertaking the tedious and costly task of raising successive generations of animals in a lead free environment, to prove how nerve cells, the brain and ultimately thought is affected by the amount of lead that now exists in our environment.       How did your father feel about his work on the Manhattan Project? My father as a young man like others his age, had the desire to defend innocent people being killed by the German and Japanese governments.  Because of his nearsightedness and extensive knowledge of mass spectrometry he was not allowed to enlist but told to join the Manhattan Project.  The development of the atomic bomb was inevitable, the question was which country would possess the bomb first. My father was instrumental in providing the enriched fuel that was used in the bomb.  However he never imagined that once the race was won, the bomb would be used on innocent people.  Many scientists involved in the development of the bomb felt an obligation to lobby the government not to use the bomb on innocent civilians, but their pleas were ignored.  Rather than a demonstration of its destructive potential in a remote site, hundreds of thousands of innocent people were killed.  He never talked about it, but if the subject came up, he expressed anger and regretted how the bomb had been used. He considered himself partly responsible, however I believe he felt some reprieve in the fact that his research and fight with the lead industry resulted in saving millions of innocent people from the effects of chronic lead poisoning.     Do you believe the removal of TEL from our society would have been accomplished without the dedication from your father? My father was instrumental in providing the proof that we were being poisoned by TEL.  It was only a matter of time before millions would have shown clinical signs of lead poisoning if TEL had not been taken off the market.  Unlike most environmental disasters where solutions are sought after the fact, my father’s efforts lead to minimizing the potential catastrophic effects on society before they could occur.  Despite my father’s efforts in providing irrefutable evidence that the levels of lead in the environment were nearing lethal levels, it took the effects of visible and irritating toxic smog to convince society that not only was lead poisoning people, it was poisoning the catalyst in catalytic converters that were required to eliminate the smog.  The smog was the only visible and immediate evidence to the hazards of burning gasoline that ultimately forced the government to act much more quickly in removing the lead from gasoline.  Thousands of irreversible brain damaged children were required before the lead was removed from paint.  A sad commentary, but evidence that the non-utilitarian part of the human brain has been effected by the lead in our environment, and may ultimately lead to the extinction of the human race, not unlike the fall of the Roman Empire due to its love affair with lead in its society.