On its website, a history of the company makes no mention of lead—or indeed of Thomas Midgley—but simply refers to the original product as containing "a certain combination of chemicals."

As for the other scourge left to us by Thomas Midgley, chlorofluorocarbons, they were banned in 1974 in the United States, but they are tenacious little devils and any that you loosed into the atmosphere before then (in your deodorants or hair sprays, for instance) will almost certainly be around and devouring ozone long after you have shuffled off. Worse, we are still introducing huge amounts of CFCs into the atmosphere every year. According to Wayne Biddle, 60 million pounds of the stuff, worth $1.5 billion, still finds its way onto the market every year.