== Mitigation and limits == 

 http://nepp.nasa.gov/WHISKER/photos/pom/2004april.htm seems to suggest that even lead can not prevent but only mitigate the problem. Conversely, galvanic soldering seems to make things much worse and hot dip soldering can largely prevent whiskers even without lead. This article reads much different from the German one which suggests to me that at least one of them is politically charged and playing the problem up/down.