Around one-in-three children globally suffer from lead poisoning | Hacker News Reader

Around one-in-three children globally suffer from lead poisoning

ourworldindata.org

366 pointstosh219 comments

I can't give a cite for the following I read it in either a newspaper or magazine probably 30+ years ago.

There was a school district in a small town that for the first time gave IQ tests to all of the children in some younger age group, I think around 7 or 8. The results showed a several point difference between the white kids and the Black kids. The district wrote this off as due to cultural bias in the tests.

One teacher decided to look deeper to see if there could be some other factor that could explain the difference. What that teacher found was that in this district all of the white kids lived in suburban single family homes that had been recently built, and all of the Black kids lives in decades old apartment buildings.

In particular, the white kids' homes at all been built after we stopped using lead point, and the Black kids' homes were all built before that.

The kids were tested for lead exposure, and it turned out all the Black kids and none of the white kids had high lead levels. That lead to (no pun intended) cleaning up the environments in the old apartments and treating the Black kids for their high lead levels.

This was caught early enough for these kids to prevent permanent damage, and when tested a few years later the IQ gap had largely disappeared, and the Black kids were doing as well as the white kids in school which they had not been before being treated for their lead exposure.

Simpson’s Paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson%27s_paradox

I am wondering how this could be Simpson's Paradox.

You could force it into that mould by saying that the black kids were at least as smart as the white kids within the two groups (exposed to lead, not exposed to lead) but they were less smart when the two groups were combined.

> The district wrote this off as due to cultural bias in the tests.

They did not rule this out? Could still have been a contributing factor.

They didn't rule it in either. They chose to ignore the results of the test instead of search for a tangible explaination.

Not a small town, but the Philadelphia Tooth Fairy Project sounds similar: https://www.inquirer.com/philly/blogs/public_health/The-Phil...

I first learned about this from Radiolab: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/g-pro...

This is an excellent cautionary tale against lazily attributing politically inconvenient data to testing bias (which remains fashionable). It may seem like an easy way out, but it also offers an excuse to simply ignore the problem, which perpetuates it.

It isn't necessarily just laziness. The first step to fixing the problem means accepting the results, which in this case meant accepting a certain racial group of (silently lead-poisoned) kids had measurably lower intelligence. I don't think I need to explain why that is a minefield.

Right but ironically, the fact that it is a minefield is likely what drove this teacher to make that discovery. Imagine if it was just a random scattering of students living in such apartments (but same number of people). It may have never been discovered in that case.

Everybody accepts that. The only difference is the hypotheses that some people have for explaining that difference. Those who accept a genetic hypothesis are unlikely to look for the real cause.

Now instead of lazily explaining differences with "there must be some testing bias, black kids are just as smart as white kids", we're lazily explaining differences with "it must be systemic oppression, black kids are more oppressed than white kids".

Couldn't you argue the disproportionate number of black people being stuck in lead-filled houses is still an example of some sort of oppression? It's not like black people who were shopping for their houses said "Gee, I'd sure like my kids to have lead poisoning."

I think the critical difference is that a gut reno to eliminate the actual source of low IQ is significantly more feasible than swiftly eradicating most of the other issues that contribute to oppression. Identifying low-hanging fruit is a good quick win, so long as it doesn't weaken broader efforts.

Sure, I'm all for quick wins; get lead outta houses, I'm all on board, but we also shouldn't forget the circumstances that caused black people to disproportionately be in lead-filled houses (presumably mostly economic).

I guess what I'm trying to say is that lead poisoning is a symptom of a bigger issue. It's perfectly fine (and encouraged) to treat the symptoms, but I feel like the comment was replying to was acting like we shouldn't attribute things like this to systemic oppression.

I think everybody agrees that we should get rid of unnecessary environmental sources of lead as rapidly as we can. But it's not all that cheap[1], and there's probably a correlation between not owning the place you leave (i.e., not being entitled to massive renovations) and being a member of an oppressed group.

Even as a financially secure white tenant, I have found my landlords to be extremely hesitant to initiate any testing that might legally obligate them to renovate (or at least cover/shield) sources of lead. And in most municipalities, your landlord is only obligated to follow up on lead concerns if they have personal knowledge of lead paint usage on the property; they're not obligated to go through the property's history and refute the possibility of lead.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_abatement_in_the_United_S...

Living in lead-rich environments is an example of systemic oppression, iiuc. There is a lot of nuance lost in any generality but in this case I do not believe it is a misattribution as much as it is an incomplete descriptor

I think this is an illustrative example of how abstract ideas like "systemic oppression" can compete with their original concrete meanings for attention. I see it a lot in business, too - buzzwords that become detrimental anti-concepts after acquiring an existence separate from what they referred to.

The problem with using lead-rich environment as an example of systemic oppression, and the reason why activists are taking very little about lead these days, is that unlike “systemic oppression”, lead exposure is something very concrete, and it can be tested and studied. We did a lot of studies, in fact, on this particular issue, and the results are pretty clear: differences in lead exposure explain very little fraction of the outcome gap here. It turns out that in many places, exposure to lead is either overall minimal, or there is no big difference in exposure to it across races, but the gap is just as big as everywhere else. This is inconvenient for the lead blaming narrative, and so the narrative is abandoned in favor of more magical, less well specified theories, that cannot be studied as easily.

Or perhaps "systemic oppression" is being used to refer to all the little things that add up in aggregate.

Perhaps lead levels contribute only a small amount. But then also, micro-aggressions have a tiny affect. Testing bias might also be very small. Maybe less income also leads to being less likely to get glasses when you need them. Perhaps food deserts in minority communities leads to poor nutrition and poorer outcomes, but only a negligible amount. Then there are poorer, urban neighborhoods that might be loud at night causing children to not get quite enough sleep.

And sure, you could blame a lot of this just on poverty in general, but then of course, you have to acknowledge our racist history that lead to so much less wealth in minority families.

It goes on and on and pretty soon you have death by a thousand cuts and a phenomenon that is far too complex to explain in anything less than an entire encyclopedia so you sum it up with "systemic racism".

> differences in lead exposure explain very little fraction of the outcome gap here

Note that tiny fractional differences in the median outcome gap will turn into big differences at the left- and right-wards tails of the distribution. In practice, those are the differences that everyone will ask about. Why are so many X's (relative to Y's) living in socially marginalized settings, resorting to crime, ending up in the justice system? Why are there so very few X's in very high-skill, high-effort occupations like computer programming and other hard-STEM fields? The X's and Y's will vary by time and place, of course. And societal oppression of various sorts is always playing a role in these dynamics, if only as an amplifying feedback. But either way, these are questions about uncommon, tail outcomes not average or median ones!

> Note that tiny fractional differences in the median outcome gap will turn into big differences at the left- and right-wards tails of the distribution.

That's true, but the gap is already huge at the median. As a rough approximation, the distribution of outcomes has same variance, but mean is shifted left by 1 sigma.

Where is that research? http://ippsr.msu.edu/research/inequality-lead-exposure-and-b... says the opposite.

The proper way of phrasing this argument is that the systemic oppression was mediated by lead exposure. Meaning that if you intervene to mitigate the latter, you've managed to deal with a significant chunk of the former.

It would be if politicians opted not to fix the problem because of who lived there. But doesn’t oppression generally require action/choice by some party? Or are we inferring that a choice simply “must” have been made not to help?

Does systemic oppression not include economic relegation or societal indifference to being raised in lead-contaminated homes?

Wealth or lack therof is one of the primary components of systemic oppression...

Completely agree with you. I’m just continually surprised that some (many?) can so blithely disregard wealth and its concomitants when analyzing oppression in a capitalistic system.

they objectively are? I think it's lazier to think nothing can be done about it

Blaming testing bias is a great way to gain support from disadvantaged minorities without having to actually do any meaningful work. Conveniently, it allows allows the elite to exclude the educated bourgeoisie from their elite institutions, instead replacing them with underqualified candidates who pose no real threat to the power hierarchy.

I guess. But seems to me that if you are going to claim testing bias, then you have some work to do in creating an unbiased test.

No. The plan is to eliminate testing altogether.

https://edsource.org/2021/university-of-california-sticks-wi...

definite "maybe" on that.. the statement "it allows" is made with certainty, yet at most, that is only part of one possible scenario.. among many

"Of defects did the spirit of those Saviours consist; but into every defect had they put their illusion, their stop-gap, which they called God."

Or focus all resources on the wrong problem and ensure everyone is trying to optimize the wrong thing, thereby actually exacerbating the very problems that we as a society need to address. Sometimes the wrong solution is much worse than doing nothing.

While it's uplifting story and I can easily believe that higher lead exposure for Black kids over white kids led to lower IQ results in tests in that specific case, there are no school districts in US with no gap between white and Black students. So far there has not been identified single parameter that explains White/Black gap and not for the lack of trying.

Yeah, the changes in IQ described in studies on lead exposure are much smaller than gaps between races.

I mean in an interview Steven Pinker himself said there’s some things that we may not want to know, because if the parameter is wholly outside of human control it’d just contribute to racism and serve no useful purpose.

Also even if a study found parameters like that, it would never be published as the scientists career would absolutely be ruined.

Steven Pinker is right in this regard and so was Plato: … The doings of Cronus, and the sufferings which in turn his son inflicted upon him, even if they were true, ought certainly not to be lightly told to young and thoughtless persons … they are stories not to be repeated in our State …

I had always thought Plato's argument was a reductio ad absurdum.

Looking at it now, it seems he WAS actually arguing FOR censoring stories of the bad behavior of the gods AND FOR censoring Homer's Odyssey.

Sigh.

He was, because those stories and ideas, if widely known, would threaten the state built on the narrative of virtuous gods and deviations from that narrative would lead to worse outcomes for everyone.

Our state is built on the narratives of democracy and equality thus while those factors have ability to undermine the narrative (as we've seen in not so distant history) we have to censor them and do the research behind closed doors, otherwise we risk more damage than any possible benefit.

That's a hell of a minefield, but I'll bite: might a few more generations in our increasingly globalized world (airplane travel, etc.) cause a "melting pot" where pedigree devolves into a homogenous blend that puts everyone on the same playing field? Hard to predict, and it's kind of scary (enjoying the cuisines and other cultural differences is quite special) but the equity would be fascinating.

It's going to take a lot of generations interracial couples are not particularly common.

It will happen eventually though, because you can't unmix races. Which is why the Nazis, the KKK etc were/are so worked up about miscegenation, "the annihilation of the white race", etc.

It's a question of rates, and culture. Not all countries and groups will be affected the same way.

Pretty verboten topic though and kind of unpalatable to think about, even if you don't particularly care about these sorts of demographic shifts.

Personally I like that the whole idea of "race" might become increasingly indeterminate and vague in liberal societies.

The phenomenon is real but for fully understandable reasons not much is published about it.

Isn't merely laying out the reasons why these parameters should never be studied/published fuel for racists?

There's no such thing as a parameter that's "wholly outside of human control" when you account for technological change. If there's an easy way of providing a free +1 INT, +1 WIS boost to a non-trivial chunk of the population via, let's say, tailored mRNA vaccine injections, I'd sure want to know about it!

Research is not even close to being restricted by those moral matters. There isn't an easy way today, not even close. If there was, it would also be a way to rid us of ugly debuffs ranging from genetic disorders through allergies to cancer.

mRNA can change gene expression locally for limited time, enough to train your immune sysem but not for permanent changes. CRISPR can make permanent changes but but for now only to few cells in vitro, not to whole organism. Even the Chineese CRISPR modified twins are mosaics of modified and unmodofied.

Where can I read more about this?

I suspect the deviation would most largely result from the parameters of a given test itself. Redefining the test content, subject matter, test environments, conditions, and/or other factors may grow or shrink that gap. If that is so there is cause for research to determine why certain test factors are preferential and if removing such preferential factors does/does not result in higher quality student performance.

Isn't there an IQ gap between poor people and wealthy? Isn't a large chunck of that attributable to healthcare, nutricion, schooling, stress, pollution, etc, etc.?

Aren't those same factors going to show up in racial differences?

yes, yes, yes.

stress in particular has a measurable impact on cognition, behavior, and motor development. even prenatal maternal stress.

https://www.nber.org/papers/w18422

parental leave, cash and food support, and other assistance during pregnancy and childhood, are probably one of the easiest policy wins towards improving outcomes for a huge segment of the population. better schools with smaller class sizes and individualized support for each student would be the next step.

Having it repeatedly drilled into you your entire life from birth that you'll never succeed without the pity and generosity of a few benevolent saviors among a sea of hateful racists who are this this all-powerful/privileged alien race that surrounds you (assuming you manage to dodge all the police bullets flying at you) because the system has been created to keep you down, and therefore any success you do have you owe to those people, would be extremely stressful and demoralizing.

You could be on to something here. I've seen many other factors like education and wealth being adjusted for but not this. I wonder if anyone has attempted to quantify the damage this causes.

>So far there has not been identified single parameter that explains White/Black gap and not for the lack of trying.

Actually there has been, we're just not allowed to apply the components of the explanation to this context, so we continue on a fruitless search in every other direction, spending money, contorting society, and increasingly tearing down achievers in a misguided attempt to bring up the underperformers.

We know of hundreds of genes which are strongly correlated with IQ and directly influence behavior, and we know how those genes are distributed among various demographics. The science itself is not controversial or uncertain. But the logical conclusions are social and career suicide.

Your claims seem to be both racist and unfounded.

Whether you think a fact is "racist" has no bearing on whether it is true. Do you deny that there are measurable, meaningful genetic differences between groups of people? How can you justify the belief that adaptation to drastically different environments over thousands of generations after leaving Africa magically stopped above the shoulders?

What about geographically isolated interbreeding with other homonids? Those genes are also unevenly distributed; why would these genes not influence cognition?

One striking example is the so called warrior gene, which completely alters the metabolism of monoamines, like dopamine and serotonin, which have direct influences over reward seeking, mood, and behavior. This mutation is nearly absent in many populations. There are plenty of other such unevenly distributed variations.

Note that this does not imply that all people from group X are Y. But it does neatly explain, at least in part, multimodal statistical distributions like those we see consistently reflected IQ and crime frequency.

What you’re saying is simply not a fact.

It’s a hilariously wrong assertion that could generously be regarded as an opinion, albeit a racist one.

Along with replies by ’ClumsyPilot and ’ruined, remember that Brown v. Board of Education was passed only in 1954 and 1954 is just yesterday.

Also see this HN comment from a day ago on how much a black person had to fear even in 1980:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30061511

An excelelnt book regarding these is 'Simple Justice by Richard Kluger

https://www.amazon.com/Simple-Justice-Education-Americas-Str...

Another book focusing on computing is 'Stuck in the Shallow End: Education, Race, and Computing by Jane Margolis

https://www.amazon.com/Stuck-Shallow-End-Education-Computing...

There is a wealth of info regarding these things, see redlining for example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining

What is the vector for lead exposure from paint? Do we think they are all eating it, or that their parents/landlords are constantly sanding it for some reason and not simply painting over it?

edit: Why am I being downvoted?

In New Orleans at least, there is a ton of lead in the soil. When I was working for the City, playgrounds were prime targets for remediation.

You shouldn't be. Lead paint in-situ isn't dangerous. Disturbing lead paint is dangerous.

Mitigation/ removal of lead paint is more of a danger than the original risk.

Normal wear and tear?

"Most lead poisoning in children results from eating chips of deteriorating lead-based paint" [1].

[1] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/lead-poisonin...

Right. It doesn't pass the sniff-test that a whole 1/3 of world's children would be getting poisoned through ingesting paint chips. I'm as curious as the GP about what the actual vector is, but it seems that per the article there really is not enough data to say definitively.

My understanding (from growing up in an old apartment with lead and asbestos everywhere) is that, even your children aren't picking lead chips off of the wall, they're being exposed to pulverized paint dust when they e.g. play on the floor. It's apparently especially common when children's rooms have openable windows, since windowsills shed their paint easily.

I'm wondering this too, i couldn't find very much information on the actual risk vectors and required exposure levels and concentrations to trigger an increase in lead blood levels, I'm still looking

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29487787

So, lead paint actually tastes sweet, which can explain why kids who don't know better will eat it.

Why do you think lead paint tastes sweet?

The Romans used lead acetate as a sweetener[0], but the exact compounds used in lead paint are different. It doesn't seem that those are sweet.[1]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead(II)_acetate

[1] https://healthyindoors.com/2018/11/lead-paint-sweet-aint/

There are indications that lead acetate (which is only mildly sweet) was occasionally used as a drier in oil-based paints a long time ago. But I've seen no good evidence regarding how common this may have been.

But even if that's true, lead acetate would have been used only in tiny quantities (like any other metallic drier). And lead acetate degrades rapidly, so there wouldn't be any lead acetate left in the paint after a short time anyway.

Latex paint steadily degrades until it's dust. The breakdown is accelerated by UV light, but the end product of all exposed latex painted surfaces is the same; it chalks, flakes, and steadily emits dust and fine particles into the environment.

Regular re-painting can keep the old paint largely encapsulated, but it's still there waiting for an unsuspecting home owner to sand or scrape it loose while doing repairs or renovation.

Outdoors, that dust contributes to the lead load in the soil around the house. Indoors, it's house dust, which babies and kids are naturally bathed in because they live closer to the floor than adults do, and because they put everything in their mouths. In both cases the vectors of exposure are both oral and by inhalation.

Another big contributor to lead dust in households is older (early 2000's and earlier) vinyl window blinds [1]. Many vinyl products contained lead, and vinyl chalks the same way latex paint does as it degrades.

1 - https://cchealth.org/lead-poison/pdf/miniblinds.pdf

It's not so much from walls, but dust from joints around windows and doors.

But seriously: we vaporized 200,000 tons a year in gasoline. Where do you think it all went? Places with lots of cars: cities. Definitely do not eat food grown in a city garden- always use raised planters filled with country dirt.

https://archive.epa.gov/epa/aboutepa/epa-requires-phase-out-...

See figure 2 here:

https://www.edf.org/sites/default/files/the-hour-of-lead.pdf

I believe that the major vector indoors is dust coming from the lead paint on windows and window sills. When the wear surfaces rub against each other, a small amount of lead paint dust is created and inhaled or ingested by children.

Outdoors, the problem is the lead dust in the soil. Chickens are getting lead poisoning in urban areas:

https://now.tufts.edu/articles/backyard-chickens-and-risk-le...

There used to be a whole stereotype around "lazy Southerners" that turned out to be a massive hookworm infestation!

> ...victims succumbed to an insatiable exhaustion and an impenetrable haziness of the mind that some called stupidity. Adults neglected their fields and children grew pale and listless. Victims developed grossly distended bellies and “angel wings”—emaciated shoulder blades accentuated by hunching. All gazed out dully from sunken sockets with a telltale “fish-eye” stare.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/how-a-worm-gave-the-so...

> In 1899, American zoologist Charles Wardell Stiles identified progressive pernicious anemia seen in the southern United States as being caused by the hookworm A. duodenale. Testing in the 1900s revealed very heavy infestations in school-age children.

> On October 26, 1909 the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission for the Eradication of Hookworm Disease was organized as a result of a gift of US$1 million from John D. Rockefeller, Sr. The five-year program was a remarkable success and a great contribution to the United States' public health, instilling public education, medication, field work and modern government health departments in eleven southern states.[45] The hookworm exhibit was a prominent part of the 1910 Mississippi state fair.

> The commission found that an average of 40% of school-aged children were infected with hookworm.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hookworm_infection#Eradication...

Also changes in the way corn was processed after the Civil War exacerbated pellagra.

Ah... I hadn't heard about that:

> Pellagra was first reported in 1902 in the United States, and has "caused more deaths than any other nutrition-related disease in American history", reaching epidemic proportions in the American South during the early 1900s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pellagra#United_States

> There used to be a whole stereotype around "lazy Southerners" that turned out to be a massive hookworm infestation!

It's worth noting that this is one of the great public health interventions of American history, and that the intervention consisted entirely of getting people to wear shoes.

Unfortunately “used to” is a bit optimistic. Hookworms are still a problem to this day.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/05/hookworm-low...

That lead to (no pun intended)

Apologies for an OT nitpick: the past tense of "lead" is "led."

> There was a school district in a small town that for the first time gave IQ tests to all of the children in some younger age group, I think around 7 or 8. The results showed a several point difference between the white kids and the Black kids. The district wrote this off as due to cultural bias in the tests.

> One teacher decided to look deeper to see if there could be some other factor that could explain the difference.

A "several point difference" sounds like an unusually narrow gap - depressed white scores, maybe? On an unbiased test with no environmental problems, you'd expect to see a gap of around 15 IQ points.

People underestimate just how much minor public health measures can dramatically improve livelihood and overall prosperity.

Before the advent of iodized salt, the prevalence of goiter in certain cities in Michigan was as high as 60%. This also led to various mental deficiencies in people in those regions. It turns out this was a direct consequence of the soil in the Midwest being naturally deficient in iodine, leading to drinking water not naturally supplementing the diet of those who lived there. Iodized salt, introduced in the 1920s, almost completely eradicated goiter in the developing world.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3509517/#:~:tex....

> I can't give a cite for the following

Because this did not actually happen.

> That lead to (no pun intended) …

The correct form here is led, even though it ruins the potential pun. :)

There's a new drug emerging from Berkeley and a company spawned from there called HOPO [1]. The drug is a chelator that has a special affinity for heavy metals in the lanthanide group, which happen to be some of the more toxic metals. This includes gadolinium, which is found in MRI contrast agents, and has been known to cause many-year retention in the bones and skull [2] from just a single dose.

"The chelating agent 3,4,3-LI(1,2-HOPO) has been specifically optimized for the selective binding of heavy metals, and it promotes their rapid removal from the body. Unlike other chelating agents, it does so without depleting the body of essential mineral elements such as zinc and calcium."

They were initially focused on gadolinium but have recently pivoted to lead poisoning as a seemingly more addressable market.

[1] http://www.hopotx.com/science/

[2] https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-and-availability/fda-d...

Gadolinium seems like one of those things that won't even be allowed in most circumstances in a few more years. It has been used for decades and conventional wisdom was, if your kidneys are fine it all leaves the body in 24 hours. Then just a few years ago we learn this is false and that deposits can be found years later in the brain.

The effect may be highly lagged or small, but have to believe it isn't healthy.

Pediatric cardiac MRI is about to be in for a ride.

No, not healthy at all. There is a condition known as Gadolinium Deposition Disease (GDD) that some people are developing from the retention. The mechanics are not fully understood, and there is a multi-billion dollar industry preventing (or at least not encouraging) any serious inquiry into the matter, but my understanding is that if your body views gadolinium as a threat (similar to an allergy), it will mount an immune response against it. However immune responses are futile against heavy metals. So think of it as a permanent, never-ending allergic reaction to an element that refuses to leave your body.

I thought the issue with Gadolinium is with repeated doses. The occasional one of dose is not retained to any significant amount in bones and the brain.

This is quite surprising seeing how widespread it is, searches suggest its used in millions in the US alone from any age.

> seemingly more addressable market.

Gadolinium will get you blank stares from a lot of people. Lead is well known. Look at the reception this article, which is basically just a summary of the state of affairs ghost written by an activist organization, got. To get people to care about <insert chemical you've never heard of> you something that's well written, tugs at heartstrings and confirms biases (imagine a New Yorker article about DuPont dumping something in some rural watershed, that's the kind of media you'd need) to get people to engage just as much. Lead has a MASSIVE mind share among the people who like to fancy themselves as caring about these sorts of things. If they have a drug that can treat lead poisoning they can springboard off of that mind-share in order to sell their drug. They'd be stupid not to.

Edit: typo.

I believe they're interested in Gadolinium, rather than Gallium.

You should look at how those molecule look in 3d, it's amazing: it's like there is a slot just to capture a specific atom.

Any resources on how can I view this in 3D? Not acquainted with that world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelation_therapy

I found others while googling

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelation_therapy

I found others while googling

> These impacts are thought to be largely irreversible

I'm noticing this claim made a lot in various contexts these days, most notably relating to the pandemic (about both the virus and vaccines).

In those contexts as well as this one, I feel like it's used in a weaponised way to emphasise the seriousness of the harm caused, but by doing this there's some abandonment of those who have been harmed and consigns them to a future of having to carry on living with the harm, without being empowered or supported to heal and recover.

I have some experience with toxicities of lead and other metals, which I wrote about here several years ago. [1]

As this article suggests, diagnosis and treatment are not widely available in mainstream medicine, so in order to get help you find yourself in the world of fringe medicine, which of course is a minefield.

But there are absolutely treatments that work and that can enable many (most?) people to recover or improve a huge amount, as the linked article from that comment thread documents. [2]

This article is right that the problem is neglected by mainstream society, but not so right that harms are irreversible, and if we were more willing to believe in the potential for the human body to heal when given adequate treatment and support, far more people could be living much more full and empowered lives.

That's not to say more shouldn't be done to remove lead and other toxins from the environment; of course that should be done too.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19573098

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/03/magazine/lead-poisoning-m...

If diagnosis and treatment are not widely available, how can this page assert that 1/3 of children have lead poisoning?

Is it just an educated guess?

The figure comes from this paper [1].

I gather they do estimates based on sampling, but no doubt the testing rates and accuracy vary a lot from country to country, and the figure is presented for rhetorical impact over precision.

[1] https://www.unicef.org/media/109361/file/The%20toxic%20truth...

In my state blood lead testing is mandatory at two different ages. I think blood lead surveillance is widespread. Treatment is simple.

Great to hear. Do you know what the usual treatment is? I’m guessing DMSA and/or ETDA but curious if other approaches are commonly used.

One is remediating the cause of the lead ingestion. That's a big reason for the testing: to identify the kids that are getting exposed to lead so that the cause of the exposure can be eliminated.

Yes they also treat for the high lead levels in the body, but that will not do much good by itself if the kid goes home to the same environment.

In western nations, a big contributor to lead in blood is ceramic items.[1]

The 'clear' coating on the outside of cups, mugs, teapots, etc. often contains lead, and slightly acidic drinks or water will cause it to leach out. That has a much bigger impact than leaded paint, because you typically don't lick your paint.

Lead glaze is most often used in artisan, novelty or complex items, because the lead oxide acts as a flux which allows the glazing to be done at a lower temperature, which is necessary when glazing complex objects which would otherwise melt or crack during the glazing process. Lead is also far easier to use, because it works over a wider temperature range, so if you do a "make your own pottery" day, you'll probably be using lead flux in your glaze.

[1]: https://www.efsa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/event/2005/af...

It should be very illegal to bring such raw materials on the market.

Lead is so important in making ceramics, there is nobody proposing to ban it. Instead, the main proposal is to require ceramics to be tested after manufacture to ensure that the dose of lead leached into any given food or drink is sufficiently low.

The main way that is achieved is by firing the ceramics at higher temperatures and longer to ensure the lead is better chemically bound to the rest of the pottery and leaches slower.

That sounds like very bad news to me. So now I have to trust whoever made the ceramics to not sacrifice this step, which I can't really check on my own.

Important in what way?

This is based on making pottery as a hobby: Most craft potters working in earthenware use lead glazes as the colour response is more appealing than what can easilly be achieved with other low-temperature fluxes. It's also more resistant to crazing, and for earthenware to be functional it's important the glaze doesn't craze significantly as earthenware is slightly porous- if the glaze is crazed then your coffee cup will leave a damp mark on the desk.

(Lead is not used on stoneware or porcelain.)

This is absolutely wild to me. BRB, investing in a borosilicate glass...

And decorative crystals, too. Beads, rhinestones, etc.

It's generally pretty harmless because the lead is so tightly bound into the material. You'd have to grind it to powder to get bad exposure... or maybe melt it (crystals usually have high melting points).

Still, they're slowly being phased out, mainly because of the reputation of lead, rather than a true health concern.

I knew about lead poisoning for a while, but mostly in US context. It's almost a non-topic in Europe since leaded gasoline was banned (I'm actually wondering why: no leaded paints in EU?)

If these numbers are true, why this is not on first pages of all media all the time? Crazy. I wonder how reliable are these numbers.

It is VERY expensive problem to fix. Cleaning environment, replacing old pipes... Other issues like smoking can be milked on taxes.

EU went quite far, even banning lead from solder.

For those interested in the EU regulation on this, a couple of starting points are:

REACH https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Registration,_Evaluation,_Auth...

RoHS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restriction_of_Hazardous_Subst...

IMHO REACH didn't go far enough, it should be up to the maker of a chemical to prove that it's safe before it's sold and used.

How exactly would someone prove something is safe? Especially on something that could have multi-decade cycle times?

One cost-effective program is to ban the sale of lead paint in those countries without regulation (over half of countries globally). This article looks into this and other solutions: https://rethinkpriorities.org/publications/global-lead-expos.... Disclaimer: I co-direct a nonprofit that advocates for lead paint regulation (LEEP: https://leadelimination.org/).

Is indoor lead paint is still being sold anywhere in the world? Not banned doesn’t necessarily mean it is actively used.

Considering China keeps shipping toys to the US with high lead levels, I wouldn't be surprised if they make lead paint for domestic use. I have no interest in looking up how, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was easy to find the recipe for lead paint and make it in your garage. I have read enough about making homemade finish to think anyone who gets the recipe - including passed down over generations by people living in mud huts - can make it.

true! But yes, it is. This map shows a summary of tests of paints on the market: https://ipen.org/projects/eliminating-lead-paint/lead-levels... (These are studies of oil-based paints, rather than water-based paints which don't usually contain lead, but in LEEP's experience from Malawi and Liberia lots of homes are painted with oil-based paints, inside and out)

I suspect that even though you can get leaded paint in those places few are actually using it for residential stuff. Lead offered cheap durability for paints in fairly demanding applications. Stuff like a business sign that needs to look crisp after many years in the weather and UV or machinery that's constantly getting scratches up by whatever that machinery works with are the use cases where lead is still somewhat missed because the equivalent performing unleaded coatings are fairly expensive. Since those are poor countries it stands to reason that most of their residential oil paint use would be cheap unleaded stuff and their leaded paint use would be confined to applications that demand better paint than the low end unleaded oil based stuff but where they can't afford high-performing unleaded stuff.

We've done surveys and tested household use paints in five LMICs (https://leadelimination.org/projects/)(https://leadeliminati.... 1) lead paints are often cheaper than unleaded paints (in LMICs) because lead paints tend to be locally manufactured and unleaded paints often imported. Also, lead pigments are often cheaper than lead-free pigments. 2) Yes, lead is good at making durable oil-based paints - in some countries with sub-tropical climates durable oil-based paint is popular on the inside and outside of homes, presumably for this reason. It's also easy to clean 3) Water-based paints are much less likely to contain lead and these are also used in homes in LMICs

Since ever few years someone finds new childrens toys being manufactured with lead paint, it seems it's still being used once in a while at least.

https://uspirg.org/news/usp/recall-toys-still-found-lead-pai...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02697...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertglatter/2016/04/26/the-ot...

https://www.insider.com/amazon-selling-toxic-toys-lead-poiso...

High Lead Levels Found in Majority of Malaysian Paint Brands - https://ipen.org/news/high-lead-levels-found-majority-malays...

it's only expensive to fix if you don't account for the cost of not fixing it. fixing this more than pays for itself in terms of reduced healthcare and prison costs

The article is based on a UNICEF report [1], which from a cursory glance seems to suggest that while the problem is present to some degree everywhere, it's by far the most pronounced in East and South Asia (but caused health care costs in relation to GDP is worst in Africa)

"One of the most concerning sources of lead exposure is the unsound recycling of used lead-acid batteries (ULABs), most of which are found in cars, trucks and other vehicles. Recycling activities are often conducted in informal, unlicensed, and frequently illegal open-air operations close to homes and schools." In general page 2 goes into common sources, most of which shouldn't affect Western Europe but are apparently quite common in poorer countries.

1: https://www.unicef.org/media/109361/file/The%20toxic%20truth...

Youtube has many extremly scary videos showing battery recycling operations, for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEvPjOKkPyE

Yeah, this is truly horrifying. Impressive and horrifying.

Take a look at some of the videos from the ship breaking yards in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. People working with no protective equipment at all, often barefoot, using torches to cut up ships full of lead paint, heavy metals, and asbestos.

Possibly the best youtube comment ever made:

"I only buy organic locally hand-made batteries."

Working directly with batteries and lead dust with no protection equipment, with nothing. That's terrifying but at the same time I've become so used to seeing employees do this sort of thing in my own country despite my repeated warnings that I've become numb to it.

There are plenty of properties in the UK still fed by lead water pipes. It's not something people talk about often, but it can be a problem and should be part of a good property survey.

Our Victorian property still has a (shared) lead supply pipe. I've been repeatedly told it's not an issue due to (presumed) calcification on the inside of the pipe. All the interior pipework is copper.

Our water was tested years ago by the waterboard and came back way below the legal limit.

Yet still... I'm suspicious. Can anyone point me at resources to help prove it's unsafe?

> Our Victorian property still has a (shared) lead supply pipe. I've been repeatedly told it's not an issue due to (presumed) calcification on the inside of the pipe

In London or the general area? The water is lousy with calcium, hard AF, so that's a good bet.

The notorious lead in the water issue in Flint, Michigan was not just "pipes made from lead" but also that they carelessly switched water supply to a new one that over time, corroded the deposits off the inside of the pipes so that the lead could leach out.

Once that had happened, "the damage already done to Flint’s water supply infrastructure by more than 18 months of exposure to corrosive water. Even after the water supply was reconnected to the (original water supply), officials advised against drinking Flint water."

https://www.britannica.com/event/Flint-water-crisis

As to what to do with your pipes - you can find water testing kits on the big online retailer for under £30

Look up Flint, Michigan. The layer on the inside of the pipe is great until something happens to the chemical composition of the water without planning for the effects. The city changed its water supply and all of a sudden everybody got poisoned.

This is an issue in the northeast USA too. The city of Boston for example provides subsidies for buildings to replace their lead supply pipes.

Look at what happened in flint Michigan. Lead pipes were calcified, but then the water bureau stopped adding an agent to reduce the natural ph of the river water. This caused the calcification to get stripped and for lead to start leaching into the water.

All it takes is a change in ph of your water supply to put you at risk.

Beat me to it. Always replace your lead pipes.

Similar fiasco when EPA did a showcase project converting DC water supply away from chlorine treatment. Hugely embarrassing and expensive "fix" for a non-problem, that created a much worse problem.

(ETA: It also caused lead to be released- non-lead pipes had actually leached lead from the water over many years, acting as a filter. The lead was chemically bound to both lead and non-lead pipes. Changing the chemistry caused the process to reverse and dump all that lead back into the water at much higher concentrations than would occur just using a 100% lead pipe system.)

And lead paint is similar. In-situ it's pretty harmless. It's the removal that's dangerous and is more likely to poison.

This is why people arguing for "do-something!" actions using "What harm could it do?" reasoning should always be fought until safety is confirmed experimentally the field.

"What harm could it do?" should always be a red flag for "don't know what you don't know" ignorance, and responded to as if it's a real, non-rhetorical question.

> And lead paint is similar. In-situ it's pretty harmless. It's the removal that's dangerous and is more likely to poison.

This is not completely true. I remember some studies looking at lead accumulation in dust. It's not just macroscopic paint chips on the outside of houses that children ingest, it's dust in the house as well.

Good point. Perhaps one cheap way GP could monitor it themselves might be to just monitor pH and do a lead test if that changes.

Just replacing the pipes seems like the optimal solution, but half-measures are better than nothing.

No, but Thames Water will replace the external lead pipe for free if you get your internal lead pipe replaced (as in, up to the demarcation point, which is probably the external stop valve). (More complicated if it's shared, of course). Other areas might be similar.

I have seen books from the 1920s that recommended chemicals you could add to your water to prevent the water from eroding the lead. Water is a great solvent for almost anything, and so if you are not careful water will pick up whatever is in the pipes.

I'm not going to look up those chemicals - I doubt that they would pass modern safety standards. If you maintain a water supply that has lead anywhere you should figure out what modern chemicals to use to prevent lead (or whatever your pipes are made of) from being eroded. I hope the people who maintain water supplies already know about this though.

> Our water was tested years ago by the waterboard and came back way below the legal limit.

Where was the water tested? I've heard that here in France, water is often tested before going into the pipes, and not after flowing for the faucet. If that's the case for you too, I'd encourage you to test the water going out of the faucet, since this is the water you actually drink. In France we can do that at labs that take care of stuff like blood samples. A naive search gave me this website https://watersafetestkits.co.uk/which-water-test-kit/ that sells water test kits, for example.

Well, the Drinking Water Inspectorate talks about it all the time and carry out a pretty comprehensive survey programme to make sure that orthophospate is being added in areas likely to have remaining lead pipes. Lead service pipes are getting pretty rare now (but yes, should check on a survey and not included as standard) but there are still quite a few older buildings with interior lead pipes.

> It's almost a non-topic in Europe since leaded gasoline was banned (I'm actually wondering why: no leaded paints in EU?)

Leaded paints were certainly widely used as rustproofing primer on steel constructions, as a bedding compound, and as anti-fouling paint on boats. The traditional formula is a mixture of lead oxide and linseed oil, giving it a characteristic red color.

Most of these uses are AFAIU nowadays banned, and replacements are available for practically(?) all lead paint usecases. I think it's still possible to buy it for some special usecases, though (like buildings/boats built/maintained with "traditional" methods).

That’s still much less serious than lead paint being used for the interiors of houses and apartments, which it was in the US until the 1970s. Was it in Europe?

Yes, absolutely less dangerous than lead used in house paints.

I don't actually know about the situation in Europe in general, but e.g. Sweden prohibited lead paint for indoor use already in 1860, and France in prohibited lead-based indoor and outdoor house paints in 1909. Based on some quick googling it seems several European countries prohibited lead-based house paints (including outdoor paints) in the 1920'ies.

> I'm actually wondering why: no leaded paints in EU?

The dangers of lead paint have been known for over 100 years. France banned it in 1909. The League of Nations adopted a treaty on it in 1922. The US declined to join the treaty due to industry lobbying and didn't get around to banning it until 1978.

By declining to ban it the US cost itself $Ts when accounting for the developmental delays, lost IQ points, health problems, increased crime, lost productivity, remediation, etc. All so that one tiny corner of the chemical industry could have a little more profit.

You have a source because your statement seems quite wrong.

Google tells me lead paint wasn’t banned in the UK until the 1990’s.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead-based_paint_in_the_Unit...

France was 1948, but lots of lead poisoned children anyways since the paint is still on buildings people live in.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg13918871-200-lead-pai...

"To protect the health of painters, France had passed in 1909 a law banning the use of paints containing lead for the painting of the interior and exterior of all buildings."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_paint

"The League of Nations banned white-lead interior paint in 1922 (you know an environmental regulation is old if it was issued by the League of Nations), but the U.S. declined to implement the ban."

https://environmentlawhistory.blogspot.com/2016/01/lead-regu...

I made no claims about the UK.

But the UK was in the league of nations...

Looking a little more into France's question:

I found this article:

"White lead pigment in paint had been recognized as toxic and restricted since 1915; it had been banned from professional use since 1926 and from craft work since 1948."[0]

Wikipedia's citation[1] does appear to be a delcaration from 1909 stating: "ART. 2. - A l'expiration de la cinquième année qui suivra la promulgation de la présente loi, l'emploi de la céruse, de l'huile de lin plombifère et de tout produit spécialisé renfermant de la céruse, sera interdit dans tous les travaux de peinture de quelque nature qu'ils soient, exécutés par les ouvriers peintres, tant à l'extérieur qu'à l'intérieur des bâtiments_"

Translated using https://www.deepl.com/translator : "ART. 2 - At the end of the fifth year following the promulgation of the present law, the use of ceruse, leaded linseed oil and any specialized product containing ceruse, will be prohibited in all painting work of any nature whatsoever, carried out by painters, both outside and inside buildings." ("ceruse" is white lead.)

This supports the 1915 (the fifth year following 1909) in the first article.

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1448552/

[1] https://solidarites-sante.gouv.fr/fichiers/numerisations3/bu... (p202 of the PDF, p172 by the original document page numbers)

Speaking of dangerous paints used many years ago: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/shadows-from-the-walls...

> It's almost a non-topic in Europe since leaded gasoline was banned

While this is true, it arguably should be discussed more. The lead hasn't all just gone away.

e.g.

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/224474/lead-from-leaded-petr...

https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/latest/2021/06/lead-persis...

Leaded fuel is still in use in aviation. Not gonna lie, it sits poorly with me that a hobby for rich people can rain toxic chemicals on people below with little to no restrictions.

Jet fuel doesn't have lead in it. Avgas is 'low lead', and there's at one unleaded prop plane fuel available.

Santa Clara tried to ban leaded av gas and the rich pilots complained and got the FAA to step in

A bunch of land owners/developers and some subset of the government in Santa Clara wanted to kick out the airport so the land could be developed and to make the surrounding land more valuable. Killing all the GA traffic based out of there would do the trick. Banning the fuel would kick out GA. Don't pretend that it was some altruistic pursuit. They only went after the lead because it has a ton of existing ideological baggage they thought they could capitalize on. The FAA looked at the big picture and laughed at them.

It's 'low lead' compared to the previous 100 octane avgas it replaced, not in some absolute or objective sense. It contains more lead than automotive gasoline back when autogas still contained lead.

While it's nice there's finally some progress made in unleaded high octane avgas (G100UL), from a public health perspective it's not a huge issue compared to many other sources of lead in the environment.

> Not gonna lie,

Do you normally?

> a hobby for rich peopl

Most flying is neither a hobby nor done by rich people.

Most flying is done in airliners (at least in passenger-miles), whose engines don't benefit from any lead.

On the other hand, smaller, piston-engine aircrafts are overwhelmingly a hobby for relatively wealthy people, where leaded avgas is commonplace.

This is just anecdotal, but in the aerodrome near where I live, I'd be surprised if less than 90% of the flights are leisure flights.

This is just not true. The vast majority of hours flown (and fuel burned) are for commercial purposes. These are real money-making enterprises, not some rich persons play thing.

I think you've misread me.

Avgas utilizing planes are not simply rich people's play thing. The vast majority of hours flown in these planes are for commercial, money making purposes. They are operated by real businesses that earn profits and should be able to afford the transition to non leaded gas.

> Public safety agencies, however, which account for one-quarter of piston-engine planes registered with the Federal Aviation Administration, are “likely to consume more than half of all the avgas used by the fleet,” according to the January National Academy of Sciences report. These agencies often include law enforcement and firefighting aircraft that need to reliably stay aloft through rapid changes in temperature, pressure and altitude. Personal and recreational flyers make up the remaining three-quarters of planes and consume the other half of leaded gas.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/leaded-gas-wa...

So roughly 50% of the leaded fuel is used in personal/leisure flights in the US. I wouldn't consider the other 50% anywhere close to "the vast majority", and from the source, and it's largely safety and rescue.

Moreover, demand is expexted to grow precisely because of leisure and high net-worth personal use[0].

Now, unless you include business trips of rich people as "money making business", there are very few commercial fights otherwise, serving mostly remote, low demand areas.

[0] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/aviation-gasoline-avgas-marke...

I did a lot of metal detecting in Central Europe and amount of lead found on farmlands was shocking. Some places I could gather over a kilo from a single are. Not sure how much this kind of debris contributes to lead poisoning but I don't think it's easily cleanable.

What form did you find it in? Are we talking chunks of metal?

If anyone (like me) is looking for a map (which seems to be missing from the article), the per-country data is apparently on https://www.pollution.org.

What's the source of all the lead pollution in central Africa?

Unsafe recycling of electronic equipment mainly lead-adic batteries.

This WHO Africa brief summarises evidence for sources in Africa: https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/200168/9780...

> Saint Lucia: 88,698 Deaths per million

Wow. Next highest is Somalia (3,261 dpm)

Deaths per pop statistics are often distorted for tiny countries since a few extra deaths can pull the stat by a lot.

While true, the figure above is almost 9% of the deaths. If true, that’s well beyond “a few extra deaths”. (I am somewhat skeptical that it’s a correct figure, or at a minimum if correct, that it carries 5 significant digits of precision.)

Our World in Data have a map here: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-lead-5micrograms...

This map is very bad since

1. Most countries have "no data"

2. Those that do show an absolute number instead of a percentage, which makes the data essentially useless.

3. Many countries have this number so large that it sounds like "all of them" (How many children there are in China compared to the 106 mln quoted, and of what age?) and one would expect more granularity at this point. Did they actually test 105 mln Chinese children? Does Serbia even have 900k children in the whole country?

This shows exactly the same stats for China and Taiwan which is unlikely to be correct.

LEEP (https://leadelimination.org) is a very promising early stage non-profit working on this problem.

They’re currently working in Malawi, Pakistan, Liberia + I think a couple of other countries, and expanding this year.

If they're successful then their work will be more impactful (per dollar spent) than even the top GiveWell recommended charities.

i second this. i recommend, for anyone who is interested, reading their write-ups on the ea forum to get a good intro on the problem (and how they work):

- https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/fd96FtLFACeAshqJP/...

- https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ErKzbKWnQMwvzRX4m/...

or my interview with lucia coulter, one of the co-founders:

- https://www.erichgrunewald.com/posts/interview-with-lucia-co...

"The image of the lead-poisoned child as abnormal or neglected is not only wrong, but it was intentionally placed in the American psyche by the lead industry itself, which had a vested interest in shifting the blame from their products, said Rosner, co-author of the book "Lead Wars: The Politics of Science and the Fate of America's Children."

. . .

In some of the more odious of their internal communications on the topic, a top official at the trade group representing lead paint manufacturers in the 1950s described lead poisoning as a problem "of the slums" confined to "Negro and Puerto Rican" children with "relatively ineducable" parents who could not be trusted to protect them, Rosner's research revealed."

https://www.cleveland.com/healthfit/2015/10/5_common_lead_po...

> Around one-in-three children globally suffer from lead poisoning.

>What can we do to reduce this?

I just love this template of framing important issues:

Step 1: Imply like there isn't anyone respinsible for a problem, as if it is a natural phenomenon, inspite huge corporate interests being the driving force of the problem.

Step 2: Imply that "we" are all together against this evil (although "we" includes the people that cause the evil) and also imply that "we" the common public has some form of power to actually enforce change on such a matter.

Step 3: Propose a solution that just happens to favour some corporate interests antithetical to the ones that cause the problem and imply that "we" all want this, right? Because what is happening right now is bad, so we are all onboard with your solution.

I remain shocked how we in the United States knowingly poisoned generations with leaded gasoline.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/leaded-gas-poison-...

In searching for a substance that made gasoline less flammable (and hence stopped it from igniting outside of a cylinder, i.e. "knocking") we tried everything including adding melted butter! Lead along with a lot of other things worked well but we went with lead and poisoned generations of people.

Many blame it for the rise in violent crime from the 1960s to 1990s:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2013/01/03/how-lead-c...

Nobody seems to care about any of this.

Same inventor of TEL additive for leaded gasoline also played a key role in developing CFC refrigerants (“Freon”) and later was killed by one of his own mechanical inventions.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr.

Lead also helps with valve seats lasting longer. Automakers switched to hardened valve seats in the 70's when lead was taken out of gas.

AFAIU, expensive (or read: less cost-sensitive) engines designed for operating at close to rated power for extended times, like airplane engines, have used hardened valve seats since the 1920'ies or so.

Likely - I can't remember if it's Ford or Chevrolet (or both) but their big-block engines used hardened seats from the start, only the small-blocks had to switch.

And some airplane engines still use leaded gas.

Leaded fuel is still widely used in piston engine airplanes (most small airplanes).

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/leaded-gas-wa...

There has recently been some real progress in this front, with the FAA approving unleaded fuel in about 600 engine models. Basically, aviators have been waiting a long time for the government to stop forcing them to use leaded fuel.

> Nobody seems to care about any of this.

Leaded petrol has been banned from sale at gas stations by every country in the world. [0] Unlike many important issues (such as overuse of antibiotics), it did receive the attention it deserved, at least eventually.

Work is ongoing in phasing out the use of leaded fuels in aviation. I think it's mostly a matter of testing existing aviation-approved engines to ensure they still perform as required on the various unleaded petrol blends they hope to transition to.

(As I understand it though, leaded paint is far more of a problem in terms of lead poisoning, than use of leaded petrol in aviation. I was still surprised the article made no mention of aviation.)

Aside: Someone at Cessna apparently thinks the transition away from leaded petrol will reduce carbon footprint. [1]

[0] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/final...

[1] https://www.flyer.co.uk/cessna-singles-ok-to-use-unleaded-fu...

An aside, but certainly not outside of a cylinder? AFAIK knocking means premature ignition within the hot cylinder during the compression stroke, and/or detonation of the fuel/air mix rather than the desired deflagration.

Lead, and other heavy metals are still used today in steel production (and other industries), and have been used for so long, that trace amounts can be found in the road sediment, such as in Gary, Indiana (and most of Northwest Indiana).

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016041201...

This article showing the research into lead and crime I thought is interesting

https://www.verywellhealth.com/lead-crime-hypothesis-4147074

Every time I hear "lead poisoning" mentioned, I have flashbacks to myself as a child playing with my Dad's lead fishing weights like an idiot.

And of course one could bite them onto the string. I did it quite a few times.

I still do this. Is that a problem? Tungsten weights break easily and cost much more while having less SKU available

That's a strange question given the thread. You are either an AI that doesn't get the context or you have already chewed too much on them.

In case it's not the first: having lead in your mouth contributes to lead poisoning.

What a rude comment to an honest question

Just so we don't misunderstand, are you saying you actively chew lead?

I wouldnt say chew, but while fastening a slip weight to the line I might compress it slightly with my front teeth so that it grips the line.

My dad had a workshop where he made woodwind instruments. For some applications he required lead. I recall entertaining myself as a kid by melting some small pieces of lead with a welding torch and looking at the pretty liquid metal. It was in the outside air, but I can't help but wonder what I may have done to my brain that day. Thank god he didn't have mercury.

The vapor pressure of lead when it melts isn't anything ridiculous, afaik. It shouldn't have released that much lead gas unless you were really burning it. (See leaded solder) Also, liquid elemental mercury isn't as scary as the organic mercury salts or something that's been concentrated though bio-accumulation. People like Cody's Lab on youtube have tasted liquid mercury for fun

I think of the hours my friends and I spent handling lead we were using as strategic ballast in our Cub Scout Pinewood Derby cars.

Yeah I did too, worst thing is that it stayed in water and I put grey water with lead particles in my hands.

I asked a doctor, and as long as it stayed in your skin, it's okay.

I've recently bumped into the YouTube channel ChubbyEmu. Medical ER case analysis by a real doctor on real cases. Think Doctor House, but not over the top and with lots of really well explained medical knowledge.

He's got one on a lead poisoning case: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qHxEjINCAg

Yeesh. As a new parent, that video is horrifying to me. Thanks for the link but wow, now I need to go hug my son.

Does someone know how to test if a building is contaminated? I live in the EU and this a non-issue, but I'm afraid if/when I have to move back to my home country.

Check with your local municipality. In the US most places have free testing via a local government lab. The only way to know for sure is testing the water. It’s also not just lead pipes that are the issue (although that’s the biggest problem)… lead is also found in older soldier and plumbing fixtures.

https://tamararubin.com/2018/10/tamara-can-you-come-to-my-ho... Lead-testing as a Service :) That site also has quite a lot of tips on equipment and such. (No affiliation, just saw it from some other hn comment somewhere)

I wouldn't call it a non-issue. Lead pipes in new buildings were not forbidden in the Netherlands until 1960, and there are still plenty of older buildings in use (including housing daycares, where drinking tap water is the norm). The extend of the problem here is not clear, but in one sample in a neighborhood in Amsterdam last year, around 19% of the houses had too much lead in the tap water.

Handheld XRF scanners can detect lead and other heavy metals. But they cost more than $10k. A lead remediation contractor probably will have one of these so they can tell what paint has lead in it, what needs to be removed. Also many government building inspectors will have these scanners.

There are lead test kits with a marker like swab. You can test painted surfaces, things like dust, it takes about a minute and turns red if there is lead. A 2 pack is $11 at the hardware store here in the US. There are also test kits you wipe for lead dust, or send paint fragments and send it off to be tested. In many areas these are free or subsidized by the local government. In the US a non subsidized test kit is around $5 to buy, and around $30 to send to a lab.

Also lead paint can be safely "encapsulated" and painted over in most cases. It is really only an issue for door frames or window frames where the paint can turn to dust, or where paint is peeling or chipping.

They are expensive due to the accuracy required to test the small amount of lead in water. At least last time I checked that was the case .

I was hoping to see some recommendation on Water filter or other ways to get clean water. But so far there are none.

We are in 2022 and clean water still feels like a luxury.

I have a theory that a lot of kids in India have been slow poisoned due to lead in 'traditional pressure cooker safety valves', leading to more pronounced ADHD and hyperactivity symptoms. I am not able to find any studies supporting this. Anecdotal evidences had pointed in the same direction (like this one here https://tamararubin.com/2017/01/butterfly-pressure-cooker-in...)

I didn't find the citation for this 'groundbreaking new analysis and research'. Anybody see that? That Unicef article is handwavy and in a breathless tone that makes me wary.

I have seen some sources mention that lead exposure could be behind a lot of ADHD symptoms. Is there any credibility to this or is it not worth looking into?

Yellow lead chromate is sometimes added to turmeric to give it a more vivid color.

There was just a bad case of lead poisoning in a family near Seattle that was traced to lead in the turmeric they brought with them from a trusted shop in Bangalore.

This is an alarming headline. I'm not quite sure how to rationalize it. It's certainly upsetting.

Perovskite, the new solar panel wonder material will put lead everywhere where there are solar panels in a few years. Carbon nanotubes have asbestos like disease causing properties. Nanotubes are hailed as the new semiconductor material and as having many other wonderful applications. DDTs and PCBs all started out as wonder chemicals. Science marches on.

...and both are fine in laminated materials like solar panels no? No need to scaremonger.

PCBs are fine. It's sealed in transformers. There's an empty lot downtown near me where a substation used to be and they can't build anything on it. A whole city block paved over with a fence around it that will never be used for anything again.

Asbestos is fine, it's stuck in the walls, or it's in break pads nobody is inhaling, etc. However, many large industrial companies slowly went broke over decades because of asbestos lawsuits as cancer linked to asbestos slowly killed 10s of thousands of former employees.

Luckily lead is not as toxic as those two, but these panels are going to break in hailstorms and such and slowly leach. They'll get piled high in landfills in developing countries, etc. Always got to keep all that in mind.

A real-life sacrifice zone. I would be surprised if these aren't common by the end of my life.

They are already very common. Go look at the California water board's statewide map of underground pollution. Essentially every site that ever was or is a gas station or dry cleaner has restrictions from ever becoming a home, school, day-care, or other similar uses. Anywhere you see an empty lot on a busy corner in a California city you can make a fair guess that it was a gas station.

Asbestos brake pads release particles as they wear down. Asbestos in construction is just pushing problems down to the next generations who will have to deal with the stuff when renovating.

Same for PCBs, they don't degrade naturally and will persist long after the components they're in have reached EOL. They'll get taken care by the lowest bidder and disappear for decades until they surface back and become everybody's problem.

Lead is just as toxic but affects the central nervous system instead of lungs or giving you cancer.

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