Half of US population exposed to adverse lead levels in early childhood
pnas.org
pnas.org
The article is that half of the living US population was exposed to adverse lead levels as a child, not that half of US children today are exposed to adverse lead levels.
We used to make impressions in clay with ordinary objects then fire up the shop gas torch, melt lead chunks in a forge pot, and pour it into our clay molds! It cooled in seconds, you could break the clay and have a lead toy. Fun!
That is interesting, but what I really wonder about is more subtle cognitive effects. Did it make people meaner? More easily led? Less collaborative?
And as previously discussed here, lead was a known toxin when leaded gas was invented: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/leaded-gas-poison-...
Discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28500508
I agree IQ is a pretty bad measure. And if you would like to go back and redo this study with a better one, I'm sure we (and this study's authors) would be grateful for the result. But since it's the measure we have, I'd say it's better than nothing, and this factoid is a good way to spark interest in the scale of the phenomenon.
> At the risk of stating the obvious, IQ points aren't a measure and adding them up doesn't yield a meaningful number. It's like adding up the numbers on football player's jerseys; if the total of a team's numbers goes up, that doesn't make the team better. Similarly, a reduction in the total amount of "IQ points lost" could easily correspond to more damage to cognitive intelligence caused by lead exposure.
This is how I read it when I saw this number based on the title (I didn't read the article):
There are about 300 million people in total. Half of that is 150 million. A loss of 824,097,690 IQ points over 150 million people is over five point per person.
https://www.google.com/search?q=824%2C097%2C690+%2F+150+mill...
This is, of course, extremely misleading because someone born in the late eighties didn't suffer the same as someone born in the sixties. Similarly, someone born on or after January 1, 1996 didn't suffer as much as someone born in the eighties. Therefore, "five points per person" would be more misleading.
At the end, the actual number doesn't matter much. What matters is that the number conveys a sense of magnitude. We collectively lost almost a billion IQ points!
It doesn't matter what it exactly means. We just need to know that "they" robbed us. When I say us, it isn't just those of us in the US, I mean the whole world as the baby boomers voted and continue to vote (older people are more likely to vote compared to younger people). Who knows maybe if we had higher IQ, we wouldn't have fallen for nonsense like "starve the beast". If you stop to think for two seconds, reducing income because you think you are spending too much is asinine. It doesn't matter whether it is the federal government or a small family, it makes no sense to say well I am spending too much but if I had less income maybe my expenses would suddenly come under control.
Maybe with a slightly higher IQ, the people who voted in the eighties would have demanded this nonsense be nipped in the bud. I can't even imagine how much of a better place the world could be if we took a different path instead of following Ronald Reagan's shenanigans.
But losing a billion IQ points might be less bad than losing 10M IQ points, because there is literally no scale.
Maybe there is a bigger point I don't understand here (wouldn't that be ironic) but I only have about a hundred IQ points to play with and so does the average person (by definition?) so a billion IQ points is all the IQ points for ten million "average" people.
What am I missing?
A 140+ IQ person is not 40% smarter than a 100 IQ person, but much smarter. Someone with an IQ of 100 may struggle at college math but someone with an IQ of 140 can do cutting edge research.
Likewise, adding two 120 IQ people does not equal a 140 IQ person. So even a dozen 100 IQ people working together will not be able to solve a math problem that a single person who has an IQ of 140 can solve.
More boomer for sure
The reason to prefer lead-free solder is primarily because at industrial scale with tons of trashed electronics the lead becomes an environmental pollutant. For hobbyists, lead solder is easier to work with, and not a serious risk.
All of that lead exposure likely pales in comparison to what was happening driving in a car with windows down (when AC wasn't common) and all the cars around you were burning leaded gas with zero emissions control equipment like catalytic converters. You were just getting blasted by air full of lead and other combustion products.
I've got ventilation going much stronger now.
The only thing I am noticing that's left in my argument is that there are also bad chemicals that can be detected by human olfactory sense. My original point was that "Just because it has no smell, doesn't mean it is good for you", which is perfectly congruent and abdicates the fallacy you've listed.
And their point was that that being true doesn't make the comment you replied to "bad advice" as you claimed.
I can find these kinds of kits online from the 60’s but they all claim to be lead free. I wish I could find one of the original kits he had growing up.
(e.g. lead toxicity is well known since many centuries)
If you're concerned get a blood test for lead levels. No level is good for you but adult exposure is magnitudes less damaging than early childhood (while brain is still developing).
I am curious if this is why you see generational differences in mental models and belief systems (there is data showing an inverse relationship between religiosity and intelligence [1] [2]), and why younger, healthier cohorts operate with different mental models.
Riffing, if younger cohorts are healthier, you’d expect their average/aggregate cognitive ability to be higher, leading to social stratification.
[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23921675/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity_and_intelligence
I’d assume the latter is the primary cause of any major behavior differences, absent some pretty breathtaking science showing otherwise.
“Intelligence” is also a pretty goofy measure. If we’re talking about IQ, it’s basically “what quiz questions predict success measures, as defined by the social norms of whoever made the test”.
IMO that’s a pretty sketchy way to define intelligence. Certainly not the way I think about it colloquially. To me, success and intelligence are loosely correlated but very different traits.
Cities do screw this up, as evidenced in Flint and other areas. Not all filters are designed to remove heavy metals or lead, so you need to be picking a filter based on that. (https://www.consumerreports.org/water-filters/make-sure-your...) There's also other stuff in the water, so picking the right filter for your area is important.
Whether you're an adult or a child lead poisoning is equally dangerous (https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/lead-poisonin...). It is something that can be tested for though.
7 micrograms per litre, legal limit 5. This was after running the water for a few min.
Unless the people who run your water utility are criminally negligent (ie. Flint, MI), you’re fine. Run the water for a few seconds before you drink it in the morning to flush out sediment, and if you’re worried, use a filter.
Your water utility is required to test and publish results - look at those as well to understand if there is anything to worry about.
According to a meta study of lead vs. crime the results are inconclusive. Very high exposure to lead my cause a couple point reduction of childhood IQ, which may be temporary and not everyone exposed to lead has a reduced IQ.
Regarding lead & IQ and lead & crime ,some links to studies (and the meta study):
https://greyenlightenment.com/2021/08/02/the-effects-of-lead...
Also, the median childhood exposure to lead in the US for far back as the 1970s was around 15 ug/dl, which was the peak, which may have only conferred .5-2 pt decline in IQ
https://ourworldindata.org/exports/lead-blood-usa-children_v...
Also, this contradicted by Flynn effect, which shows IQs to be rising.
Lead petrol is banned. Lead paint is banned. Lead pipes are a problem in some areas, but let's assume we don't live in these areas.
What do we need to look out for?
This is good advice for many other contaminants as well.
WTF? Yes, go ahead and advocate responsible techniques. But if you're the type of meddling busybody that harasses others just for working on their own homes, don't be surprised when nobody listens to you.
Led contamination risk is definitely more serious than HOA-hellhole
> if they don’t have a license or permit, how can you verify they are following best practice?
What exactly do you think licenses/permits guarantee? At best, an inspector knows the least responsible crews and checks in on them more often. That's about it.
The only way you can actually verify someone is following best practices is to know what those practices are and observe their behavior. By expressing a belief that permitted professionals somehow automatically conform and DIYers automatically do not, one indicates that one has no idea what best practices actually are but yet feels qualified to judge anyway.
Licenses confirm that the person doing the work is trained in the best practices + safety for the work that they are doing. Permits ensure that they have filed a plan with the city/state that matches safety regulations, and that this plan is available for the public to review and comment on. It doesn't guarantee automatic conformity, but it shows that their plans have been confirmed _and_ provides an avenue to verify that they are conforming to those plans.
I can't confirm everything that a doctor does either, but I'd still much rather see a licensed one than an unlicensed one.
Your neighbors' decisions around lead management and mitigation directly impact you and you are within your rights to insist that they follow proper safety procedures. To cast that as "meddling" or "harassment" is odious.
You do, in fact, "have standing" to not have your neighbors poison you. This is a good thing. It should be celebrated.
Legally, it's generally commercial activity (eg contractors) that is regulated. Thus, after you've talked to your neighbor about best practices for mitigating lead dust, you've effectively exhausted your options. After that point, not "letting" them DIY will basically consist of harassment.
As to your postscript--yes, clueless or careless DIYers probably need the hammer swung at them, and hard, when they do something to create negative externalities. You have the right to not be poisoned by your neighbors. Even if they make you sue them to enforce that right, that still isn't "harassment", and it is genuinely and deeply gross to characterize it as such.
I got rid of the PS because it was needlessly obtuse. But trying to restate it nicer - coming at someone DIYing with the attitude that they should be hiring "professionals" instead, as opposed to offering constructive criticism and perhaps even help, is a guaranteed recipe for a failed interaction.
And unless you've got actual demonstrable harm from your neighbor's activities - more than a vague worry about the possibility of lead dust being carried by the wind - filing a baseless lawsuit is indeed best characterized as harassment. At a certain point, there is an threshold of blame that is impossible to adjudicate. Slightly elevated environmental lead is squarely in that territory (it could have also come from a piston plane flying overhead), which is why the real fix is to systematically eliminate the use of lead to begin with.
The former is easier to avoid: make sure to maintain the integrity of the paint in your living space, particularly where it regularly encounters moisture or friction (like windowsills and mantles).
The latter is harder: lead is a useful industrial material, and it finds its way into all kinds of plastics, glass, etc. Dry spices can also have high amounts of lead, depending on the plant and the region it was grown in.
All of that said, lead is not like nuclear waste: it's not a latent risk. Leaded paint and lead jointing in pipes, when maintained correctly, do not pose an exposure risk. You can spend your entire life using lead tackles and lead solder without hurting yourself, as long as you take basic precautions during and after use.
I also assume small planes rain down lead wherever they fly.
[0]: https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/faa-industry-chart-path-elimina...
There's a few exceptions, like Cirrus and maybe Diamond, but almost all general aviation aircraft either predate those regulations entirely, or are in hardware configurations that predate those regulations and have been grandfathered. Sometimes - rarely - you get a new engine or whatever, but it's very rare that anyone goes for approval of a whole new airframe or anymore. It's the same reason Boeing prefers to add a dumb computer-assist system on the 737 MAX instead of just changing their airframe - change the airframe and you have to do a complete re-approval process.
In short, they are still using leaded gasoline because they're still using 1950s and 1960s engine designs (and in many cases, actual 60s/70s-production engines and airframes) because the FAA approval process makes it impossible/prohibitively uneconomical to replace them.
Not saying removing lead isn't important, but bear in mind this is essentially gutting public access to aerospace and aviation. We've already seen the loss of R/C aircraft as a hobby, the "feeders" into aerospace are getting pretty slim indeed.
https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead/prevention/sources.htm
The biggest concerns are lead paint in older homes, contaminated soil, food and cosmetics, and toys and other consumer products.
https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp13.pdf
Even low lead levels in children can cause developmental issues. Not necessarily abnormalities, but possible issues vary widely.
I remember because the molecule is quite funny it has some kind of slot to capture the lead atom.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead#Phaseout_and_ba...
You literally can't sell a home or purchase a home with lead issues because no one will purchase the property. There are exceptions where people are gaming the system by controlling the property and town inspection departments but largely lead paint poisoning is an old problem that was solved a long time ago.
The only reason children would have a drastic decreae in IQ is going to be a combination of Television and internet usage at extremely young ages which has deleterious affects on will-power, attentional focus, judgement, memory and visuo-spatial analysis. The lead argument really needs to go away it keeps popping up and it is literally impossible in most of the country.
You manage to combine two generations of it. Television started ruining children when the Boomers were growing up. The Millennials were ruined by the early internet. And now I hear the Zoomers are being ruined by TikTok. (Presumably Gen X was ruined by cable TV, which you left out.)
But that's just recently. The earliest iteration of this moral panic that I know of involved novels: https://www.economist.com/1843/2020/01/20/an-18th-century-mo...
That's right, the kids have been ruined since before America existed! Truly, it's amazing this steady worsening of the youth has not destroyed life as we know it.
>Many homes, including private, federally-assisted, federally- owned housing, and childcare facilities built before 1978 have lead-based paint
https://www.epa.gov/lead/protect-your-family-lead-your-home-...
Do you think they are lying?