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Comment by Alex3917 | Hacker News Reader

In the U.S., lead was purposely added to food until 1988, so it’s not like this is an exclusively ancient problem.

That's a bold claim, do you have a source to back that up?

I'd be interested too, the only thing I could find was the Lead Contamination Act of 1988 that was supposed to fight contaminated water coolers - pretty bizarre that this was actually a thing.

[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/100th-congress/senate-bill/261...

No OP and I don't know about 1988, but lead pipes are still common in the US, either many states have them or all states do. Flint, MI has a plan to eliminate them this year, maybe.

https://www.nrdc.org/lead-pipes-widespread-used-every-state

Lead in pipes is only a problem if you have the wrong water chemistry. If the water is naturally or or treated to have the right pH then lead phosphates form and no lead leeches into the water.

Still, I wouldn't want lead pipes.

Lead pipes are overblown as a risk. The bigger issue is putting criminally incompetent people in charge of water.

I think GP is referring to the ban on lead solder for tin cans that went into place in 1980.

A bit of a stretch to call it intentionally adding lead to food, but in practice, not that different.

Hm, didn't know about that. I wonder if that is why my mom never bought canned vegetables when I was a kid. She always bought frozen if she couldn't get fresh.

Frozen veggies still taste better to this day... maybe that was why.

Lead doesn't taste bad, though. They say it tastes sweet, and I'm sadly old enough to remember the smell of leaded gasoline.

Lead arsenate was sprayed directly onto fruit (like apples) as an insecticide until the government revoked its authorization for use on food products in 1988.

https://aapse.wildapricot.org/resources/Documents/AAPSE%20Pu...

Thankfully we've since migrated to benign (/s) chemicals such as BPA and now BPF, BPS...

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/common-chemicals-in-p...

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