What is this nonsense? This whole news article doesn’t even link to the study. So ridiculous. That’s gotta break some journalism rule of some sort.
It might be this one: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35254913/
It might be this one: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35254913/
Half of US population exposed to adverse lead levels in early childhood
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2118631119
Choice Quote:
Significance
We estimate population-level effects on IQ loss and find that lead is responsible for the loss of 824,097,690 IQ points as of 2015.
Cognitive impairment is a terrifying idea but I think it’s important to balance the risk of COVID-associated cognitive impairment with the risk of cognitive decline that would result from whatever social isolation would be necessary to avoid COVID.
Is cognitive decline due to COVID really comparable to that of lead exposure? If so, I’d really appreciate more concrete information to put the risk into context.
Distributions are often more interesting than averages or medians alone.
Reporting a loss of theoretical IQ points is weird terminology since IQ people want you to believe it's measuring something that exists called "g", but then they don't report this result as a loss of "g". Of course they also happily claim every other test that produces a number like the SAT is also a true measurement of your intelligence and you're doomed to never be able to increase it. Basically they just believe any statement as long as it's got numbers in it and it says something they like.