People born before the 1980 are also of significantly lower IQ up to a 7-8 points due to leaded gas use. The boomers and gen X really did a number on themselves with environmental hazards.
If you live by a small airport frequented by personal aircraft, you're getting bombarded by lead.
Now just imagine living next to a teaching airport that does aerial laps around the neighborhood.
Most of this stuff was not widely known. There was no internet, so you only got info from 3 tv channels and a newspaper, magazines and conversation.
Blame it on the corps.
It wasn't news when the additive was invented for gasoline in the 20s, and it wasn't news all through the 70s.
Of course blame it on the corporations. On GM specifically, who also lobbied for jay-walking to become illegal so their cars would stop getting bad press for killing people.
Part of the environmental/emissions argument from developing countries is about past emissions by developed countries. I think it's a fair argument to say given these sacrifices made by past generations in industrialised countries + the benefit of developed cleaner technologies through that industrialisation is an argument against that.
London first tried to ban burning coal within the city in 1306 due to the air quality.
Used to? Lots of them still are. Right now there's 150 µg/m³ of PM2.5 outside my window, and it's a "clean" day. Yesterday's concentrations were up to 900 µg (yes, that's correct), and the highest I've seen this winter were 2000 µg (yes, this is also correct). And it keeps getting worse, recently our so-called president mentioned that coal is our strategic reserve and we won't be phasing it out any time soon.
I'm relatively sure most of the "global south" has bad air quality, even if such extreme values are rare.
Here are some random photos of a typical winter day (winter is 8 months per year):
https://pasteboard.co/d2uZDyCd2gvt.jpg
https://pasteboard.co/F1zT2VPXFPKs.webp
https://pasteboard.co/r2S12bHXxzcI.jpg
https://pasteboard.co/w7CfK2Yfaz2l.webp
I was born '74. Alberta, Canada. I remember people raising a huge stink about "guvmint' interference" when leaded gasoline was banned and when seatbelt use became mandatory. And don't even get started about cigarettes and mandatory separate smoking areas at restaurants etc.
"Liberty" and "freedom" were concepts substantially abused and misapplied throughout the 20th century.
Your comment reads like anti-immigrant propaganda. If USAID were to be restored, the US could use its vast wealth to improve global health. But the current US regime is decisively anti-vax and wants everyone to suffer unnecessarily from preventable disease.
Yesterday Trump's pick for Surgeon General was before the senate. She doesn't have a medical degree and dodged questions about vaccines.
But I have full confidence even Mitch is onboard with the stupid this time.
The obvious solution for better health for all would be providing public and freely accessible locations for getting these shots, or mobile teams providing them at schools etc.
It’s incredible how dominant they are!