Lead Exposure Kills Hundreds of Thousands of Adults Every Year in the US, Study Finds (theguardian.com)

Bruce66423 shares a report from The Guardian: Last week, a massive new study concluded that lead is 10 times more dangerous than thought, and that past exposure now hastens one in every five U.S. deaths. Researchers at four North American universities, led by Bruce Lanphear, of Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, studied the fate of 14,289 people whose blood had been tested in an official U.S. survey between 1988 and 1994. Four fifths of them had harbored levels of the toxic metal below what has, hitherto, been thought safe. The study found that deaths, especially from cardiovascular disease, increased markedly with exposure, even at the lowest levels. It concluded that lead kills 412,000 people a year -- accounting for 18% of all U.S. mortality, not much less than the 483,000 who perish as a result of smoking. The study has been published in the Lancet Public Health journal.

Comments

Lead kills

[LordHighExecutioner]

Especially when fired from a Smith&Wesson.

Re: Lead kills

[Narcocide]

I actually would have modded this post up if it wasn't for the utterly irrelevant racism. Maybe you should get your tap water checked for lead.

Re: Lead kills

[thegreatbob]

I think this fellow is living confirmation of the fact; no test needed.

Re:Lead kills

[Anonymous Coward]

That is why you stand BEHIND the gun and not in front of it... but hey, kids are eating Tide Pods, so good luck.

Re:Lead kills

[rossdee]

"Especially when fired from a Smith&Wesson"

I think Colt would be way ahead, even if we are only talking about handguns.

Re: Lead kills

[Green Mountain Bot]

All the more galling: YOU get modded down as Flamebait, and the racist AC gets modded up.

Re:Lead kills

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Lead exposure saved lives today in Maryland. And took one. But at least the right life was took.

Re:Lead kills

[valnar]

Especially in South Chicago.

Re: Lead kills

[mysidia]

You really need to learn some tolerance.... I'm pretty sure it's not actual racism on the AC's part -- people throwing around that language tend to be trolls senselessly throwing around that rhetoric for attention, not racists, but a cry for help; marginilized and ignored by people for years, these under-the-bridge dwellers utter the most extreme things they can think of to try and get some attention; in other words, it's just the lead talking: that and the shit in the water under the bridge they've been drinking talks too.

Re: Lead kills

[Anonymous Coward]

*Tooken

Re:Lead kills

[arglebargle_xiv]

It's actually kinetic energy poisoning, you can be affected by it whether it's lead, DU, steel darts, glass, or any other matter.

Re: Lead kills

[another_twilight]

Cars kill far more people than guns do in the US

You're arguing against a straw man. No-one is arguing that guns kill more people than cars.

Trying to find a way to reduce gun deaths in the US doesn't preclude trying to reduce deaths from cars. Cars are tools with multiple purposes, none of which are 'to kill'. A gun's purpose is to kill. The number of deaths from cars is almost entirely from accidents. The number of deaths from guns (both suicide and homicide) is dominated by deliberate attempts to kill.

Found the ignorant fool

We have, indeed.

Re: Lead kills

[Methadras]

It's not even a cry for help. It's just salty language used to make a point. Now whether or not you like that point is up to you.

Re: Lead kills

[mysidia]

It's not even a cry for help. It's just salty language used to make a point. Now whether or not you like that point is up to you.

They might be trying to make what they think is a point, but as a result of the nonsense language, whatever their intended point might be gets completely lost --- and the only thing that can be heard is the lead and the s****

Re: Lead kills

[another_twilight]

target shooting, competition and hunting

Both target shooting and competition are essentially practising or demonstrating skill with a tool, they are separate purposes only if you're being especially pedantic.
Hunting is killing.

Try again.

cars cause exponentially more deaths than guns

Acknowledged and addressed in the original post. Repeating it doesn't make it any less a straw man. You introduced the argument that guns kill less people than cars. It's true. But irrelevant. No-one is saying otherwise. You can actually try to address a problem while another, bigger/worse problem is also addressed.

Never forget that guns are constitutionally protected

Never forget that the constitution can be amended.

Can we get back to the topic, now or do you have some more straw-men you'd like to attack?

Your comment shows your bias against the right to bear arms and defend yourself

No, I'd like to discuss ways of reducing death by guns. That may need to include a reduction in firearms, tighter regulation and/or some other form of limitation. Number of guns is not, however, the only problem. Many other countries have higher rates of firearm ownership than the US with far lower levels of gun death. There needs to be cultural and social changes at a minimum and I suspect that they need to start with the removal or lowering of the reverence/fetishisation of guns.

I'm questioning the right to bear arms. That's actually a vital part of being a citizen. Questioning and holding up the values that we hold. Demanding of ourselves and each other an accounting.

defend yourself

Thankfully I live in a sane country where the need for a gun to 'defend' myself is not as great as you seem to believe yours is.

Get out of this country if you dont respect our Constitution and fundamental rights

So you'll be leaving, seeing as you seem to have some kind of belief in an unchanging Constitution - which is against both the constitution and the intent of those who drafted it?

Re: Lead kills

[another_twilight]

Why cant a car/truck be used as a weapon

It can, but the number of instances where that is the intent compared to those where it isn't is so close to zero that it's statistical noise.

That certainly seems like its purpose according to some recent Muslim terrorists

OMG. Muslims!

Also in case you didnt know the statistics over 50% of firearm related deaths are suicides

Yes.
Yes I did.
That's why I was careful to say "The number of deaths from guns (both suicide and homicide) ..."

Are you actually reading what I write, or what you think I've written?

which could still be done without a gun

Technically true at only the most superficial level.

The urge to commit suicide is, in many case, relatively short-lived. If there's easy access to a means (such as a gun) then the urge may be acted on. Removing or limiting access to an easy process means that by the time a method has been set-up or accessed, the urge has passed. There are studies that show that easy access to guns causes an increase in suicide; that removing guns drops that rate. That is, while some people will, in the absence of a gun find another way, for many removing the immediacy of means allows time for the crisis to pass.

I can link you to some studies/research/papers that talk about this in detail if you are interested.

Even including suicide statistics, cars are responsible for way more deaths compared to guns

Yes. I know. I've never argued otherwise. In fact, I've pointed out that this argument is a straw man. No-one (whoops, you're a pedant) nearly no-one is arguing that guns kill more people than cars.

The only reason I can think of that you keep bringing up car deaths is that you're implying that we shouldn't look at ways of reducing gun deaths until we reduce car deaths first. If there's another reason, I'd be happy to discuss it, otherwise this is a fallacy of relative privation.

You say the majority of people killed in car crashes are "accidents"

Yes, I'm talking about intent.
The intention of (almost) all people who use a car is not to kill, therefore when their use of a car results in a fatality it is an 'accident'. Whether you consider them culpable is not what I am talking about. I am contrasting this with the intent of someone using a gun. The intent there is to kill (or to practice their skill with a tool designed to kill or to demonstrate their skill to others - to address the target and competition shooting pedantry, above). When there is a fatality as a result of a gun being used, that is rarely accidental.

Personally I see that as murder because you were grossly negligent

Then you are using a personal definition for the word 'murder'. Murder requires intent. A fatality without intent, even in the event of gross negligence is manslaughter. The very definition of murder is the _intent_ to kill. You can't just dismiss that because it's inconvenient to your other arguments.

Again the intended purpose of the tool does not matter only the amount of deaths caused

Yes, you've been quite clear that you'd rather not look at intent - either to distinguish between murder and manslaughter, or to distinguish between a tool designed to kill and one that kills only by accident or misuse.

This particular quote is interesting ....

[Qbertino]

From the study:" .... An especially striking and unexpected finding in these studies is that the association between lead and disease is proportionately greater at lower levels of exposureâ"a so-called supralinear dose-response relation. ..."

So what they're basically saying is that homeopathy might be right to a certain degree?

Interesting. Interesting indeed.

Re:This particular quote is interesting ....

[Megol]

Not too interesting. Small doses give a higher response than a linear dose response would indicate, nothing more, nothing less. Magical water memory need not apply.

Re:This particular quote is interesting ....

[Opportunist]

That's not exactly what they say. What they say is that 1/10th of a dose does not have 1/10th of the effect, as would be expected, but way more than 1/10th.

It's still a far cry from the homeopathetic claim that 1/10th of a dose has ten times the effect.

Re:This particular quote is interesting ....

[DarkOx]

Right but it does explain how people got by eating and drinking from leaded pewter dishes every day while slathering them selves in lead based make up; and how later people managed to be mostly okay breathing exhaust from leaded gasoline.

It explains quite nicely how a small amount of lead can cause both serious problems and at the same time mass lead exposure did not destroy society. Although there is thinking that it impacted crime rates.

Re:This particular quote is interesting ....

[nospam007]

"Right but it does explain how people got by eating and drinking from leaded pewter dishes every day while slathering them selves in lead based make up; "

They died with the Roman Empire, some scientists even say, lead is the cause of both deaths.

Re:This particular quote is interesting ....

[Entrope]

Homeopathy usually argues that the memory of the "disease" will trigger a cure -- so a hundred-quadrillionth of a dose cancels out the effect of a dose of some toxin that produces the same effect(s) as whatever you just didn't drink.

Gasoline is unleaded, but retains the memory of being leaded before. So take a swig of gasoline to wash down your colon-cleansing detergent pods, and detox from lead exposure! The American Homeopathy Board approves this message!

Re:This particular quote is interesting ....

[Smidge204]

It explains quite nicely how a small amount of lead can cause both serious problems and at the same time mass lead exposure did not destroy society.

Nothing of the sort.

A small dose is proportionally more harmful than a larger dose, not more harmful in an absolute sense. Basically what the study says is double the dose does not result in double the damage.

If you've been exposed to lead, exposing yourself to more lead will not improve your situation... so put down that paint smoothie.
=Smidge=

Re:This particular quote is interesting ....

[DarkOx]

I am not suggesting lead exposure is good or that more lead exposure is better. The GGP was arguing that homeopathy works because small amounts of lead had impacts as significant as large ones.

All I was saying is the fact that harm from lead exposure does not increase greatly with additional lead exposure helps explain why people got by "alright" when lead exposure at much higher levels was common. The point is after you have eaten a few chips the pain smoothie doesn't become good for you but its not as harmful (due to the lead anyway) as those first few chips where.

Re:This particular quote is interesting ....

[Sooner Boomer]

"Right but it does explain how people got by eating and drinking from leaded pewter dishes every day while slathering them selves in lead based make up; " They died with the Roman Empire, some scientists even say, lead is the cause of both deaths.

Hell, they used to EAT the stuff. Look up Sugar of Lead...

Re:This particular quote is interesting ....

[nucrash]

The fact that for a long time so many societies had shorter lifespans seems to be irrelevant, doesn't it?

Violent Crime dropped in the US after removing lead from gasoline. After research, we have found out how lead affects the chemistry in the brain. The link actually exists and the science backs it up. Lead does nasty things over a lifetime.

Re:This particular quote is interesting ....

[Immerman]

They didn't start removing the lead from gasoline, they just stopped intentionally adding it.

Re:This particular quote is interesting ....

[RatherBeAnonymous]

... The GGP was arguing that homeopathy works because small amounts of lead had impacts as significant as large ones...

Or, the GGGP was being facetious. Poe's law.

Re:This particular quote is interesting ....

[Opportunist]

Then I guess we should all be really glad water doesn't remember how we mistreat it by abusing it to flush down our shit. Just imagine what potentially potentised diarrheatical effect this would have on all of us!

Re:This particular quote is interesting ....

[thegarbz]

and at the same time mass lead exposure did not destroy society

The effects of lead poisoning take a while to matieralise. Do you think it's a coincidence that we were huffing the stuff in the 80s and now the best OS we were able to come up with was Windows 10? Open your eyes!

Re:This particular quote is interesting ....

[thegarbz]

So homeopathic petrol is unleaded with added lead and then diluted with unleaded until there's no lead left?

Re:This particular quote is interesting ....

[houghi]

Homeopathy might be completely right IF they can give scientific data that it is the case. Without the scientific data? Not so much.

Also note that dosage is VERY important in intake of anything, be it medicine, poison or food. e.g. taking half the birth control pills will not just double your chances of getting pregnant.

Re:This particular quote is interesting ....

[Anonymous Coward]

hey died with the Roman Empire, some scientists even say

Crappy theory, originally spread by the germans, and already debunked multiple times. The Roman Empire ended because of the barbarian invasions, not lead exposure, otherwise it wouldn't have lasted for more than 500 years.

Re:This particular quote is interesting ....

[PeeAitchPee]

Correlation is not always causation. E.g., violent crime in the US has also dropped as the rate of gun ownership has gone up over the same time period. Which one is it?

Re:This particular quote is interesting ....

[edtice1559]

Although it's fun to say that correlation isn't causation, the research into lead and crime rates is both extensive and solid. It's relatively easy to remove confounding variables because different countries removed lead from gasoline at different times with a subsequent reduction in crime. And lots of studies have been done looking for alternative explanations without much luck. Also we have good knowledge of how lead affects the brain which supports the causal hypothesis.

Gun ownership and crime is surely a very complex topic where the interaction between the two variables makes establishing a causal relationship much harder. I've lived in rural areas where there is no police force. Rates of gun ownership were a big crime deterrent. Of course so was that fact that people were poor so there was no point of robbing them.

Urban crime rates are likely influenced more by the drug trade than overall gun ownership. The reality is that there are probably geographies where increased gun ownership results in lower crime and other geographies where it results in higher crime. Also, a property crime is less severe than a violent crime which also makes the problem harder.

In the US we don't have good data in this area because the pro-gun lobby fights any effort to study the problem. The only motivation for such a thing is a fear of what the data will show. You don't want an answer to be found if you're pretty sure you're wrong! I'm pro gun-control but I could be persuaded by data if there were honest attempts and objective studies.

Re:This particular quote is interesting ....

[painandgreed]

hey died with the Roman Empire, some scientists even say

Crappy theory, originally spread by the germans, and already debunked multiple times. The Roman Empire ended because of the barbarian invasions, not lead exposure, otherwise it wouldn't have lasted for more than 500 years.

More importantly, they outsourced their military to barbarians and then stopped paying them.

Re:This particular quote is interesting ....

[Solandri]

That's from an editorial in Mother Jones about 5 years back which made a big splash on the Internet, but didn't provide much evidence (mainly it just asserted the correlation was strong enough to be irrefutable).

A perusal of recent research on the topic turns up this recent JAMA paper which concluded that after controlling for childhood socioeconomic status, "Findings failed to support a dose-response association between BLL and consequential criminal offending." That would suggest that it's growing up in poverty which leads to future criminal behavior. And indeed if you look at the historical poverty rate, it dropped substantially right around 1970, around the time leaded gasoline began being phased out. And if you compare poverty rate by race, you find that the two races with the highest crime rates (black and hispanic) also have the highest childhood poverty rates.

This study which states "The consequences of lead exposure for later crime are theoretically compelling, but direct evidence from representative, longitudinal samples is sparse," reaches pretty much the same conclusion, but may be more useful as it provides direct links to other Google Scholar papers on the topic.

This isn't to say lead is safe. It's known to depress IQ, and though the link with future criminal behavior is weak, it is more strongly linked to antisocial behavior and delinquency. Just that the "irrefutable" link between leaded gasoline and crime presented in the Mother Jones article may in fact just have been a random correlation, not causation.

Re:This particular quote is interesting ....

[swillden]

Homeopathy usually argues that the memory of the "disease" will trigger a cure

Basically the notion underlying vaccination, but bonkers.

Re:This particular quote is interesting ....

[liquid_schwartz]

More importantly, they outsourced their military to barbarians and then stopped paying them.

Live by outsourcing, die by outsourcing. This applies to many companies today sadly.

Re:This particular quote is interesting ....

[Swave An deBwoner]

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

Grecian Formula is a men's hair coloring product from Combe Incorporated. In the formulation used in the United States, it contains lead(II) acetate.[1] Because lead acetate is banned in cosmetics in Canada and the European Union, the formulations sold there do not contain it.[1][2] In 2017 Environmental Defense Fund and other consumer groups filed a complaint with the Food and Drug Administration to force the removal of lead acetate from Grecian Formula and other hair dyes.[3]

Interesting to note that it wasn't until 2017 that EDF filed their complaint. Coincidence? I think it was not.

Re:This particular quote is interesting ....

[Swave An deBwoner]

Objection! That's a leading question!

Re:This particular quote is interesting ....

[Entrope]

I am shocked, shocked, that fossil fuels, originally formed from biological materials, do not come out of the ground containing significant levels of lead!

Or maybe it was a joke, and just like "wipe the server? like with a cloth?" nobody was supposed to take it literally.

Overlap?

[Calydor]

How many people die ONLY because of lead exposure?

How many people die ONLY because of smoking?

How many people die ONLY because of diabetes?

And so on and so forth. I'm more interested in the compound effects of multiple dangerous situations, eg. lead exposure AND smoking and so on.

Re:Overlap?

[cirby]

The study claims that nothing else had any measurable effect - once you filtered them out, the effect from lead was exactly the same. ...which does bring up a couple of small doubts. There are a number of things that SHOULD cause the amount of lead in your system to have an increased or decreased effect, at least on a detectable level.

While it's reasonable that very small doses of lead will have a negative effect, I'd like to see some followup on this one. They say "it causes more deaths," but how much? Ten years off your lifespan? Ten days? Somewhere in between?

It's in The Lancet, after all, and they have a bad habit of occasionally publishing something that's just flat wrong. Vaccines, anyone?

Re:Overlap?

[PolygamousRanchKid]

How many people die ONLY because of lead exposure?
How many people die ONLY because of smoking?
How many people die ONLY because of diabetes?

I'm quite sure that living causes death.

I haven't yet met anyone who has survived life.

And remember . . . today is the last day of your life, so far . . .

Re:Overlap?

[AHuxley]

Lots of blood tests over decades.
That would help find out if it was always only lead after say 2000.
What can new survey data for lead show all over the USA now?
Paint use has changed.
Lots of other pollution and a poor diet its still not getting much support.
Something in poor areas that saw a new drop in IQ and a list of illnesses.
Thats a lot of lead paint chips and dust.
A lot of productive lead mines still open in many city limits?
Is lead getting worked on and with all over the USA in all very poor areas?
Clean up the lead.
But don't stop looking at lead as the only problem.

Re:Overlap?

[Oswald McWeany]

I haven't yet met anyone who has survived life.

I'm living proof of immortality. I haven't died once.

Re:Overlap?

[bobbied]

It's in The Lancet, after all, and they have a bad habit of occasionally publishing something that's just flat wrong. Vaccines, anyone?

I wouldn't call it a habit of the Lancet per say... Perhaps we should call it more of a profit center.

Most medical journals have a perverse motive to increase circulation, attention by publishing studies that will bring them critical attention. In the case of the Lancet, they published a faked study about vaccines which they later retracted when it was shown to be faked years later by an investigative reporter. One questions their motives and lax editorial review processes because of things like this. But we really should realize that all of these publishers have the same perverse motives.

Re:Overlap?

[alexo]

I wouldn't call it a habit of the Lancet per say...

<pedantic> per se </pedantic>

Bad news for heavy metal fans

[protoporos]

Especially for fans of Lead Zeppelin.

Re:Bad news for heavy metal fans

[Software]

Ah, but since the band's name is "Led Zeppelin", they're OK. Although the name was taken from the phrase, "you guys will go over like a lead zeppelin", which is weird because many of them were famous musicians before they formed the group.

Re:Bad news for heavy metal fans

[Altus]

I believe the tale is that Page's idea to call the band "The New Yardbirds" was what would "go over like a lead zeplin."

Type 1 diabetes

[slazzy]

Lead may be a trigger in autoimmune disorders such as type 1 diabetes as well.

Re:Type 1 diabetes

[Anonymous Coward]

No. So no that it's just scary.

Type 1 diabetes means "requires insulin". No more, no less. The most common form of it is an auto-immune problem that destroys insulin producing cells. There is actually an effective treatment in testing at Mass. General Hospital, by Dr. Faustmann's lab, using the BCG vaccine in small doses to modify the white cell response and allow adult stem cells to transform into insulin producing cells. It's *very* exciting stuff.

There is a great deal of immunological analysis and some biological testing that shows autoimmune Type 1 is triggered by infection, especially variants of the Coxsackie B flu virus. It's why some researchers have been trying to provide a diabetes vaccine. Part of the problem is that flu viruses mutate very quickly and very effictively, so even an effective vaccine wouldn't last long.

Lead is a problem, but for pete's sake don't mix it up with other issues.

Re:Type 1 diabetes

[Megol]

You may be right but your post are talking about something else than slazzy did.

Trigger != only reason for.

Re:Type 1 diabetes

[slazzy]

Here's a link to some of the studies : http://www.diabetesandenvironm...

Unlikely

[110010001000]

People at highest risk from cardiovascular disease are also at risk to exposure to lead. Lead based paint is still prevalent in some inner cities in older housing. Poor people live in this housing and die earlier than middle/upper income people. Poor people have a higher rate of cardiovascular disease. These studies are always so silly.

Re:Unlikely

[Viol8]

Lead and its compounds are generally non volatile. There's about as much danger from lead in paint as there is from lead on a church roof. Unless you're stupid enough to lick it or eat it which admittedly some children can be.

Re:Unlikely

[K. S. Kyosuke]

If only there were some mathematical apparatus that would allow us to analyze the behavior of a variable with respect to multiple other variables...

Re: Unlikely

[Anonymous Coward]

When they test for income and socioeconomic status as confounding variables, but yet still see lead having a huge correlation with mortality...

Some studies are quite silly, but so are the much larger number of people who think a whole ten seconds of thought can counter a study they didn't even read.

Re:Unlikely

[110010001000]

Paint starts to flake, particularly by windows where sunlight comes in. Little kids sometimes sit by windows and look out and then suck their thumbs and ingest the lead. It is very common in the US. The kids aren't stupid, although you are ignorant.

Re:Unlikely

[Gr8Apes]

Paint deteriorates with time, flaking off and forming dust. I'm pretty sure that the leaded portion of paint is included in that dust. It's probably at greatest risk in poor housing where the lead paint is most likely to still be exposed to air.

The leaded church roof won't form any meaningful dust but will leach minute levels of lead into rain that falls upon it, thus transferring lead to everywhere the roof's rainwater goes.

Re: Unlikely

[110010001000]

It is because they aren't looking for the right thing. Lead paint is a big deal in cities where it was commonly used in pre-war housing. Just being "poor" doesn't mean you live in that housing. But if you looked at poor people who ALSO lived in housing with lead you would see a strong correlation. These lead paint studies are always made to support the idea that expensive remediation is needed (on taxpayer dollars).

Re:Unlikely

[110010001000]

First you have to correctly identify the variables. They haven't. These studies come out all the time, and are false. They want to fund massive remediation programs.

Re:Unlikely

[cnaumann]

Lead paint is common in _every_ house built before the mid 1970’s. If you look, you will find it. It is not just an inner city problem.

Re:Unlikely

[110010001000]

True, but it is a bigger problem in poor (a.k.a "inner city") areas because the maintenance isn't typically as high as non-poor areas, and housing is typically older. Lead paint isn't a problem until it starts to deteriorate.

Re:Unlikely

[110010001000]

Yes, furthermore I guarantee the blood samples they are using are taken from inner city people. Have you ever been tested for lead exposure? Probably not. But in (some) cities they have mandatory lead testing for children. Typically these samples are from poor(er) inner city people because those are the samples they can obtain. So they use these samples. They then make a bunch of connections in their studies that are false. For example the cardiovascular one. Next, someone will come out with a study that African Americans are more susceptible than anyone else to lead. The reality is the data is skewed. So stupid, but these lead studies come out every few years.

Re:Unlikely

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, compare lifespans of poor people in new low income housing in inner cities to old housing in inner cities for it to be valid.

Re:Unlikely

[nasch]

Did you read the paper, or are you just going off the /. summary?

Re:Unlikely

[jareth-0205]

People at highest risk from cardiovascular disease are also at risk to exposure to lead. Lead based paint is still prevalent in some inner cities in older housing. Poor people live in this housing and die earlier than middle/upper income people. Poor people have a higher rate of cardiovascular disease. These studies are always so silly.

Ah yes I've seen your posts before. You come up with some reasons off the top of your head that would explain away the study's findings, and just assume that the practitioners didn't take any of that into account. It's arrogance in the highest degree.

Re:Unlikely

[jareth-0205]

He doesn't read them, he just assumes that everyone else is stupid.

Re:Unlikely

[edtice1559]

I have no idea how this got modded to +5. Do you think that study authors really make no attempt to control for these variables? The studies aren't silly. At least not the vast majority of them. What you do is you take into account factors such as poverty and then you look to see if those factors explain the entirety of an effect. If not you have some evidence that the factor in question (in this case lead) is contributory. Now some studies suffer from trying to control so many factors that you question whether it can be done accurately. But the only thing silly is calling studies silly.

Similar tactics

[dargaud]

It's interesting to note the lead has been known to be toxic since at least the time of the ancient greeks. And yet the paint industry used it as its main component for white paint until something like WWII. They used the same tactics that have been later used by Big Tobacco and climate change deniers to delay change by spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt. Particularly paying respected professionals (doctors, etc) to publish and deny toxicity.
How do we know that ? When they were finally convicted, their archives were forced to become public and proved a treasure trove of assholery (or is that assholeness ?) There are several recent books and publications about that (namely in Scientific American)

Re:Similar tactics

[Anonymous Coward]

Its just a normal aspect of society. We reject bad news on things we are (in general) directly familiar with, like or find useful. Lead is extremely useful. We like(d) cigarettes. We like sugar in our food.

And we will continue to be that way. I see people instantly reject studies that suggest marijuana in dangerous, or vaping. The people that most staunchly reject those studies tend to be the people that use those products. If we saw a study tomorrow that said potatoes were dangerous, the instant reaction would be that something must be wrong with the study.

Meanwhile, we collectively accept FUD on things we are less familiar with, like radiation/nuclear power (although X-Rays are fine). I remember how much of the public was afraid of microwave ovens for some time until we all got comfortable with them. Autonomous cars might be another example where FUD is readily accepted due to unfamiliarity.

Yes, there can be other factors like the tobacco industry interests that play into social reaction, but they were more easily successful in playing down health impacts of cigarettes because of a largely accepting society.

Re:Similar tactics

[Gilgaron]

Well eating varnish isn't good for you either... and in addition to making vibrant colors, lead in paint also acted as a preservative. But still, you'd hope they wouldn't lie about it and just own up to that it was dangerous, explain the benefits, and how to use it safely. Certainly the sales reps don't try to convince us that lab chemicals are safe, we just get trained on how to avoid being injured by them.

Re:Similar tactics

[hey!]

Actually, it's a conscious and deliberate choice by companies to exploit the natural tendency to be overly skeptical of change and overly accepting of the status quo. Yes, society is refractory when it comes to change, but it is not infinitely refractory. Without the calculated deceptions for companies profiting from the status quo, society would adapt to new information more quickly.

Re:Similar tactics

[jbmartin6]

Assholesomeness

Re:Similar tactics

[Luthair]

Funny, I posted something very similar when this story was submitted and the submitter had included some bogus comment about how it was another instance of scientific experts being proven wrong :eyeroll:

Re:Similar tactics

[orgelspieler]

Could we call it a memeograph?

Also, I'm humming the jingle for Big Red, for some reason. Maybe Big Lead could be a gum that whitens teeth in the worst. possible. way.

Re:Similar tactics

[TimMD909]

... [ redacted due to not being relevant to my smartassery ] ... How do we know that ? When they were finally convicted, their archives were forced to become public and proved a treasure trove of assholery (or is that assholeness ?) There are several recent books and publications about that (namely in Scientific American)

"Assholeness" or "asshattery" are the accepted terms.

Re:Similar tactics

[Gilgaron]

I'm not familiar with lead gelled linseed oil, but you might be able to get something close with some japan drier and boiled linseed oil?

Re:Similar tactics

[cnaumann]

Lead was widely used as paint pigment in the US in residential housing until the 1970's. Special applications continued long after that.
 

Re:Similar tactics

[Uberbah]

Hmm, sounds like denialist hand waiving. You know, like the line that in the 70's all the scientists were worried about a new ice age when that's total crap.

Re:Similar tactics

[Uberbah]

Meanwhile, we collectively accept FUD on things we are less familiar with, like radiation/nuclear power

You wish it was FUD. Nuclear power is completely unjustifiable based on cost alone. It costs far too much to build, maintain, decommission and deal with the waste for thousands of years compared to just about any other alternative under the sun.

Re:Similar tactics

[piojo]

in addition to making vibrant colors, lead in paint also acted as a preservative.

Lead also acts as a drying agent, helping paints to oxidize and form polymers. It has the distinction of being the only metallic curing agent that can be made without specialty chemicals or equipment and used at room temperature. No wonder manufacturers liked it.

Probably from unleaded gas

[Dr.EvilBetty]

From the dates that the blood samples were taken, 1988-1994, I would say that most people at that time had elevated lead levels from breathing all the leaded gas fumes for years previous. The mandate for catalytic converters went through in 1975 but, as I remember, it was into the 80's before all the leaded gas had stopped being available. I would bet that if that sampling were done now the levels would be much lower for most of the people sampled; at least the younger ones who were born after the switch to unleaded gas.

Re:Probably from unleaded gas

[hey!]

Many believe that tetraethyl lead is responsible for the rise in violent crime in the 70s and 80s, tracking the increase in cars and gasoline consumption in the post WW2 years. Likewise the drop in violent starting around 1990 was the effect of lead-free gas.

Other than the availability of safe, legal abortions, it's about the only factor anyone's come up with that explains the prevalence of the violent crime trend across countries and legal jurisdictions with very different philosophies with respect to crime. In the US the reduction parallels an increase in gun sales, but the same trend occurs in countries where gun sales are flat or have gone down.

Re:Probably from unleaded gas

[Immerman]

Quite. In fact I recall a study done analyzing violent crime rates around the world that found in every country violent crime started climbing ~20 years after the introduction of leaded gasoline, and began falling ~20 years after it was eliminated. Basically, if you grew up breathing lead fumes, you were more likely to commit violent crimes as an adult. The fact that every country introduced and banned leaded gasoline at different times helps to eliminate most other confounding factors that might have been responsible.

Not at all surprising as a social observation, considering we know that on an individual level lead exposure in childhood tends to boost aggressiveness while reducing impulse control.

Re:Probably from unleaded gas

[sjames]

Very probably, but since the effect was seen even at levels currently considered "safe", it still suggests that we may need to change what we consider "safe".

In some places that were adjacent to heavy traffic, we may need to clean up the left over lead.

Oh crap...

[jenningsthecat]

I guess that's the end of my cavalier attitude towards lead-based solder - now that I've been soldering for 50-plus years and still use my lips as a 'third hand' to hold solder sometimes. I know it's elemental lead and therefore less readily absorbed, but still... I've had my blood tested for lead levels a few times, and never had any results that caused my doctor even mild concern. But now that I've read this... It's probably too late for me, but from now on I won't be making any more snarky comments about "politically correct solder".

Lead based solder performs much better than the alternatives, because lead is an 'aggressive' metal. I guess even the elemental form may be similarly aggressive when it comes to biochemical activity. Of course, this also renews my concerns about the mouthful of mercury I have in the form of dental fillings.

Re:Oh crap...

[I'm New Around Here]

Your comment just reminded me of the two lead bars we had when I was a kid. They were ovals, with a company name and logo on the top side. Each one was about the size of a large bar of soap, but weighed 5 or 10 pounds. We would play with them sometimes, but only for a few minutes because of how heavy they were.

Re:Oh crap...

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of the more recent lead-free solders work as well as standard lead-based ones - they have a silver content of about 3% and are not exactly cheap. Took us a while to find the right one, there are many awful hard-to-work lead-free solders around. We finally abandoned all the leaded solder to cut down on the annoyance of half-yearly lead tests required by local regulatories for having it around. Saved costs for tests more than made up for the higher costs of the solder.

Re:Oh crap...

[ProzacPatient]

I have actually heard that lead based solder is environmentally better because it would lead (pun not intended) to less waste and contamination. The reasoning is that the eventual breakdown of tin based solder (whiskers, fractures, etc..) causes electronics to fail far more frequently and far sooner than they should otherwise, and so as a consequence instead of fixing it people will just throw their devices away and get another one and then meanwhile their old device will find its way into a dump site somewhere.

That is just what I've heard. If anyone knows more about this I'd like to hear it.

Re:Oh crap...

[Megol]

Short: conspiracy talk.

Longer (TLDR?):
Electronics doesn't die due to tin whiskers, the exempted areas that use leaded electronics (military, aviation, space, nuclear power plants, ...) are conservative and use what is known to work. Lead free solder require changes in soldering procedures which did cause problems previously (and in some cases still do) but whiskers aren't something commonly found in failed electronics.
Most modern electronics die due to trends of everything having to be thin and light. That means we get electronics with smaller solder balls (shrinking BGAs with increasing number of connections), hotter temperatures and more varying temperatures (power management), devices more likely to suffer mechanical torture etc.

Even if using leaded solder we'd have to use a number of different solders for different purposes and have the associated problems:
One nice example being the Nvidia problem where BGA chips disconnected after some thermal cycling. While some claim the problem was in the underfill (material going around solder balls "gluing" the BGA chip itself to the substrate) it was often temporary fixed by trying to resolder the BGA chip in place. But the problematic chips used high-lead solder so it's not indicative of problems with lead free solders.
Other similar problems like for the Xbox 360 have sometimes been blamed on lead free solder (no idea if that's correct) but as the above indicates this is something shared by modern electronics not matter which kind of solder is used.

Also fashion/trends make people throw away perfectly good electronics long before they fail. I still have electronics produced with early lead free methods and they work exactly as they should - though that is of course just an anecdote rather than proof.

Re:Oh crap...

[jenningsthecat]

Interestingly, I haven't personally noticed problems with lead-free solder on SMT components - probably because most of the repair work I've done has been on lower-tech electronics where the parts and packages are larger and the connections are much less dense. My beef with lead-free has to do with through-hole components, especially those that carry higher currents and/or are subject to thermal cycling. I've seen quite a few such joints fail, even with plated holes, suitable hole sizes relative to the leads, and solder fillets on both sides of the board. I didn't see this kind of thing nearly as often before lead-free solder came on the scene. The lead-free solder just seems to be more brittle. Maybe the thermal cycling causes some work-hardening - I can imagine lead being much less susceptible to that.

Re:Oh crap...

[GuB-42]

Unleaded solder has a higher melting point. It requires a hotter iron, preferably a higher end model with an active tip. It also requires a better technique in order not to overheat components.

The industry had a hard time with unleaded solder. With joints cracking and all that. So much that for some time, critical components liked the ones used by the aerospace industry could use leaded solder despite the general ban.

Re:Oh crap...

[sl3xd]

The industry had a hard time with unleaded solder.

It's not a past tense thing. The industry continues to have a hard time with unleaded solder - the great "iPhone Touch Plague" that hit pretty much every iPhone 6 and 6+ comes to mind -- due to the solder joints cracking on a BGA chip.

Tin whiskers continue to be a poorly-understood reliability issue, with component manufacturers regularly publishing app notes about mitigation strategies. We've had huge improvements vs 2008, but it's not a "solved" problem yet.

Lead solder is one of those issues where exposure is not a problem if the people using it care about the risks, and can take the (almost trivial) precautions.

The problem, of course, is that employers often don't care about the risks of lead, combined with employees who don't care either -- and of course on the other end, we have countries that feel it's acceptable to ship any e-waste to a country that isn't able to recycle it safely.

Re:Shooting ranges.

[I'm New Around Here]

Come at me bro! My address is: 192.168.1.101.
You stupid pig fucker.

Re:Ban Lead #BanLead

[I'm New Around Here]

You also need to come up with a rhyming chant that is simple enough for grade schoolers to repeat.

Re:Ban Lead #BanLead

[Kokuyo]

Four legs good, two legs bad?

Wait, that doesn't rhyme...

Fishing weights

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Fishing weight used to be made of lead... My grandpa would sometimes make some at home, melting the metal on a small gas burner. I remember playing with them quite a bit as a kid, they were exquisitely heady.

Since I don't fish, I don't know what these are made of today ... Still lead?

Re:Fishing weights

[helpfulcorn]

Often tungsten these days, usage of lead is banned in all US national parks for fishing, in fact probably almost all fishing areas, but they're still "floating" around and people still use them to a limited extent, especially if they've got old fishing equipment.

Re:Fishing weights

[XxtraLarGe]

Fishing weight used to be made of lead...

And you had to bite them in order to make them open up before putting them on your line, and then bit them again to close them on the line. At least as a kid that's what I had to do, because I didn't have the finger strength.

Re:Fishing weights

[orgelspieler]

Still lead. I still use my teeth to tighten them on the line. Oh well. I also make stained glass with lead solder, so I'm prolly gonna die.

Re:Fishing weights

[jenningsthecat]

At least here in Ontario, lead fishing sinkers are still available. I purchased some recently as weights for adjusting thread tensions on sewing machines.

Your grandfather used lead to make sinkers. My dad used sinkers as a source of lead; he melted them down and poured the lead into the holes he had drilled in the head of one of his putters. He was tuning the balance so the club would be more accurate.

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Re:Figures, Lead

[Applehu Akbar]

Might explain why the fucking seppos are so fucking stupid. America, home of the dumbfuck.

So how much lead, and other entertaining substances, are you people getting from burning coal?

Link to the original article:

[quenda]

I don't need the karma whoring, but why not. Here I think, is the actual article in the Lancet by Lanphear et al.

abstract: http://www.thelancet.com/journ...

full text: http://www.thelancet.com/journ...

Re:Link to the original article:

[Jerry]

This full text link works:
http://www.thelancet.com/journ...

Good that America cleaned up our coal

[WindBourne]

Seriously, either cleaning up or shutting down coal plants is one of the smartest economical things that we did in a while.
Even now, our lead on the ground is a fraction of what it was 10 years ago. As such, our children will have much lower medical costs than what we have today. The rest will be gone over the next 20 years, if not 10.

Re: Good that America cleaned up our coal

[viperidaenz]

All because General Motors could make more money from adding lead to petrol instead of ethanol to increase octane rating.

Re: Good that America cleaned up our coal

[WindBourne]

That was true in the 70s. But for the last 20+ years, coal power plants has been America's main emitter. Btw, steel mills will become the new main source for America, even though it is small.

Re: Good that America cleaned up our coal

[sl3xd]

I seem to recall reading that our biggest Mercury exposure comes from burning coal as well.

Re:more garbage science.

[WindBourne]

yeah, it could not possibly be that the lead in the blood leads to poor health esp in our immune system, which then allows for regular bugs to kill us off. No, not that.

Re:Look at the real statistics

[WindBourne]

This is NOT an anti-lead study. It is a pro-death one. They are simply showing how to accelerate the deaths.

Thanks to coal-fired plants

[blind biker]

Lead is but one of the heavy metals that coal fired plants spew into the environment, in massive amounts. Compared to them, nuclear plants are decidedly clean.

Re:Thanks to coal-fired plants

[quenda]

Lead is but one of the heavy metals that coal fired plants spew into the environment, in massive amounts. Compared to them, nuclear plants are decidedly clean.

This is all true, but lead is a very small part of that problem. Only 41 tonnes of lead from coal in 2014, compared to around 100 tonnes from leaded avgas, and over 100,000 tonnes/year back when cars used leaded gasoline.

https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-e...

Re:Thanks to coal-fired plants

[blind biker]

Thank you good sir, for the information.

Re:Millions were killed by Tetraethyl Lead

[WindBourne]

in fact, that was the single largest source of lead to Americans back in the 70s. Next came house paint, which ALL contained lead. Any house made before the 70s, has lead on the walls.
What is interesting is that back then, coal plants were a small % of our electricity and lead as well. But after 3-mile island combined with the china syndrome, Coal plants jumped to 60% of our electricity. Needless to say, by mid 80s, they were #1 source of lead and mercury around our nation. Still far less than in China, but enough to impact us. Now, with the mercury clean-up and shutting down of coal plants, I believe that our #1 emitter of lead/mercury is our steel mills. Thankfully, Project Tim in Michigan will kill that off.

Re:more garbage science.

[apoc.famine]

Could you point us to where your peer reviewed article is published rebutting this research? Because if you can't, you're just talking out your ass with nothing to back those words up.

The Carrot Effect

[Zorro]

Substitute the word "Lead" with "Carrot" and see if it remains the same.

If you test hard enough you can find tiny bits of anything in everything.

Ob

[Hognoxious]

Last week, a massive new study concluded that lead is 10 times more dangerous than thought

There was this guy in my town who died of thought. He was an electrician and he thought he'd pulled the master fuse out.

The study is based on blood tests

[istartedi]

From TFS:

Lanphear and colleagues examined potential confounders and effect modifiers, including age, sex, ethnic origin, urban residence, smoking status, diabetes, hypertension, serum cholesterol, alcohol intake, and household income. They noted no appreciable attenuation of their estimates by any of these factors. The effect of lead on all-cause mortality and on cardiovascular disease mortality was greater in people younger than 50 years than in older adults, and it was significantly larger for non-smokers than for smokers.

Re:more garbage science.

[edtice1559]

The mods must be crazy. You're the second one to get modded-up today for such an uninsightful comment. Sorry but if you've ever *read* a study, the first thing that every author does is try to control for these variables and determine whether or not there is an additional effect. Now one fair criticism is that maybe the effect of lead is *less* than the other factors (I don't know). But there's not a single study out there that doesn't go through the process of controlling for known factors.

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Re:Millions were killed by Tetraethyl Lead

[Enigma2175]

in fact, that was the single largest source of lead to Americans back in the 70s. Next came house paint, which ALL contained lead. Any house made before the 70s, has lead on the walls.

What is interesting is that back then, coal plants were a small % of our electricity and lead as well. But after 3-mile island combined with the china syndrome, Coal plants jumped to 60% of our electricity. Needless to say, by mid 80s, they were #1 source of lead and mercury around our nation. Still far less than in China, but enough to impact us. Now, with the mercury clean-up and shutting down of coal plants, I believe that our #1 emitter of lead/mercury is our steel mills. Thankfully, Project Tim in Michigan will kill that off.

Do you have actual data to back that up? Looking at this graph and this graph, coal generation in the 70's was around 1/2 of the total generating capacity and doesn't seem to have any correlation to Three Mile Island or the release of The China Syndrome (both 1979).

slanted treatment of data?

[Jerry]

"Thus, 14289 (76%) participants were included in this analysis. 1150 (9%) individuals had concentrations of lead in blood below the level of detection and had an amount of 07 g/dL (0034 mol/L) imputed."

So, for 9% of those still alive whose Pb blood level was below the level of detection they "imputed" their Pb level at 0.7 micrograms per deciliter.

"Our findings suggest that, of 23 million deaths every year in the USA, about 400000 are attributable to lead exposure, an estimate that is about ten times larger than the current one."

"suggests"? A British journal citing work by a Canadian research team about children in America and their findings, claiming an influence 10X larger than previous research, are a "suggestion".

The Lancet has taken huge detours into politics in the last few decades and this appears to be another side jaunt. What issue in American politics could they possibly be trying to influence? Obama shut down the last remaining lead mining and processing plant in Missouri in 2013, and by E.O. outlawed importing Lead into the country.
http://www.thefirearmblog.com/...

Re:slanted treatment of data?

[sl3xd]

The thing is the more we study how Lead interacts with the body, the more we find that Lead is among the exceptions to the addage "the dose makes the poison." The more we look at it, the more we realize that there is no "safe" amount of Lead.

Even then, while the Missouri plant was shutdown, the key takeaway is that it's the last plant dedicated to processing Lead.

There are other mines which continue to produce lead in the US -- it's just that lead is a byproduct, not the main attraction.

The Bingham Canyon Mine in Utah started with the discovery of lead deposits in 1863. The "catch" is that lead isn't the mine/smelter's primary product (which is copper). They still produce quite a bit of lead, which is a byproduct of smelting the copper & gold ore.

The reality is that 88% of lead used in the US is from lead-acid batteries -- which are both produced and recycled outside the US (just like everything else, because of lower labor costs).

Eurpoe's RoHS all but eliminated lead use for electronics, and the high price of copper has caused everybody to switched to PEX for plumbing (which doesn't use/need solder).

That really only leaves ammunition as a major use of lead in the US, and the lead produced as a "byproduct" of producing other metals is sufficient for America's hunger to shoot more cast boolets. Even with shortages caused by "preppers" hoarding a decade's worth of ammo for the apocalypse du jour, the problem wasn't a shortage of lead -- but powder and brass.

And what are the options to remove it besides EDTA

[chatoitaly]

And yet nobody is talking about EDTA (especially taken orally and not through IV)?? There is a phase 2 trial ongoing. Results of phase 1 were still pretty fascinating. EDTA has the ability to bind to substances such as Lead and then it is able to be eliminated from the body. Where is our real Artificial Intelligent systems that can do incredibly deep and wide searching of data and begin to truly allow us to make more intelligent decisions on how to reach longevity through optimal choices of lifestyle, foods, medicines,etc. We know lead is bad, so give us dang options to remove it !

Protection

[Grady Martin]

Lead dust is as small as 0.1 microns in diameter.

N95 and HEPA respirator filters only block airborne particles at least 0.3 microns in diameter.

The CDC hereby recommends wearing scuba gear for respiratory protection at the firing range.

Sponsored by?

[ebvwfbw]

The lead abatement companies.

Re:more garbage science.

[rsborg]

> lead exposure doesn't lead to an increased death rate.

Except study after study shows it. Seriously, [cite needed] for your backwards-ass claims.

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Re:more garbage science.

[rsborg]

This study controlled for those factors and still saw a causative factor. Explain that.

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[account_deleted]

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Re:more garbage science.

[rsborg]

Go ahead and point to animal toxicity studies. I'll take a 6-year study that actually shows results from humans (with a very large N as well).

I'll dig that.

Re:Bullets

[sl3xd]

Lead toxicity is only a problem for survivors of gun violence (which, to be fair, is still 65-70% of those affected). The Hollywood meme of removing the bullet in a darkened warehouse is the opposite of reality: removing the bullet is usually far more dangerous than leaving it in place.

The body usually encapsulates the bullet, and that usually eliminates further damage from the bullet. But not always.