Live data from Hacker News

Lead is even deadlier than was feared

theguardian.com

81–90 of 184 posts

Re: Lead is even deadlier than was feared

#81
TLDR: 400,000 annual US deaths are attributed to lead poisoning, 10x increases over previous estimates. The difference is due to previous studies excluding low doses of lead, assuming they have no effect. The news here is that any rise of lead is dangerous.

The study is observational and looking for correlation, involves 12k people, and controls for all usual factors including wealth.

It seems legit to me, given that controls are in place and the mechanism has been well established earlier.

Re: Lead is even deadlier than was feared

#82
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a reason to use actual leaded gas rather than a lead substitute? I don't know that much about classic cars but my dad uses a lead substitute for his as opposed to actual lead.

“Simply put, unleaded fuel burns less smoothly than leaded and the toluene and benzene, which is added to the fuel to act as a lead substitute, burns to form what are called peroxides. Unfortunately peroxides are inherently unstable and explode, forming shock waves that cause detonation. This explains why engines designed to run on unleaded from the outset feature sophisticated knock sensors, which retard the ignitio…

Right, but that article goes on to talk about various non-lead substitutes you should add... I know why unleaded vs leaded, but there are substitutes for lead that are designed for use in classic cars but don't actually contain lead, that's what I was asking the difference of.

Basically, why use actual lead in gas when lead substitute exists and is recommended for classic cars as an additive to unleaded fuel?

Re: Lead is even deadlier than was feared

#83
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read up on BPA, drinking from plastic bottles and other endocrine disruptors we still allow in our food supply. As a side note, a lot of people think more quantity = more poisonous. This is not always the case as a small amount can mimic a hormone wrecking our hormone levels over time.

https://newrepublic.com/article/86339/toxins-plastic-shampoo... is interesting.

From that article...

>measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, linked, by a sketchy and quickly refuted study, to autism. The supposed connection made a bigger impression than the refutation, and, while I didn’t actually know anyone who failed to get their children immunized for MMR, plenty of parents did refuse the shot;

According to Andrew Wakefield, what he suggested was just that people use single, separate shots instead of the cocktail MMR vaccine. And then people started switching to single shots and sale of MMR dropped, which made the government (or someone forced them as he says) stopping the import of single vaccines and thereby depriving people of that option...According to him, then and only then did the vaccination rates dropped.

Re: Lead is even deadlier than was feared

#84
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically the first scholarly result searching for heavy metals and spirulina covers the risk of ingesting them because it bioaccumulates. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3824145/ The article does refer to several studies showing health benefits for spirulina, although none of them discuss using it to remove heavy metals from the body (it’s not even clear to me how such a mechanism could possibly work).

I am not a doctor, but it’s something to do with Spirulina binding with the metals. Or it could be that I’ve mistaken Spirulina for Chlorella. Because they bind with metals it’s important to get them from clean sources as I mentioned.

Heavy metals accumulate in organs inside your body. Algae and other plants have a mechanism that prevents oxidative metals from damaging them. Does this mean if you eat those plants, they’ll do the same for you? It seems incredibly unlikely since the first thing your body does to these plants is digest them. You are not a plant.

Re: Lead is even deadlier than was feared

#85
post #31

> Worryingly, the “precautionary principle” that led to the phase-out, and is enshrined in EU law, is in danger from Brexit. The precautionary principle is not a vademecum — indeed, it can be taken far too far and become an excuse for either unthinking conservatism (banning anything new out of an overabundance of precaution).

For professional reasons I am aware of the ongoing controversy regarding titanium dioxide (used in paints and so forth) where an apparently flawed rat study has triggered off major pandemonium at the heart of REACH (EU’s materials risk assessment and management system) and threatens to run my industry aground, all because of the ”precautionary mechanism” and some possibly bad science. I’m not terribly confident about how bureaucracies process this kind of information.

Re: Lead is even deadlier than was feared

#90

Serious question: does this mean I need to start being a lot more careful about lead debris generated by hobbyist soldering?

Yes?

I don't know why people still use leaded solder in the first place? I only use lead free solder for my hobby projects, and it works fine.

Post reply on HN