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My house was built in the 70s and I've tested surfaces over the years and have not found any lead paint yet. Another source of lead, unfortunately, is in children's toys.
This article shows how there is lead in Londons air despite it being removed in the 90s from fuel:
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/224474/lead-from-leaded-petr...
scientists saw observable levels of the toxic metal in about half As a former analytical chemist, we can detect most metals down to the parts per trillion or lower. So the more sensitive our instruments get the “more kids have lead”. With sufficiently sensitive testing you’d probably find lead in 100% of people.
> most of the affected kids ... didn’t have enormous amounts of lead in their bloodstreams, and only two percent had a "high" level. But as the researchers note in their paper, there's no such thing as a safe amount of lead to have in your system. It's possible that more sensitive instruments will allow us to eventually conclude "this small amount X of lead is safe to have ...". But it makes sense to take this seriou…
scientists saw observable levels of the toxic metal in about half As a former analytical chemist, we can detect most metals down to the parts per trillion or lower. So the more sensitive our instruments get the “more kids have lead”. With sufficiently sensitive testing you’d probably find lead in 100% of people.
> most of the affected kids ... didn’t have enormous amounts of lead in their bloodstreams, and only two percent had a "high" level. But as the researchers note in their paper, there's no such thing as a safe amount of lead to have in your system. It's possible that more sensitive instruments will allow us to eventually conclude "this small amount X of lead is safe to have ...". But it makes sense to take this seriou…
My house was built in the 70s and I've tested surfaces over the years and have not found any lead paint yet. Another source of lead, unfortunately, is in children's toys.
- Paint: lead was banned in paint in 1979, but lead was used less and less even before the cutoff date. Paint is especially a problem when it is chipping or wearing off, like on windows or doors.
- Plumbing. Very old homes may have lead pipes which should be removed. Lead solder was used with copper pipes until ~1984, but this is somewhat less of a concern, depending on your water source (cities can change the water to leach less lead from pipes).
- Plumbing fixtures: this is actually a pretty major source of lead in water, and luckily it is easy to change old faucets. You can run water for a minute to mitigate risk with old faucets.
- Flooring: Lead can be in any ceramic tiles, but generally not too much. It is only a problem if you are removing tiles and are creating lots of dust.
My wife and I are particularly concerned about lead, especially since there is no way to really cure lead poisoning. Any house built before the 1980s could have lead in it, with varying degrees of concern for children. Around the home here is what we found are sources of lead to worry about (or not): - Paint: lead was banned in paint in 1979, but lead was used less and less even before the cutoff date. Paint is espec…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> most of the affected kids ... didn’t have enormous amounts of lead in their bloodstreams, and only two percent had a "high" level. But as the researchers note in their paper, there's no such thing as a safe amount of lead to have in your system. It's possible that more sensitive instruments will allow us to eventually conclude "this small amount X of lead is safe to have ...". But it makes sense to take this seriou…
I might be mistaken here, but from what I've read on lead, we already know relatively well what amount of lead is safe, according to body weight etc. We also know that our bodies can deal with these small amounts, by actually getting rid of some of it. Maybe someone with more knowledge on the matter can chime in?
My house was built in the 70s and I've tested surfaces over the years and have not found any lead paint yet. Another source of lead, unfortunately, is in children's toys.
> Another source of lead, unfortunately, is in children's toys. Yeah this was going to be my question, is where is the lead coming from? Water, toys, what else? Having a 4 week old, seeing this concerns me so I'd love to do what I can to avoid it.
My house was built in the 70s and I've tested surfaces over the years and have not found any lead paint yet. Another source of lead, unfortunately, is in children's toys.
> Another source of lead, unfortunately, is in children's toys. Yeah this was going to be my question, is where is the lead coming from? Water, toys, what else? Having a 4 week old, seeing this concerns me so I'd love to do what I can to avoid it.
Old stuff has lead, but also has a bunch of other things that are of dubious health effects.
But new stuff contains more volatiles, more fluorinated plastics, and a far wider array of newish chemicals we don't yet have good data on (nanoparticles etc.)
Overall, I'd say that unless you have a lifetime to test and research everything, it probably isn't worth making any lifestyle choices to avoid unhealthy materials, because in doing so there's a good chance you'll just switch to another. But you should ask your government to put more money into population wide health initiatives, like research into health effects of chemicals.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> most of the affected kids ... didn’t have enormous amounts of lead in their bloodstreams, and only two percent had a "high" level. But as the researchers note in their paper, there's no such thing as a safe amount of lead to have in your system. It's possible that more sensitive instruments will allow us to eventually conclude "this small amount X of lead is safe to have ...". But it makes sense to take this seriou…
I might be mistaken here, but from what I've read on lead, we already know relatively well what amount of lead is safe, according to body weight etc. We also know that our bodies can deal with these small amounts, by actually getting rid of some of it. Maybe someone with more knowledge on the matter can chime in?
Lead exists in the environment. It would be impractical to impossible to eliminate it entirely from the blood streams of most people. However certain areas have extremely dangerous concentrations such as dirt near major roads/old buildings, water in certain areas, and lead paints.
Lead pipes are an interesting one where it is simply impractical to replace all the pipes and remove lead in old cities. Hence as long as the calcification holds there is no action on the small amount of lead which leaks into the pipes.