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Half of American kids have lead in their blood, doctors say

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Re: Half of American kids have lead in their blood, doctors say

#21

Post by alisonkisk »

wyldfire wrote: post #8
refurb wrote: post #4

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…

> "this small amount X of lead is safe to have ...".

wouldn't make the popular news media, but "lead in our blood!" does

Re: Half of American kids have lead in their blood, doctors say

#22

Post by silicon2401 »

Topics like this bring modern attitudes about identity to a tricky spot. A common view is that you aren't defined by XYZ, you can choose your identity and who you are or what you do. In reality, things like lead poisoning have a very powerful and undeniable impact on who you are and what you can do, e.g.

> Slow development of normal childhood behaviors, such as talking and use of words, and permanent intellectual disability are both commonly seen.

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_poisoning#Effects_on_chil...

If lead is really a widespread problem, and especially if it continues worsening, then we'll eventually reach a point where we need to identify individuals who have been impacted by lead and ideally take pre-emptive measures to help them with the consequences of it.

This makes me wonder how people with more woke attitudes approach other group-specific issues like sickle cell anemia in black people or myopia in Asian and Jewish people. In these cases, being XYZ does define you and the things you're at risk for.

Re: Half of American kids have lead in their blood, doctors say

#23

Post by silicon2401 »

refurb wrote: post #4

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.

Is your implication that we can find every single element in the periodic table (if not compounds and other chemicals, too) in the human body with sufficiently sensitive testing?

Re: Half of American kids have lead in their blood, doctors say

#24

Post by spekcular »

refurb wrote: post #4

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.

"Detectable" is defined as ≥1.0 μg/dL in the study. This is hardly a negligible amount, given what we know about the health effects of lead.

Re: Half of American kids have lead in their blood, doctors say

#25

Post by shadowgovt »

silicon2401 wrote: post #22

Topics like this bring modern attitudes about identity to a tricky spot. A common view is that you aren't defined by XYZ, you can choose your identity and who you are or what you do. In reality, things like lead poisoning have a very powerful and undeniable impact on who you are and what you can do, e.g. > Slow development of normal childhood behaviors, such as talking and use of words, and permanent intellectual dis…

I can't speak for the "woke" in general, but regarding medical conditions and their prevalence depending on racial origin: there's worlds of difference between defining what credit risk somebody is based on their skin color and informing people that skin color may be a correlative indicator that the resources should be invested to test their genetics for known maladies. The first is a crime in the United States, and the second is just good medicine.

Re: Half of American kids have lead in their blood, doctors say

#26

Post by coopierez »

silicon2401 wrote: post #22

Topics like this bring modern attitudes about identity to a tricky spot. A common view is that you aren't defined by XYZ, you can choose your identity and who you are or what you do. In reality, things like lead poisoning have a very powerful and undeniable impact on who you are and what you can do, e.g. > Slow development of normal childhood behaviors, such as talking and use of words, and permanent intellectual dis…

> people with more woke attitudes

This is extremely broad and it feels like a bit of a strawman - a classic feminist issue I've heard is how office chairs are often designed more for the average height of a man, therefore subtly excluding women from the workspace.

"people with more woke attitudes" would absolutely be on board with measures such as ensuring Asian people get the eye care they need (I suspect).

Re: Half of American kids have lead in their blood, doctors say

#27

Post by LucaMasters »

tokai wrote: post #9
refurb wrote: post #4

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.

Look at the actual paper for the actual numbers. Also lead is a problem in any concentration.

To summarize:

They defined these blood lead levels:

* "detectable": ≥1.0 μg/dL

* "elevated": ≥5.0 μg/dL

They found that:

* 50.5% had "detectable" levels (50.4%-50.6% for the 95% CI).

* 1.9% had "elevated" levels (1.8%-1.9% for the 95% CI [wait, how is the reported amount the same as the upper limit of the CI?]).

The paper does start out saying:

> No safe level of exposure to lead has been identified.

Which I believe to be true, though it's not the same as "no level of exposure to lead is safe". I would be interested in what levels are known to be unsafe. Is 1.0 μg/dL known to be unsafe, or just not known to be safe?

It's pretty clear we should be working to reduce lead exposure, especially in children, but it's also true that "detectable amounts" and "harmful" aren't the same thing. The former clearly varies with our technology and the other remains constant (and isn't, afaik, known to be 0).

Re: Half of American kids have lead in their blood, doctors say

#28

Post by shadowgovt »

lumost wrote: post #20
EL_Loco wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 understanding is that all detectable amounts currently have known negative effects when studied. The Action levels are set based on what is possible to address in an individual child. 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 bui…

In the US at least, were it structured as an infrastructure project on a city by city basis, it would actually be extremely possible to strip out lead pipes and replace them with something modern.

The problem is that pipe ownership in a domestic home is the property of the homeowner, and there's no political will to do that kind of massive wealth transfer from the public coffers to the improved infrastructure of millions of individual properties. But while it wouldn't be inexpensive, it's on par with other expenditures the federal government makes for federal projects.

Re: Half of American kids have lead in their blood, doctors say

#29

Post by NineStarPoint »

silicon2401 wrote: post #22

Topics like this bring modern attitudes about identity to a tricky spot. A common view is that you aren't defined by XYZ, you can choose your identity and who you are or what you do. In reality, things like lead poisoning have a very powerful and undeniable impact on who you are and what you can do, e.g. > Slow development of normal childhood behaviors, such as talking and use of words, and permanent intellectual dis…

I will say that, at least in the “woke” circles I notice, there is plenty of discussion about how medical knowledge is too centered around the white male. Finding studies that dig into the way race-specific biology should change medical treatment and risk factors is hard, and finding doctors who acknowledge those studies in how they think about patients is even harder.

Re: Half of American kids have lead in their blood, doctors say

#30

Post by [deleted] »

tokai wrote: post #9
refurb wrote: post #4

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.

Look at the actual paper for the actual numbers. Also lead is a problem in any concentration.

[deleted]
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