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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

#31

Post by kords »

wallawe wrote: post #3
fullstop wrote: post #2

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.

I got a bathtub stopper and I saw on the box a Prop65 warning. Not sure if it's because of the lead.

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

#32

Post by JCBird1012 »

wallawe wrote: post #3
fullstop wrote: post #2

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.

Smaller general aviation aircraft still use 100LL gasoline (the LL stands for low lead) - and even though there’s lead-free replacement candidates (still going through regulatory approval, at least in the US), it’s been known that areas around airports with frequent GA traffic have higher levels of lead in the air, and children living near said airports may have elevated levels of lead in their blood (https://paloaltoonline.com/news/2021/08/06/new-study-finds-l...)

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

#33

Post by foobarian »

stuaxo wrote: post #11
fullstop wrote: post #2

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.

Even though lead was removed from petrol, there is a lot in soil and dust in cities, and that is still agitated out into the air. 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...

Remember that avgas still uses leaded fuel (though that will hopefully improve soon).

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

#34

Post by long_time_gone »

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…

==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.==

We can barely get the funding today to replace lead pipes, the bare minimum to try and limit exposure, I doubt we'll be tracking down individuals any time soon.

* https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-push-to-replace-americas-...

==how people with more woke attitudes approach other group-specific issues==

I think in this case "woke" people would try to understand and empathize with those "group-specific issues" and help develop and implement plans to solve those issues. I think we see this in the "woke" political parties leading the charge on "group-specific issues" like voting rights, indigenous rights, immigrant rights, women's reproductive rights, healthcare as a right, etc. Just look at the typical political affiliations of the three "groups" you mentioned. It might answer your question.

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

#35

Post by contravariant »

silicon2401 wrote: post #23
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?

That's basically equivalent to just saying the human body contains atoms for all isotopes. And other than the unstable or exceedingly rare isotopes I don't see why not.

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

#36

Post by dj_gitmo »

My kid took a routine test and was found to have 5.0 μg/dL, which is elevated but not alarming. The source is most likely paint chips or dust. I'm in an old building which has lead paint that was painted over. It's totally legal to just paint over the lead paint, but since the building is settling the paint on the door frames often chips off.

My landlord has been good about offering to strip in repaint the frames, but I would rather not because I feel like all of the scraping would place even more lead chips and dust in the environment. I'd rather be diligent about cleaning and have them do that strip it after we move.

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

#37

Post by Wohlf »

NineStarPoint wrote: post #29
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.

In my experience it's even worse than being too centered around the white male, it's too centered on a fictional 'average' person and if you fall outside that you have to research and advocate for yourself. If I have to do that as a mildly neuro-divergent white male then people less privileged than I am must be in real trouble.

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

#38

Post by flurie »

roland35 wrote: post #15

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…

I have another surprising addition to that list: Christmas lights.

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

#39

Post by fokinsean »

stuaxo wrote: post #11
fullstop wrote: post #2

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.

Even though lead was removed from petrol, there is a lot in soil and dust in cities, and that is still agitated out into the air. 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...

Same thing with asbestos, there is a non-zero background level in the air because it was used in so many products for a long time.

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

#40

Post by patja »

neaden wrote: post #16
roland35 wrote: post #15

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…

Don't forget the soil in your yard, even if the house was built yesterday the soil could still have lead contamination from leaded gasoline.

And decades of paint chips from previous exterior paint prep that may not have been well-contained.
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