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Around one-in-three children globally suffer from lead poisoning

ourworldindata.org

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Re: Around one-in-three children globally suffer from lead poisoning

#191

Post by jeffbee »

Thetawaves wrote: post #137
narrator wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PCBs are fine. It's sealed in transformers. There's an empty lot downtown near me where a substation used to be and they can't build anything on it. A whole city block paved over with a fence around it that will never be used for anything again. Asbestos is fine, it's stuck in the walls, or it's in break pads nobody is inhaling, etc. However, many large industrial companies slowly went broke over decades because of a…

A real-life sacrifice zone. I would be surprised if these aren't common by the end of my life.

They are already very common. Go look at the California water board's statewide map of underground pollution. Essentially every site that ever was or is a gas station or dry cleaner has restrictions from ever becoming a home, school, day-care, or other similar uses. Anywhere you see an empty lot on a busy corner in a California city you can make a fair guess that it was a gas station.

Re: Around one-in-three children globally suffer from lead poisoning

#192

Post by ljwall »

nate_meurer wrote: post #179
londons_explore wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lead is so important in making ceramics, there is nobody proposing to ban it. Instead, the main proposal is to require ceramics to be tested after manufacture to ensure that the dose of lead leached into any given food or drink is sufficiently low. The main way that is achieved is by firing the ceramics at higher temperatures and longer to ensure the lead is better chemically bound to the rest of the pottery and leac…

Important in what way?

This is based on making pottery as a hobby: Most craft potters working in earthenware use lead glazes as the colour response is more appealing than what can easilly be achieved with other low-temperature fluxes. It's also more resistant to crazing, and for earthenware to be functional it's important the glaze doesn't craze significantly as earthenware is slightly porous- if the glaze is crazed then your coffee cup will leave a damp mark on the desk.

(Lead is not used on stoneware or porcelain.)

Re: Around one-in-three children globally suffer from lead poisoning

#193

Post by mistrial9 »

Aunche wrote: post #133
dTal wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an excellent cautionary tale against lazily attributing politically inconvenient data to testing bias (which remains fashionable). It may seem like an easy way out, but it also offers an excuse to simply ignore the problem, which perpetuates it.

Blaming testing bias is a great way to gain support from disadvantaged minorities without having to actually do any meaningful work. Conveniently, it allows allows the elite to exclude the educated bourgeoisie from their elite institutions, instead replacing them with underqualified candidates who pose no real threat to the power hierarchy.

definite "maybe" on that.. the statement "it allows" is made with certainty, yet at most, that is only part of one possible scenario.. among many

Re: Around one-in-three children globally suffer from lead poisoning

#194

Post by tick_tock_tick »

hunter2_ wrote: post #132
wincy wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean in an interview Steven Pinker himself said there’s some things that we may not want to know, because if the parameter is wholly outside of human control it’d just contribute to racism and serve no useful purpose. Also even if a study found parameters like that, it would never be published as the scientists career would absolutely be ruined.

That's a hell of a minefield, but I'll bite: might a few more generations in our increasingly globalized world (airplane travel, etc.) cause a "melting pot" where pedigree devolves into a homogenous blend that puts everyone on the same playing field? Hard to predict, and it's kind of scary (enjoying the cuisines and other cultural differences is quite special) but the equity would be fascinating.

It's going to take a lot of generations interracial couples are not particularly common.

Re: Around one-in-three children globally suffer from lead poisoning

#195

Post by xyzzyz »

zozbot234 wrote: post #178
xyzzyz wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with using lead-rich environment as an example of systemic oppression, and the reason why activists are taking very little about lead these days, is that unlike “systemic oppression”, lead exposure is something very concrete, and it can be tested and studied. We did a lot of studies, in fact, on this particular issue, and the results are pretty clear: differences in lead exposure explain very little fract…

> differences in lead exposure explain very little fraction of the outcome gap here Note that tiny fractional differences in the median outcome gap will turn into big differences at the left- and right-wards tails of the distribution. In practice, those are the differences that everyone will ask about. Why are so many X's (relative to Y's) living in socially marginalized settings, resorting to crime, ending up in the…

> Note that tiny fractional differences in the median outcome gap will turn into big differences at the left- and right-wards tails of the distribution.

That's true, but the gap is already huge at the median. As a rough approximation, the distribution of outcomes has same variance, but mean is shifted left by 1 sigma.

Re: Around one-in-three children globally suffer from lead poisoning

#196

Post by bsuvc »

jjeaff wrote: post #166
Aunche wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blaming testing bias is a great way to gain support from disadvantaged minorities without having to actually do any meaningful work. Conveniently, it allows allows the elite to exclude the educated bourgeoisie from their elite institutions, instead replacing them with underqualified candidates who pose no real threat to the power hierarchy.

I guess. But seems to me that if you are going to claim testing bias, then you have some work to do in creating an unbiased test.

No. The plan is to eliminate testing altogether.

https://edsource.org/2021/university-of-california-sticks-wi...

Re: Around one-in-three children globally suffer from lead poisoning

#197

Post by zozbot234 »

wincy wrote: post #95
dfadsadsf wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it's uplifting story and I can easily believe that higher lead exposure for Black kids over white kids led to lower IQ results in tests in that specific case, there are no school districts in US with no gap between white and Black students. So far there has not been identified single parameter that explains White/Black gap and not for the lack of trying.

I mean in an interview Steven Pinker himself said there’s some things that we may not want to know, because if the parameter is wholly outside of human control it’d just contribute to racism and serve no useful purpose. Also even if a study found parameters like that, it would never be published as the scientists career would absolutely be ruined.

There's no such thing as a parameter that's "wholly outside of human control" when you account for technological change. If there's an easy way of providing a free +1 INT, +1 WIS boost to a non-trivial chunk of the population via, let's say, tailored mRNA vaccine injections, I'd sure want to know about it!

Re: Around one-in-three children globally suffer from lead poisoning

#198

Post by woodruffw »

hunter2_ wrote: post #122
tombert wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't you argue the disproportionate number of black people being stuck in lead-filled houses is still an example of some sort of oppression? It's not like black people who were shopping for their houses said "Gee, I'd sure like my kids to have lead poisoning."

I think the critical difference is that a gut reno to eliminate the actual source of low IQ is significantly more feasible than swiftly eradicating most of the other issues that contribute to oppression. Identifying low-hanging fruit is a good quick win, so long as it doesn't weaken broader efforts.

I think everybody agrees that we should get rid of unnecessary environmental sources of lead as rapidly as we can. But it's not all that cheap[1], and there's probably a correlation between not owning the place you leave (i.e., not being entitled to massive renovations) and being a member of an oppressed group.

Even as a financially secure white tenant, I have found my landlords to be extremely hesitant to initiate any testing that might legally obligate them to renovate (or at least cover/shield) sources of lead. And in most municipalities, your landlord is only obligated to follow up on lead concerns if they have personal knowledge of lead paint usage on the property; they're not obligated to go through the property's history and refute the possibility of lead.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_abatement_in_the_United_S...

Re: Around one-in-three children globally suffer from lead poisoning

#199

Post by gnopgnip »

helloguillecl wrote: post #28

Does someone know how to test if a building is contaminated? I live in the EU and this a non-issue, but I'm afraid if/when I have to move back to my home country.

Handheld XRF scanners can detect lead and other heavy metals. But they cost more than $10k. A lead remediation contractor probably will have one of these so they can tell what paint has lead in it, what needs to be removed. Also many government building inspectors will have these scanners.

There are lead test kits with a marker like swab. You can test painted surfaces, things like dust, it takes about a minute and turns red if there is lead. A 2 pack is $11 at the hardware store here in the US. There are also test kits you wipe for lead dust, or send paint fragments and send it off to be tested. In many areas these are free or subsidized by the local government. In the US a non subsidized test kit is around $5 to buy, and around $30 to send to a lab.

Also lead paint can be safely "encapsulated" and painted over in most cases. It is really only an issue for door frames or window frames where the paint can turn to dust, or where paint is peeling or chipping.

Re: Around one-in-three children globally suffer from lead poisoning

#200

Post by woodruffw »

foobarian wrote: post #142
tzs wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Most lead poisoning in children results from eating chips of deteriorating lead-based paint" [1]. [1] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/lead-poisonin...

Right. It doesn't pass the sniff-test that a whole 1/3 of world's children would be getting poisoned through ingesting paint chips. I'm as curious as the GP about what the actual vector is, but it seems that per the article there really is not enough data to say definitively.

My understanding (from growing up in an old apartment with lead and asbestos everywhere) is that, even your children aren't picking lead chips off of the wall, they're being exposed to pulverized paint dust when they e.g. play on the floor. It's apparently especially common when children's rooms have openable windows, since windowsills shed their paint easily.
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