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Lead exposure in last century shrunk IQ scores of half of Americans: study

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Re: Lead exposure in last century shrunk IQ scores of half of Americans: study

#71

Post by legitster »

miketery wrote: post #20
softwarebeware wrote: post #10

It makes me angry to think of how wreckless the generations before millenials were. Lead's risks and damages were well-known long before 1996. And they still didn't ban it until then.

Same goes for sugar. We know the dangers it poses, we are also seeing how much it increases risk of death due to covid. I don't think we should be surpsied, as much as pushing to regulate this garbage. As an aside, Michelle Obama's campaign when Obama was in office was about improvement children's health. Her focus was going to be on nutrition (lunch food). Shortly thereafter Coke and Pepsi came in with "donations" a…

> As an aside, Michelle Obama's campaign when Obama was in office was about improvement children's health. Her focus was going to be on nutrition (lunch food). Shortly thereafter Coke and Pepsi came in with "donations" and the whole thing became about exercise, no focus on nutrition.

This isn't accurate. There were changes to the school lunch program, and by most accounts they were pretty effective: https://sph.washington.edu/news-events/news/obama-era-school...

The main takeaway is that the changes were fairly expensive, so lots of schools didn't participate.

Re: Lead exposure in last century shrunk IQ scores of half of Americans: study

#72

Post by fullshark »

ch4s3 wrote: post #15
fullshark wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crime rates have fallen historically until COVID. I think it's more likely the post WW2 and post Cold War (perceived) eras were periods of irrational exuberance culturally in the west with uncommon optimism in western lead globalism and its future (What you consider civilization I take it). The last few years were a big time reality check on the collective interest in that future.

The rate of violent crime nearly quadrupled between 1960 and its peak in 1991 in the US. Even with the COIVD bump, rates are comparable to the mid 60s, and aren't tracking the previous climb.

So it's dropped for 30 years...

I'm not disputing the claim that lead poisoning can lead to violent crime, I'm disputing the claim that the turmoil of the last few years (my guess OP means starting with Brexit/Trump) is due to lead poisoned Boomer brains being less empathetic. Arguably the world is more empathetic than ever if you study history (simple data point: entire economies were built around slavery for most of human existence) and this one data point in isolation is really not a particularly strong one to point to for the claim.

Re: Lead exposure in last century shrunk IQ scores of half of Americans: study

#73

Post by micromacrofoot »

xhkkffbf wrote: post #49
micromacrofoot wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I've read the removal of lead from gasoline is partially a factor in the sudden reduction of crime during the latter half of the 20th century, but it's not enough to explain the entire trend... which seems to be a preponderance of factors.

But then there's been a huge rise in crime. The murder rate in some cities is dramatically higher than just a few years ago. But it's not like the gas suddenly became leaded again. This makes me think that we just can't be too certain about these things.

> But then there's been a huge rise in crime

Is this actually true? I've seen a lot of people saying this politically but haven't seen a lot of data to back it up. From what I've seen there's been a slight bump, which isn't too surprising given the state of everything... but it's still massively dwarfed by the decrease in the 90s and 00s

For example https://www.bbc.com/news/57581270

Re: Lead exposure in last century shrunk IQ scores of half of Americans: study

#74

Post by abcc8 »

legitster wrote: post #61

I have a strong worries that our current generation will have a similar huge reckoning with marijuana. We are already seeing studies that show regular marijuana use is correlated with permanent decreases in intelligence, memory loss, motivation, and mental health. And anecdotally, this seems very apparent in my peer group. And Americans are using copious amounts of the stuff right now, and younger than ever before. I…

It might make more sense to first have a similar reckoning with alcohol. It is a far more dangerous intoxicant and exacts a large toll on individuals and society.

Re: Lead exposure in last century shrunk IQ scores of half of Americans: study

#75

Post by JPKab »

nynx wrote: post #31
miketery wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same goes for sugar. We know the dangers it poses, we are also seeing how much it increases risk of death due to covid. I don't think we should be surpsied, as much as pushing to regulate this garbage. As an aside, Michelle Obama's campaign when Obama was in office was about improvement children's health. Her focus was going to be on nutrition (lunch food). Shortly thereafter Coke and Pepsi came in with "donations" a…

Sugar is at least a substance that one can choose not to eat. Lead poisoning and pollution aren’t choices.

An adult can choose to eat it or not (I'm ignoring the addictive nature of concentrated sugar), but our public health establishment has been foolishly stupid (combined with industry marketing) at making people think that fruit juice is natural or healthy. It's about as natural as cocaine is. Sure, it comes from a plant, but it gets refined and concentrated into levels that are unheard of in nature and toxic to the body.

Virtually my entire extended family are working class people, and they all were feeding their kids apple/orange juice on a regular basis without diluting it. When I showed my sister that she could literally do a 5% solution of apple juice in water, and it still tasted sweet, she was blown away. I'm pretty sure most members of the laptop class know that juice is bad for kids (gatorade too), but that message hasn't filtered to most of the population. And these kids are too young to know how toxic it is for them.

Re: Lead exposure in last century shrunk IQ scores of half of Americans: study

#76

Post by chucksta »

rootusrootus wrote: post #28
miketery wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same goes for sugar. We know the dangers it poses, we are also seeing how much it increases risk of death due to covid. I don't think we should be surpsied, as much as pushing to regulate this garbage. As an aside, Michelle Obama's campaign when Obama was in office was about improvement children's health. Her focus was going to be on nutrition (lunch food). Shortly thereafter Coke and Pepsi came in with "donations" a…

> Same goes for sugar. Except that presumably includes the current generation, instead of everyone pre-millenial. There is certainly not any real consensus or meaningful action being taken in regards to sugar. It is as prevalent now as it ever was.

Its not nothing, but it's close;

https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiative...

Re: Lead exposure in last century shrunk IQ scores of half of Americans: study

#77

Post by javert »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #70
legitster wrote: post #61

I have a strong worries that our current generation will have a similar huge reckoning with marijuana. We are already seeing studies that show regular marijuana use is correlated with permanent decreases in intelligence, memory loss, motivation, and mental health. And anecdotally, this seems very apparent in my peer group. And Americans are using copious amounts of the stuff right now, and younger than ever before. I…

The societal risks are the same with additional worse effects for non participants with alcohol and they have been known for a long time. If society is OK with those risks, then I cannot see cannabis being an unacceptable risk in 50 years. Can throw in refined sugar too.

> The societal risks are the same and additional worse ones with alcohol

I don't think this is correct, personally.

(I'm pretty sure you'll find studies arguing for both sides, so we can only go on personal wisdom.)

Re: Lead exposure in last century shrunk IQ scores of half of Americans: study

#78

Post by mixedCase »

pathartl wrote: post #58
nynx wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sugar is at least a substance that one can choose not to eat. Lead poisoning and pollution aren’t choices.

Sugar isn't really optional these days. It's snuck into so much of our processed food it's sickening.

It is optional to eat those foods for the vast majority of people, but it isn't as convenient.

Re: Lead exposure in last century shrunk IQ scores of half of Americans: study

#79

Post by adamsmith143 »

legitster wrote: post #61

I have a strong worries that our current generation will have a similar huge reckoning with marijuana. We are already seeing studies that show regular marijuana use is correlated with permanent decreases in intelligence, memory loss, motivation, and mental health. And anecdotally, this seems very apparent in my peer group. And Americans are using copious amounts of the stuff right now, and younger than ever before. I…

>We are already seeing studies that show regular marijuana use is correlated with permanent decreases in intelligence

When used at very young ages. Important caveat. The other things you mentioned are highly speculative and I typically discount anecdotes as mostly useless.

Re: Lead exposure in last century shrunk IQ scores of half of Americans: study

#80

Post by tombert »

softwarebeware wrote: post #10

It makes me angry to think of how wreckless the generations before millenials were. Lead's risks and damages were well-known long before 1996. And they still didn't ban it until then.

I hate that everything has to devolve into some kind of "this generation sucks" debate. Whether or not we can blame boomers does not matter, at least not until we have a time machine to go remedy stuff. The fact is that the decisions have been made, the damage is done, and we need to figure out what to do now, regardless of whose fault it is.

It seems like so many of these conversations end at the "who is responsible" part, without the understanding that we really shouldn't care.

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