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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

#451

Post by kortilla »

jounker wrote: post #441
hadlock wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah in the US I recall in 1991 or 92 the pumps had "UNLEADED" in great big letters running up the side of them. My dad's '77 chevy had a gas gauge near the center console that said "UNLEADED FUEL ONLY". There's been another push to get rid of leaded gas in aviation but studies show that it's virtually undetectable in the environment.

Given that you can smell the jet fuel downwind from an airport, I’d be greatly suspicious of those studies. They don’t seem to pass the smell test.

If you can smell jet fuel, it’s because there is a jet fuel leak somewhere.

That has zero relationship to exhaust from avgas.

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

#452

Post by oh_sigh »

jounker wrote: post #440
oh_sigh wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised they don't control for(or even mention!) fruit juice consumption, which can end up bioaccumulating dangerous amounts of lead and other heavy metals at a surprisingly low daily intake ([0] ~4oz of juice per day). I also very rarely see anyone talking about this source of lead intake - usually it is focused on water pipes or paint chips. Do black children drink more fruit juice than non-black children? If…

Based on my experience growing up poor, fruit juice was always more expensive than soda. If you’re living in shitty housing you’re probably not drinking much juice.

The question isn't choosing between fruit juice or soda, it is rather whether parents might be more likely to give their kids fruit juice to placate them, or because they mistakenly think "fruit = healthy".

Cursory research shows that might be the case(regarding lower income consuming more fruit juice):

> By contrast, the highest 100% juice consumption was found among children, racial/ethnic minorities and lower-income groups.

https://nutritionj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1475-2...

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

#453

Post by kortilla »

jounker wrote: post #442
dionidium wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What has never made sense to me is that the IQ effects aren't equally visible across income/class groups, but we know there are millions of wealthy people living in old housing in Boston and NYC and Providence and so on. Lead levels in those houses must be just as high, right? But those kids aren't experiencing the same IQ effects. Surely this suggests that something else is a bigger factor?

If you have money, and it’s your house then you get the old paint stripped when you repaint. If you are buying a home, and there is lead paint, then you negotiate down on the price to compensate for removal. Landlords of shitty apartments or houses just slap a new coat of the cheapest possible paint over the old.

That doesn’t explain it though because lead paint covered by regular paint is quite safe unless your children eat chunks of the wall (quite possible).

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

#454

Post by lumost »

tyjen wrote: post #309
breakyerself wrote: post #248

Black children had an adjusted 0.73 to 1.41 µg/dL more blood Pb (p https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7084658/

Learned about this phenomenon when considering buying a home built prior to 1978. The highest blood lead levels are seen in children living in denser population areas at or below poverty thresholds. Homes in these largely urban, low-income areas are disproportionately built before 1978 and subject inhabiting children to a significantly higher lead exposure risk. In 2014, it was estimated that 90 percent of all DC hom…

It's not just the buildings. It's the soil, and the air. Test the soil next to any major roadway and you'll get highly toxic lead levels. Children like to get into dirt. Construction kicks the dirt back into the air.

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

#455

Post by thehappypm »

zdragnar wrote: post #393
Krasnol wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So this is all historical and not being removed because of the cost?

It isn't uncommon at all to simply apply new coats of paint over existing ones, rather than sanding and scraping off the old paint. As long as kids don't eat your walls, it is safer too- the risks from a few chips are much lower than fine powdered dust that lingers around a long time and is even harder to completely remove.

This is 100% true. Even in high regulation states like Massachusetts nobody is required to remove all lead paint, just lead paint that’s at risk of flaking or being ingested, like a door jamb or a window sill, or a non-intact wall.

To put it another way: a child won’t break through your living room wall and ingest that paint. They might scrape flakes off the already flaking window sill, though.

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

#456

Post by thehappypm »

jounker wrote: post #442
dionidium wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What has never made sense to me is that the IQ effects aren't equally visible across income/class groups, but we know there are millions of wealthy people living in old housing in Boston and NYC and Providence and so on. Lead levels in those houses must be just as high, right? But those kids aren't experiencing the same IQ effects. Surely this suggests that something else is a bigger factor?

If you have money, and it’s your house then you get the old paint stripped when you repaint. If you are buying a home, and there is lead paint, then you negotiate down on the price to compensate for removal. Landlords of shitty apartments or houses just slap a new coat of the cheapest possible paint over the old.

Most realtors in Boston don’t bring up lead. There’s a big culture of don’t ask don’t tell.

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

#457

Post by thehappypm »

kortilla wrote: post #453
jounker wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have money, and it’s your house then you get the old paint stripped when you repaint. If you are buying a home, and there is lead paint, then you negotiate down on the price to compensate for removal. Landlords of shitty apartments or houses just slap a new coat of the cheapest possible paint over the old.

That doesn’t explain it though because lead paint covered by regular paint is quite safe unless your children eat chunks of the wall (quite possible).

Eating chunks of intact wall is unlikely, but surfaces like window sills are very risky because they constantly flake. That’s the nuance of lead mitigation. You can be completely compliant and safe for children with some lead paint on intact walls.

Any tenant can force their landlord to remove lead in those high risk areas (at landlords expense!) if there’s a young child but few renters know about this option.

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

#458

Post by kortilla »

JaimeThompson wrote: post #264
somenameforme wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When saying things like this, I think you should intuitively consider the corollary of your sentence. If people are using drugs to "escape from reality" presumably because have insufficient money to do nicer things, then the implication is that people who have lots of money would use drugs at a substantially lower rate. And so this is pretty easy to test. I did a quick search for 'marijuana use by rate by income' and…

>t seems fairly easy to reject the hypothesis that people are using drugs because of a lack of money. To most people hope doesn't mean more money, it means a better future. These are not the same.

You were the one who mentioned “paid better”. Don’t shift the goal posts.

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

#459

Post by scruple »

chrisweekly wrote: post #399
scruple wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To suggest that there is no potential for psychological harm from psychedelics is naive. I've personally suffered long-lasting psychological harm from a bad mushroom trip and I have at least a couple of friends/acquaintances who have, as well. You can quibble over the details of why and how adverse effects happen but it doesn't change the fact that they do.

Your comment was sort of aimed at both me and the GP, but FWIW I'm not saying nothing bad ever happened to anybody on hallucinogenics. My main point is that the war on drugs has stymied our ability properly to study and understand these substances which incontrovertibly have some real benefits.

I agree with your point.

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

#460

Post by hadlock »

jounker wrote: post #441
hadlock wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah in the US I recall in 1991 or 92 the pumps had "UNLEADED" in great big letters running up the side of them. My dad's '77 chevy had a gas gauge near the center console that said "UNLEADED FUEL ONLY". There's been another push to get rid of leaded gas in aviation but studies show that it's virtually undetectable in the environment.

Given that you can smell the jet fuel downwind from an airport, I’d be greatly suspicious of those studies. They don’t seem to pass the smell test.

Jet fuel is kerosene, a close relative to rocket fuel (RP-1) and would probably run in a diesel engine for quite a while if you tried (don't try this). Avgas is.... automotive gasoline with some additives, specifically lead based octane booster. They're very different products.
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