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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

#471

Post by erosenbe0 »

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…

Way bigger problem of super obese food-addict children who don't even have a chance to play normally and develop self-efficacy. High predictor of depression later on.

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

#472

Post by cylon13 »

jart wrote: post #336
cylon13 wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t conflate intelligence with quality or value. Every human being is inherently valuable independent of their intelligence, and there are plenty of other interesting features besides intelligence that make people unique and interesting. Believing that IQ measures something tangible is not equivalent to ranking people based on their value any more than believing height or weight measure something real.

Am I being excommunicated already? I thought that's what I said.

Yeah sorry, I agree with you in spirit. I was mainly arguing against the idea that "IQ is useful" and "IQ measures the value of humans" have to either both be true or both be false. My reply is to the interpretation of your comment as "IQ doesn't and can't measure the value of humans, therefor it's not very useful," which might not have been your intent.

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

#473

Post by nicolas_t »

alar44 wrote: post #403
nicolas_t wrote: post #337

I was recently horrified to learn that the baby glass bottle I had been using with my baby had lead paint on it. https://tamararubin.com/2021/12/sailor-themed-glass-nuk-baby... Apparently, it's considered to be acceptable by current standards. Despite the fact that babies will obviously touch the bottle (and the paint) and then put their hands in their mouth. I bought glass bottles because I wanted to avoid plastic t…

Of course it's considered acceptable, lead doesn't just dissolve when you touch it and it's not like the paint is 100% lead. Our bodies are pretty resilient and you shouldn't be scared of super tiny trace things in the environment. Your baby probably receives much more lead exposure by breathing.

After 3 months of using that baby bottle before I stopped some of the paint flaked off. I'm guessing due to the fact that this bottle is regularly heated up which means it is an issue. If some paint flaked off that means potentially my baby ingested it.

Lead bioaccumulates, it stays in your body until you die, there's no mechanism to remove lead. The scientific consensus is that there is no safe level of lead exposure. See https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27837574/ or even the CDC: "No safe blood lead level in children has been identified. Even low levels of lead in blood have been shown to affect learning, ability to pay attention, and academic achievement. " https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead/prevention/default.htm

So, yes, there are a lot of toxic things in the environment and I'm not concerned about most of them but lead is dangerous and has been proven to be. There is also no reason whatsoever for a company to use lead paint (which has been banned for constructions in the 70s) on a product meant to be used for children (a baby bottle).

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

#474

Post by nicolas_t »

kortilla wrote: post #447
nicolas_t wrote: post #337

I was recently horrified to learn that the baby glass bottle I had been using with my baby had lead paint on it. https://tamararubin.com/2021/12/sailor-themed-glass-nuk-baby... Apparently, it's considered to be acceptable by current standards. Despite the fact that babies will obviously touch the bottle (and the paint) and then put their hands in their mouth. I bought glass bottles because I wanted to avoid plastic t…

Being afraid of things in acceptable doses is just as ignorant and unhelpful as not being afraid at all.

According to the CDC, "No safe blood lead level in children has been identified. Even low levels of lead in blood have been shown to affect learning, ability to pay attention, and academic achievement. ", so there's no acceptable dose of lead if it is ingested.

Being sure that there's no issues without having done the research is just as ignorant as someone who panics without having done the research. If I'm concerned about something, you can be sure I will read everything to see if it is an actual issue or not.

See: https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead/prevention/default.htm https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27837574/

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

#475

Post by autoexec »

oh_sigh wrote: post #452
jounker wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-inco…

> parents might be more likely to give their kids fruit juice to placate them, or because they mistakenly think "fruit = healthy".

I wouldn't be surprised if people who have difficultly affording/accessing fruit would think juice was "at least some form of fruit". The packaging often seems to be designed explicitly to mislead us into thinking that way.

The shelf life of juice is easily in its favor too. Normally, I have easy access to fresh produce and in our house it's about even odds that fruit will go bad before it's eaten and I don't have the stresses and struggles of a low income household with children that could make that even worse. If I were on a very tight budget it might be hard to justify the expense on something you're likely to throw away.

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

#476

Post by ElephantsMyAnus »

ch4s3 wrote: post #416
ElephantsMyAnus wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is there is no evidence for any crime boom unless you pick the right location and the right beginning year (typically the post war years) or some such contrieved scenario. Even the graph in your second link shows it was completely insignificant.

The whole discussion is about the post war period. But if you look back further, homicide rates where higher. Again I’m not aware of any scholar, police organization, or or anyone really who disputes this. What even are you arguing here?

I'm arguing here that your views are fuelled by wishful thinking, if not nonsense.

You can't turn the world into utopia by sticking to a moral panic triggered by the civil rights movement.

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

#477

Post by autoexec »

nicolas_t wrote: post #337

I was recently horrified to learn that the baby glass bottle I had been using with my baby had lead paint on it. https://tamararubin.com/2021/12/sailor-themed-glass-nuk-baby... Apparently, it's considered to be acceptable by current standards. Despite the fact that babies will obviously touch the bottle (and the paint) and then put their hands in their mouth. I bought glass bottles because I wanted to avoid plastic t…

> I was recently horrified to learn that the baby glass bottle I had been using with my baby had lead paint on it.

I felt the same about the amount of arsenic, lead, and mercury, in baby food. Companies have gotten away with having dangerous amounts of them in the food they sell. It wasn't even limited to weird off brands but popular brands I probably ate myself as an infant like Gerber and Beech-Nut.

I don't have much faith n the FDA at this point. I would have thought "No literal poison in baby food" would have been the standard, but turns out the FDA allowed dangerous amounts. A congressional report found that the FDA did nothing to limit the levels of dangerous metals in baby food, and that they appeared to be doing it "to be protective of industry". Now the FDA has said they'll do something about it, but even their plan is called "Closer to Zero" when what we need is an "Essentially zero poison in baby food" standard.

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

#478

Post by autoexec »

alar44 wrote: post #403
nicolas_t wrote: post #337

I was recently horrified to learn that the baby glass bottle I had been using with my baby had lead paint on it. https://tamararubin.com/2021/12/sailor-themed-glass-nuk-baby... Apparently, it's considered to be acceptable by current standards. Despite the fact that babies will obviously touch the bottle (and the paint) and then put their hands in their mouth. I bought glass bottles because I wanted to avoid plastic t…

Of course it's considered acceptable, lead doesn't just dissolve when you touch it and it's not like the paint is 100% lead. Our bodies are pretty resilient and you shouldn't be scared of super tiny trace things in the environment. Your baby probably receives much more lead exposure by breathing.

> Of course it's considered acceptable, lead doesn't just dissolve when you touch it and it's not like the paint is 100% lead.

The FDA didn't care about lead when it was being spooned directly to infant's mouths in the form of their baby food. The standards aren't what they are because of the amount of risk to people's health, or they would never have allowed it. I wouldn't assume something was safe just because it met FDA standards/recommendations.

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

#479

Post by alar44 »

autoexec wrote: post #478
alar44 wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it's considered acceptable, lead doesn't just dissolve when you touch it and it's not like the paint is 100% lead. Our bodies are pretty resilient and you shouldn't be scared of super tiny trace things in the environment. Your baby probably receives much more lead exposure by breathing.

> Of course it's considered acceptable, lead doesn't just dissolve when you touch it and it's not like the paint is 100% lead. The FDA didn't care about lead when it was being spooned directly to infant's mouths in the form of their baby food. The standards aren't what they are because of the amount of risk to people's health, or they would never have allowed it. I wouldn't assume something was safe just because it m…

We didn't have the data yet, then we learned more over time. The standards are what they are because of what we learned. You don't trust the FDA to think that everything is safe unless they say so or they're wrong, you trust them to tell you they know that something is definitely bad. There's a huge difference there.

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

#480

Post by rightbyte »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #438
hammock wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the study: >examined risk factors; survey years; binary gender; bodyweight; low birthweight; anemia; health insurance coverage; Medicaid/CHIP enrollment; federal Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) supplemental food program enrollment; use of water treatment devices; b age in months; c educational attainment less than 9th grade education; d housing built before 1960 or 1940; e number of cigarettes smoked inside t…

Yeah don't even start to read up on lead arsenate sprays in apple orchards through most of the 20th century. That will keep you at night up for a long time when you start to think about it.

My great grandfather used mercury to protect seeds from mold for sowing. The running joke was that it made the hen crazy ...
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