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Lead poisoning causes more death, IQ loss than thought: study

medicalxpress.com

141–150 of 479 posts

Re: Lead poisoning causes more death, IQ loss than thought: study

#141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No jets use or have ever used leaded products. Jets run on Jet-A, which is a close relative of kerosene. It has never been leaded. The purpose of lead was to prevent cylinders from prematurely detonating ("knocking") in internal combustion engines. Jets do not have any cylinders to knock; the fuel burns continually in an open combustion chamber. You may have been thinking of 100LL (100 Low Lead) fuel for piston engin…

> Many airports stopped selling 100LL in January of 2022. Really? That is news to me. Googling reveals that two airports did that, both in the same county: Reid-Hillview Airport (KRHV) and San Martin Airport (E16).

Bay Area bias, sorry. Many airports near me did. I have no knowledge about Oklahoma.

Re: Lead poisoning causes more death, IQ loss than thought: study

#142
post #74
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s another loophole: “lead free” means that the wetted surface is no more than 0.25% lead (by mass, I think). As far as I know, lead has nice properties as an element added to brass alloys. Which is not an excuse for using it, IMO. (Why is any of this still a thing? Stainless steel is cheaper than copper these days, and it’s a great material as long as you aren’t trying to screw one piece of stainless steel into…

Are there? It seems like plastics are shaping up to be the modern day lead.

Lead roofing tends to get recycled into bullets in time of war, but those roofs that don't, are typically there forever (400+ years) and never leak. Some plastics are UV resistant due to additives but even copper struggles to compete with lead as a roofing material. You only need to look back to the 1970s to find PEX water piping and the disaster/flooding it can cause due to age.

Re: Lead poisoning causes more death, IQ loss than thought: study

#143
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What are we going to do? Pass a law? Yes! It wouldn't burden existing homeowners because such laws almost always grandfather in existing structures. When they banned lead paint and asbestos, I don't think anyone immediately repainted their walls or replaced their asbestos drywall. It slowly phases out over a number of decades.

> When they banned lead paint and asbestos, I don't think anyone immediately repainted their walls or replaced their asbestos drywall. It slowly phases out over a number of decades. Kinda. Or, rich people got it replaced right away. Poor people are still living it with it today. Go test a $500k and a $100k (this is midwest price not SF price) house for Lead and Asbestos. I bet you find very different results on the a…

My grandmother's house still has asbestos in it ($400k house in New York). Short of tearing her house down and building a new one there's no way to fix that, but decades later I'm benefitting from the ban by living in an asbestos-free house built after the ban. Gotta start somewhere even if the benefit isn't felt by everyone at the same exact point in time. It would definitely benefit the rich first since they tend to be the ones building new property.

Re: Lead poisoning causes more death, IQ loss than thought: study

#144
post #63

While a lot of this appears to be estimates... it's pretty wild of 30% of deaths from cardiovascular are caused by lead. Mostly in low/middle income countries. > It's items in the kitchen that are poisoning them On a positive note: This is something that can be fixed.

One problem with a lot of the studies is that the studies have a lot of confoundeing and estimates of lead's harm seem to be rising even as exposure decreases, which should make people stop and think more. But this doesn't come up that much because it is obviously bad for you, and there's generally no good reason not to avoid exposure and not many people care about precisely how bad it is for you.

But it's weird that lead exposure has been dropping while the things it's supposed to cause don't seem to be decreasing in proportion to the lack of exposure.

Re: Lead poisoning causes more death, IQ loss than thought: study

#145
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

reminds me of those comic where the adult explains to the kid that every physical attribute was explained by genetics and then stumbles over his words trying to explain cognitive ones as inherently different was just a funny perspective I’m not trying to start a pogrom with this observation

If we neutered everybody who scored under 130 IQ, what do you think society would look like in 3 generations?

It'd collapse from underpopulation and there'd be no guarantee that the survivors would be any smarter because "smart genes" interact in complex and nonlinear ways - if they didn't we'd have already evolved to a point they did due to the strong selective pressures already acting on us.

Re: Lead poisoning causes more death, IQ loss than thought: study

#146
post #74
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s another loophole: “lead free” means that the wetted surface is no more than 0.25% lead (by mass, I think). As far as I know, lead has nice properties as an element added to brass alloys. Which is not an excuse for using it, IMO. (Why is any of this still a thing? Stainless steel is cheaper than copper these days, and it’s a great material as long as you aren’t trying to screw one piece of stainless steel into…

Are there? It seems like plastics are shaping up to be the modern day lead.

Plastics for potable water tend to be copper lined where I live, not sure what is used elsewhere.

Re: Lead poisoning causes more death, IQ loss than thought: study

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can it be fixed?

If I'm reading the GP correctly, by replacing kitchen items containing lead with alternatives that don't contain lead. That should be much easier and less expensive to do than eg, replacing lead pipes in the house or town/city that may be delivering poisoned drinking water.

Is there a way to know which alternatives don't contain lead?

Re: Lead poisoning causes more death, IQ loss than thought: study

#148
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lead-free solder can be a bitch to work with for some projects due to the higher melting point, and I do keep a spool of leaded wire around for that reason - but generally speaking for most hobbyist uses it's a non-issue as long as you have a relatively modern iron that can output enough heat (and retain it).

Yeah, a good iron and wire with a decent flux core helps a lot . Lead-free solder will never melt like butter the way leaded does, but I solder with it fairly often at work and it's not a show-stopper by any means.

Flux in general is probably the most important right after making sure you have an iron capable of handling the thermal recovery (you can't get the shit to stay liquid long enough if your iron can't handle keeping temp). The difference between relying on the flux core in even my leaded solder and adding a tap of my MG Chemicals flux when making a joint is night and day.

My lead-free joints come out nicely rounded and shiny just like my leaded ones with some practice and the right consumables. But I certainly have to break out hot air station more than I would when using leaded solder to deal with larger thermal masses (and why I will still break out my spool of leaded wire on rare occasion when I'm working with temp-sensitive components and just want it on the freaking board).

Re: Lead poisoning causes more death, IQ loss than thought: study

#149

This is why I stopped eating paint chips.

Some of my bloodwork revealed subclinical lead poisoning. Part of the investigation was to take the dirty A/C filter in for lab analysis of the dust. I had lead in that filter, so I moved out. No idea where it came from. EDIT: It was an apartment. FWIW, even new apartments can have other issues, like a brand new place my friend was working on had rampant mold issues (built & exposed throughout monsoon season). So you…

Perhaps significant enough vaper from plumbing solder made it into AC unit or some other building or trade technique which involves some lead

Re: Lead poisoning causes more death, IQ loss than thought: study

#150
post #136
post #26

Does anyone know the the risk is for electronics hobbyist?

None if you use quality lead-free solder.

Unfortunately lead-free solder is a lot harder to solder with; it just doesn't flow as nicely. Companies doing it in an automated way have long figured it out though.

This is why hobbyists are often still using leaded solder, particularly outside of the EU. But also in the EU, because it just flows so damned nice.

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