221–230 of 479 posts
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I don’t know how much their exposure was but I’d estimate they are closer to the skinny edge of the bell curve.
Maybe they had especially bad practices, like never washed their hands, exclusively eats finger food after picking through their spent bullets and licks their fingers?
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Plastics for potable water tend to be copper lined where I live, not sure what is used elsewhere.
I've never heard of copper-lined PEX, can you tell me more?
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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…
> estimates of lead's harm seem to be rising even as exposure decreases, which should make people stop and think more Is the effect size or confidence rising? The latter makes sense. We're moving from a population systematically exposed to lead (no control) to one with lead-free kids for a change.
Is it that the toxin is correlated with another substance that is responsible for part of the harm? Is it corruption and the cleanups have been faked, leading to underreporting of exposure without underreporting of results? Or did you underestimate the harm at lower exposures (maybe because you underestimated the exposure of some of your subjects)?
Science is hard. As is public policy.
I'd like to point out that, although it is illegal to put lead in water supply lines in the US, there is a loophole that allows it in hot water lines. As a result, for certain fittings, most big-box hardware stores only sell the leaded variants, and label them "hot water heater supply line" or something similar.
Why are there so many loopholes in every single US law? Everytime there’s a major health issue or anything extremely anti consumer it’s because of a loophole in the formulation of a US law. Are US lawmakers that bad? Or is it judges who interpret laws literally instead of using the intent?
I went most of my life ignorant of all of this. But banning stuff outright seems like it would be counterproductive to either industry (banning soldering would be disruptive) or public image ("Liberals declare war on Christmas!").
(Tangential mention of McDonald's, whose warnings highlighted the acrylamide released in the potato-frying process.)
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just a fair warning that you should close that quarter-turn valve very gradually when there is running water if you ever find a non-leaded version... water hammer can and will burst the weakest of your pipes.
Is this actually a thing? I know there are videos of watwr hammer on youtube (US centric) There are no regulations afaik in Europe in domestic = no-industrial plumbing and sure we have quarter valves which you can quickly turn off. I never ever heard of a bursting pipe because of water hammmer.
Really would only be concerned if you are building fire safety systems. Now those sudden GPMs need some support.
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There is also an exception for leaded gas in small/private jets ("AVGas") so its used in some of those formulations.
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…
But do they actually sell it everywhere? My experience with aviation is that change happens incredibly slowly. The simple fact that they still use that abomination that is 100LL is telling. Poisoning thousands of people for decades just because of paperwork essentially. As an amateur pilot, I understand the idea of using only tried and tested solutions, you really want things to be reliable up there, but our representatives can at least make the necessary efforts to make our already environmentally questionable hobby not needlessly poison people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93crime_hypothesis
Regardless of what you think about the hypothesis, the growth and crunch in lead levels during the last many decades is astounding and probably still has many bad effects on IQ and related factors, at least in the US
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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.
That's not actually true though. I find SAC305 to wick into joints faster than leaded solder does, provided you have quality flux in the solder. If you get the cheapest lead-free solder you can find on Amazon it will be bad. Doubly so if you have a non-temperature-controlled soldering iron. Too cold, and it won't melt effectively. Too hot, and exposed metal will oxidize rapidly.