Lead poisoning causes more death, IQ loss than thought: study • Hacker News Board

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

#251

Post by sokoloff » Thu, Sep 21, 2023, 10:46 PM UTC

fyloraspit wrote: post #149

clumsysmurf wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Plumbing solder is overwhelmingly lead-free and has been for years. Even if leaded solder was used, the vapors from soldering are flux residues, not lead.

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

#252

Post by mkoubaa » Thu, Sep 21, 2023, 10:46 PM UTC

cltby wrote: post #3

Question for any IQ skeptics here (e.g. "it just measures your ability to take tests" or "it just tells you how rich your parents are"): what's your response to studies like this? Is there anything that can be said about the effect of lead on cognitive function? Why might IQ be a good measure of lead-induced stupidification, but unreliable for literally anything else?

Most IQ skeptics think IQ correlates with intelligence. The argument is generally over how good a proxy it is for intelligence and what conclusions can and can't be drawn from statements about IQ

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

#253

Post by ClumsyPilot » Thu, Sep 21, 2023, 10:46 PM UTC

asdff wrote: post #177

beachy wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking inside a kettle in London provides the same experience (at least when I lived there). Now we live on rain water and the inside of the kettle is pristine, despite bird crap on our roof and flora in the guttering.

For things like an instapot where you add a cup of water to it, you are actually supposed to use distilled water. I used tap for years with mine and got all sorts of mineralization. It took quite a bit of vinegar to get that off, and now everything looks pristine since I have been using distilled water. You might consider using it for your next kettle, although perhaps the minerals in tap do something to the taste of…

Do you buy hundreds of liters of distilled water? That doesnt sound practical

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

#254

Post by CyberDildonics » Thu, Sep 21, 2023, 10:50 PM UTC

ip26 wrote: post #215

thiht wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

There are often fairly sensible reasons or good intent behind many of them. People don't normally drink hot water; it's not a great idea, as it has higher levels of dissolved solids and higher risk of contamination by organisms (like legionnaires). Meanwhile, lead helps make metals and solders more resilient to high temperatures and fatigue at low cost. Banning lead from the hot side could therefore decrease reliabil…

Basically nothing you said here is true.

People don't normally drink hot water

People drink hot water all the time not to mention cooking, tea, instant coffee and more.

legionnaires

That's from water being stagnant for long periods of time.

lead helps make metals and solders more resilient to high temperatures

Not only is this not true, but water is never going to go above boiling. Propane torches (used for soldering pipes) burns at 1,980C

Banning lead from the hot side could therefore decrease reliability

This is ridiculous. Soldered pipes have been in use for over 70 years. Where are getting this idea?

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

#255

Post by myshpa » Thu, Sep 21, 2023, 10:54 PM UTC

Even american eagles are increasingly dying of lead poisoning.

https://gasanature.org/bald-eagles-across-the-us-are-being-f...

Lead found in the bullets of hunters, who tend to hunt larger game like deer, poison the meat of the deer. Once the lead enters the gastrointestinal tract, it becomes toxic. If the deer runs and can’t be recovered by the hunter, it typically will die and be consumed by scavengers – like the bald eagle.

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

#256

Post by kube-system » Thu, Sep 21, 2023, 10:54 PM UTC

thiht wrote: post #200

hedora wrote: post #6

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?

If you write laws without an exceptions for exceptional cases, then you get more laws with unintended consequences.

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

#257

Post by kube-system » Thu, Sep 21, 2023, 10:57 PM UTC

jhoechtl wrote: post #166

weaksauce wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I use quarter turn ball valves everywhere and slam the crap out of them. If a pipe bursts from that, it needs to be fixed, and I’d rather it happen while I’m there slamming valves around than when I’m not home.

But it has never happened.

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

#258

Post by astrange » Thu, Sep 21, 2023, 11:00 PM UTC

cltby wrote: post #3

Question for any IQ skeptics here (e.g. "it just measures your ability to take tests" or "it just tells you how rich your parents are"): what's your response to studies like this? Is there anything that can be said about the effect of lead on cognitive function? Why might IQ be a good measure of lead-induced stupidification, but unreliable for literally anything else?

You have to read the study to find out what it meant by IQ. People freely confuse IQ (a score on a test that's calling itself an IQ test) with IQ (a platonic ideal statistic people assume exists for the purpose of publishing research about it). This could be either.

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

#259

Post by astrange » Thu, Sep 21, 2023, 11:02 PM UTC

cltby wrote: post #38

hedora wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume the study authors controlled for such things. For example, they could bin the study participants by socioeconomic group, race, location, etc, etc, etc, and then show the average IQ loss per bin. I haven't read the study, but statisticians do this stuff for a living, and there are definitely ways to control for sample biases that let you distinguish between "poorer people have lower IQs and are exposed to mor…

But these controls could be done for any IQ-related study. Is IQ-skepticism based on the belief that IQ researchers generally don't use controls? That lead-IQ researchers alone do this?

You can't demonstrate causation by controlling for things, because of collider bias.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_control

You need better methods like an intervention study or a natural experiment to show causation.

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

#260

Post by avhon1 » Thu, Sep 21, 2023, 11:03 PM UTC

jeffbee wrote: post #164

pixl97 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>while we're still using lead acid batteries with dozens of pounds of lead in every car out there Mostly those cars stay outside and the batteries tend to be expensive and highly recycled, electronics on the other hand, show up everywhere and have a poor history of recycling.

Battery retailers will pay you $25 for the old one and even if you just dump it, desperate people will collect it and hump it down to the recycler to get the core refund. Nobody wants your old soldered electronics. That stuff is nothing but trash.

All of the battery retailers around where I live (southern Indiana, USA) stopped paying for old lead-acid batteries years ago. Only the local scrap metal yard still pays for them, and they only pay $5 per battery. People only bring in their old batteries for recycling because it waives the core charge.