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Lead is still bad for your brain

neurofrontiers.blog

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Re: Lead is still bad for your brain

#111

Post by dboreham »

londons_explore wrote: post #58
theandrewbailey wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my mind, there's only two acceptable uses of lead: radiation (x-ray, gamma ray) shielding, and ICE batteries. Even then, I expect there's much increased demand for those things (and thus, the lead to manufacture them) from 50 years ago.

Even ICE batteries is IMO not a valid use. Lithium batteries are better by almost every metric, and now nearly every model of car battery has a drop-in compatible lithium battery+controller too, so there isn't even an excuse for vehicles currently on the road. Lead batteries contain not just lead, but the H2SO4 needed to dissolve large amounts of it and transport it through watercourses when the plastic case inevitab…

In my experience LiIon car batteries are a total pain. Regular battery chargers fry them, or won't turn on to charge. So you need a Li compatible charger. If you let one go flat it bricks and replacements are either very costly or impossible to source locally. I had to have a car transported by flat bed 300 miles to a dealer to have the dead Lithium battery replaced under warranty.

Re: Lead is still bad for your brain

#112

Post by bamboozled »

theandrewbailey wrote: post #38
londons_explore wrote: post #27

Did you know, the world still mines more lead now than it did 50 years ago, at the peak of 'put lead in everything' mania? To me, this says that we still put lead in too many things. Lead is still used for flashing in roofs. It's still used as a mould release when making plastics. It's still used in making dishware. It's still used in bullets. It's still used for all kinds of things which will one day end up in the e…

In my mind, there's only two acceptable uses of lead: radiation (x-ray, gamma ray) shielding, and ICE batteries. Even then, I expect there's much increased demand for those things (and thus, the lead to manufacture them) from 50 years ago.

Fishing tackle.

Re: Lead is still bad for your brain

#113

Post by triceratops »

bamboozled wrote: post #112
theandrewbailey wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my mind, there's only two acceptable uses of lead: radiation (x-ray, gamma ray) shielding, and ICE batteries. Even then, I expect there's much increased demand for those things (and thus, the lead to manufacture them) from 50 years ago.

Fishing tackle.

Why?

Re: Lead is still bad for your brain

#114

Post by jonah »

metalman wrote: post #103
gregwebs wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am glad you are finding the time to avoid contaminated industrial processed food. In the apple sauce contaminations the apple sauce is always cinnamon flavored. When tested for various heavy metals, cinnamon usually has unsafe levels of heavy metal contamination, and lead is usually one of the metals: https://tamararubin.com/2024/12/six-cinnamon-products-chart/ There is widespread contamination in spices because th…

I am a metal worker, and a foodie, living on a farm, and have experience and contacts in varios parts of the food industry, and have never come across lead, in any food relate items. As to alloying with lead, it has been used historicaly to make steal easier to machine "free machining steel" , but has no part in high strength or tool steels, and the steels used in grinding machines are going to be food grade..... eve…

Most of the cinnamon production is in "less developed" countries where the rules, standards, and available equipment for processing foodstuffs aren't the same level as in your Canada...

Re: Lead is still bad for your brain

#115

Post by andrewl »

gregwebs wrote: post #14

This is a great article on the biology of lead exposure. Unfortunately on the exposure side research wasn’t done and it propagates the myth that lead exposure is only an issue for those with lead pipes or lead paint. It’s true that these are the main sources of severe lead exposure. However the article points out that there is no safe level of exposure to lead and these aren’t the main ways we are exposed to lead in…

Chocolate, spices, salt, and cassava products are particularly high in heavy metals.

I'm surprised to see salt on the list. Where does most table salt come from? And where in the processing does lead come in? Off the top of my head I think of it as a simple process. There aren't any special additives for flavor, color, or shelf life, as it's not attacked by bacteria. I believe the only thing added is iodine. And speaking as a non-chemist, it would seem straightforward to separate salt from lead if the salt was contaminated.

If somebody who actually knew what they're talking about could chime in, I'd be interested.

Re: Lead is still bad for your brain

#116

Post by epicureanideal »

jonah wrote: post #114
metalman wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a metal worker, and a foodie, living on a farm, and have experience and contacts in varios parts of the food industry, and have never come across lead, in any food relate items. As to alloying with lead, it has been used historicaly to make steal easier to machine "free machining steel" , but has no part in high strength or tool steels, and the steels used in grinding machines are going to be food grade..... eve…

Most of the cinnamon production is in "less developed" countries where the rules, standards, and available equipment for processing foodstuffs aren't the same level as in your Canada...

Sounds like those places aren't actually cheaper, and we're just "getting what we are paying for" in terms of lower quality for lower prices.

Re: Lead is still bad for your brain

#117

Post by jt2190 »

andrewl wrote: post #115
gregwebs wrote: post #14

This is a great article on the biology of lead exposure. Unfortunately on the exposure side research wasn’t done and it propagates the myth that lead exposure is only an issue for those with lead pipes or lead paint. It’s true that these are the main sources of severe lead exposure. However the article points out that there is no safe level of exposure to lead and these aren’t the main ways we are exposed to lead in…

Chocolate, spices, salt, and cassava products are particularly high in heavy metals. I'm surprised to see salt on the list. Where does most table salt come from? And where in the processing does lead come in? Off the top of my head I think of it as a simple process. There aren't any special additives for flavor, color, or shelf life, as it's not attacked by bacteria. I believe the only thing added is iodine. And spea…

I’ve read that cocoa processing involves drying the pods in the open air. Heavy metals in dust from nearby mines covers the surface of the pods, which are later ground up along with the cocoa.

The solution here seems simple enough: Don’t dry the pods in the open air. But the farmers don’t have a lot of extra money lying around that they can use to address this, and the market is (currently at least) still buying.

Re: Lead is still bad for your brain

#118

Post by Brian_K_White »

copperx wrote: post #81
theandrewbailey wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my mind, there's only two acceptable uses of lead: radiation (x-ray, gamma ray) shielding, and ICE batteries. Even then, I expect there's much increased demand for those things (and thus, the lead to manufacture them) from 50 years ago.

Don't scream at me, but what about non-industrial, hobby soldering? AFAIK soldering is not hot enough to vaporize lead.

Hobby soldering is still putting lead into the environment, and not with any necessary justification. Lead-free solder works fine. Lead solder is a bit easier, but not enough to matter. I do know as a hobbyist myself who has lived through the transition and know all about both the old and new worlds.

The problem isn't vaporizing, or the first consumers direct exposure. The problem is taking a pound of lead and distrubuting it all over the environment in the form of spatter, shavings, assembled pcbs, connections, etc. Probably less than half of the solder winds up in a product or project, and that is just a short delay on it's trip to the envirnment when the project is discarded. 100% of it ends there, and not in a nice solid lump but practically aresolized.

It's the same as just taking that same pound of lead and directly grinding it into a fine powder and just sprinkling it everywhere, where it becomes part of the soil more or less and leeches into everything and can't be removed.

And 100,000 or a million or many millions of other people all doing the same thing, every day, for generations. Yess millions. There are 300million just in the US alone, and there are more than one person in every 300 that solders at least some times.

Re: Lead is still bad for your brain

#119

Post by garbagewoman »

nottorp wrote: post #7
rietta wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can request blood lead labs done through your doctor. People who work in industry and competition shooters and such will get that done to track.

Competition shooters? They're not likely to touch lead, unless they fatally disobey shooting range safety rules. Now the people manufacturing the bullets for those competition shooters... they need lead tests.

The primers in the ammunition contain a lead compound

Re: Lead is still bad for your brain

#120

Post by albedoa »

philjohn wrote: post #87
deadbabe wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I posted here about how lead pipes during the Roman Empire was bad for the people I was met with a torrent of downvotes right here on Hackernews saying it wasn’t that bad. I’m not optimistic about the future.

To be fair lead pipes aren't good, but the other uses in the Roman Empire were probably the cause of far more of the issues. Especially with hard water (of which the water in Rome is VERY hard[1] today, and if similar sources are used, it stands to reason it was very hard way back when) it forms a scale that drastically reduces the amount that leeches into the water. [1] https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Map-of-wat…

That is exactly what people told him at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43231697

He is being dishonest.

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