Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Lead is still bad for your brain

neurofrontiers.blog

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 192 posts

Re: Lead is still bad for your brain

#121

Post by bobmcnamara »

jt2190 wrote: post #117
andrewl wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Oof. Folks had this same sort of outlook on lead contamination here in Missouri. Here's the problem: the farmers also live downwind of the lead pollution. They didn't poison the air. But now they're being expected to handle it.

Re: Lead is still bad for your brain

#122

Post by lolinder »

schneems wrote: post #42
damnitbuilds wrote: post #2

I live with children in a very old house. I would love to be able to measure my children's lead exposure and check things like window paint or house dust for lead content to see how big a problem there is. How do I do that?

Look for a lead abatement company. The surface test kits only test the surface. A dedicated company should have a X-ray device that can determine if there is lead that has been painted over. Also get soil tests since houses with lead paint will have been scraped and that leads to lead going into the soil around the house.

> A dedicated company should have a X-ray device that can determine if there is lead that has been painted over.

Isn't the risk of lead paint only relevant if it's exposed? So you should test any visible layer and any layer that later becomes visible, but deeply nested layers don't matter so much.

Re: Lead is still bad for your brain

#124

Post by cge »

wahern wrote: post #82
cge wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>stop buying things that have a prop 65 warning (I know prop 65 isn’t perfect, but it’s often a lead warning). That would seem to mean to stop buying an enormous number of things. Extended to locations, it would mean not parking in any enclosed parking lot, or entering a number of different stores. It's not clear to me it's even possible to avoid everything with a prop 65 warning. Unfortunately, the bad incentives in…

There's a good episode of 99% Invisible that discusses Prop 65, including an interview with the original author of Prop 65, David Roe: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/warning-this-podcast-... Yes, there are a lot of problems with Prop 65, but the podcast also highlights the benefits. Slapping a Prop 65 warning on foodstuffs in particular significantly decreases sales, so it's not something you just do merely t…

>Having an army of private lawyers vigorously prowling for contaminants in products is a pillar of Prop 65's success. You couldn't achieve what Prop 65 has with centralized regulation, not without creating tremendous (i.e. costly in time if not money) bureaucratic hurdles to creating and selling products in the market.

What makes cancer and reproductive risks unique such that labelling for them cannot be enforced by the government, and needs to be done by private enforcers motivated by profit? Why could the same type of law not simply be enforced, in a largely similar way, by a government agency?

I would generally agree that Prop 65 has had benefits, and that such labelling, in principle, could be a good thing (even if I'd really prefer if there were some requirement to actually give at least some explanation when putting a label). But the private enforcement has never made sense to me, unless one takes the view that the state actually opposes labelling and can't be trusted to enforce it.

Re: Lead is still bad for your brain

#125

Post by thelittleone »

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…

As a youngster in the 70s (before lead sas a known carcinogen) I had a piece of lead in my lego bag (no idea how it came to be there). I thought that soft metal was neat and bit it more than once. Fortunately I still have all my hair though I know a woman who would say 'that explains a lot.

Re: Lead is still bad for your brain

#126

Post by cyjackx »

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…

My assumption is that it has something to do with machinery processing.

Re: Lead is still bad for your brain

#127

Post by ycombinatrix »

tzs wrote: post #60
wffurr wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most EVs have a 12V lead acid battery for standby power and to buffer the 12V accessory system. The solenoids to the traction battery are open when parked and the 12V battery closes them when the car is started. This does mean you might actually need a “jump start” for an EV if the 12V battery is drained, eg from leaving a light on or a fault in the 12V charging system.

I assume that jump starting an EV takes a lot less current than jump starting an ICE due to no need to crank an engine. I'd guess it just needs enough to power the control electronics and close the solenoids to the traction battery? That raises an interesting question: is the power requirement low enough that you could make a hand cranked EV jump starter?

Back to crank starting a car? We have come full circle.

Re: Lead is still bad for your brain

#128

Post by bsder »

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…

> Even ICE batteries is IMO not a valid use.

Why? I would posit that lithium batteries do way more damage to the environment than lead-acid batteries. Recycling of lead-acid batteries is very prevalent because it is economically worth it.

Re: Lead is still bad for your brain

#129

Post by jandrewrogers »

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…

Most salt is precipitated from natural brine. Virtually all salt is “sea salt” including mined salt, the main difference is how much time has passed since it was precipitated from a sea of some sort. That brine contains small quantities of many metals and minerals that were in solution when the brine evaporated. Several heavy metals have significant solubility in naturally occurring brines so it isn’t surprising to find them there, but the quantity depends on the local geology and geochemistry. They won’t be evenly distributed even within a single formation due to different minerals having different thresholds for precipitation.

Natural salt is therefore not particularly pure. I believe it is typically on the order of 95-98% pure. The majority of contaminants are harmless things like potassium, magnesium, calcium, etc but there will also be traces of heavy metals, arsenic, etc.

Salt is literally one of the very cheapest bulk materials on Earth. Any non-trivial processing is going to be really expensive compared to the raw materials so people don’t do it unless they can’t avoid it (e.g. anti-caking agent for some food salt applications). As a consequence, I would expect most bulk food salt to have limited opportunity for industrial contamination.

Re: Lead is still bad for your brain

#130

Post by thimkerbell »

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…

I wonder if RFK Jr. could improve food safety checks, especially when it seems something isn't right with a food that you bought.

There's a discount store that I will no longer feel comfortable buying cheese or produce from.

Post reply on HN