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

Post by turtlebits » Thu, Sep 21, 2023, 7:47 PM UTC

doctorpangloss wrote: post #78

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.

What are we going to do? Pass a law? To force the millions of voters paying hardly any property tax who bought their lead-loaded homes in 1983 for $40,000 in Los Angeles and San Francisco, now worth $1.1m, to you know, fix them? Then will we pay for the even greater rise in rents? I hate lead, pollution and my incredibly cheap landlord, but I feel like I have no choice in California.

Post by yterdy » Thu, Sep 21, 2023, 7:48 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #92

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.

Something interesting to point out is that until about 2014 "lead-free" plumbing could in fact contain amounts of lead. I forget the cut-off level but it was something like 8%. I'm not all that worried about lead. In most places it's not an issue because of how restricted it's been, we have tests for it in products, tests in people, etc. I'm more concerned about plastics, forever chemicals, etc which are everywhere,…

Post by bmacho » Thu, Sep 21, 2023, 7:48 PM UTC

uoaei wrote: post #64

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some races with average scores of 70. Can you believe it? Why of course I am talking about "white america" in 1900s [1]. [1] https://www.apa.org/monitor/2013/03/smarter > Over the past 100 years, Americans' mean IQ has been on a slow but steady climb. Between 1900 and 2012, it rose nearly 30 points, which means that the average person of 2012 had a higher IQ than 95 percent of the population had in 1900.

Goodhart's law strikes again. As soon as IQ becomes a measurable thing, populations that measure it will act in ways that increase it. Shocking, I know.

Post by thfuran » Thu, Sep 21, 2023, 7:50 PM UTC

munificent wrote: post #104

thfuran wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the water was already hot because I was doing something else, I'll make soup or pasta with a pot of hot water. If the kitchen were closer to my water heater, I'd do it more consistently.

If you ever find yourself cleaning the inside of a hot water heater some day, it will disabuse you of that habit. I'm sure it's mostly harmless, but they accumulate a truly horrific amount of mineral deposits and other weird gunk in there.

Post by aidenn0 » Thu, Sep 21, 2023, 7:51 PM UTC

weaksauce wrote: post #58

aidenn0 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a stop valve that went bad and I wanted to replace it with a ball-valve because I prefer quarter-turn valves for shutoff valves. No ball-valves at the hardware store were lead free.

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.