Half of American kids have lead in their blood, doctors say

If you go to here to the Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/boysbookofindust00noyc and view or download the book titled The boy's book of industrial information by Elisha Noyce published in 1858 — note I said 1858 - 163 years ago — and then turn to (book page 58, not the PDF #) then on the topic of WHITE LEAD you'll read this amazing statement:

"White lead is a very poisonous substance, and produces the disease called painters' colic, when taken into the system in minute quantities and for a long time, so that all who have much to do with this dangerous substance, as house-painters and artists, should be extremely careful that their hands are well washed frequently, and especially before going to meals. Cisterns of lead, used for containing water, very soon become coated inside with a thin flim (sic) of sulphate of lead, this prevents the water from acting further on the lead, and the water from such cisterns is never found to be poisonous; but, if distilled water were used, it would act rapidly on the lead, corroding it, and causing a deposit in the water of white lead, which would render such water dangerous in the extreme."

Remember this book was written for the information of boys; it wasn't in a new learned research paper from the Royal Society, etc. which means that 163 years ago it was very common knowledge that lead was very toxic. So how the fuck did we get to the point where we let the likes of Thomas Midgley Jr. and Big Industry introduce tetraethyllead - leaded gasoline ca 1923 and then pollute the world for another 70 or so years? Why weren't there more stringent regulations on white lead in paints, especially during its removal (somewhat like the asbestos regulations of today)? I acknowledge that avoiding lead in paint until about the mid 20th Century would have been difficult but at least some attempt to reduce its spread much earlier than when it was removed from paint should have been undertaken.

This is the same old story with industry doing its thing and to hell with the consequences. Lead was known to be dangerous in Roman times, so was mercury and asbestos and some 2000 years later we're still cursed with the mismanagement of these dangerous substance. Moreover, it doesn't stop there, we knew cigarettes and tobacco were dangerous long before the 1950s and see the fight we had over that. ...And there are many more such examples without even having to look for them.

It's a never-ending battle with Big Industry, Monsanto, Bayer, etc, etc. I'm beginning to think it'll never end whilst we have the current political mindset.

BTW, there's some truth to the 'cisterns of lead' being less poisonous although that wouldn't be tolerated these days. Not that long ago I've stayed in houses with lead water pipes. As far as I know they've not been changed, so until recently it was a common practice to use lead for water distribution. However, note carefully Noyce's caveat about the type of water that should be stored within them.

You're close here, but you're not quite right.

The link that you posted mentions 5 migrograms per deciliter of blood, while your post mentions 5 micrograms per decaliter of blood. This is a 100 fold misstatement.

A deciliter of blood is 1/10 of a liter, while a decaliter is 10 liters. For reference, I believe that the average adult male has roughly 10L of blood, so 5 micrograms per decaliter would be 5 micrograms in the body of an adult, whereas 5 micrograms per deciliter would be probably something like 5 micrograms in a baby. I don't necessarily trust this site (https://www.healthline.com/health/how-much-blood-in-human-bo...), but it says that babies have ~75 mL (0.075L, or 0.75dL) while the average adult has 4500 - 5700 mL of blood (4.5-5.7L, or 45-57dL, or 0.45-0.57DL).

I'm also surprised that the article sticks with their "no lead is good" posture.

I generally agree. Anything you are consuming that contains lead is much more concerning than food contacting a dish with a low amount of lead for a short amount of time (implying minimal to negligible transfer).

Honestly, the amount of lead in dishes and crystal (when it even contains it) is low. If you keep the contact time with the food low and there's no cracks/chips/dust, then you're fine. As an example, generally drinking from crystal is fine, but leaving a drink in a crystal decanter is not.

I found that my backyard soil has very low lead levels from the UMass Soil & Plant Nutrient Testing Laboratory. You can test your soil lead levels, along with nutrient contents of your soil as it pertains to the types of plants you have by sending a sample and $20 to UMass: https://ag.umass.edu/services/soil-plant-nutrient-testing-la...

I just found that the University of New Hampshire offers a similar test with an additional heavy metals package available which covers cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, nickel & zinc: https://extension.unh.edu/resource/soil-testing-forms

Yes! It was actually the lady's former supervisor who tested my dishes back then. She's since moved on, but the new lady told me that neither her boss nor anyone else in the health department had thought to look at dishes. I remember her being shocked and somewhat confused when she saw the XRF reading, and when the swab turned bright red she said, "oh my".

I felt like I was going to throw up, knowing that I'd been feeding my kids off those dishes for years. I've had to really work at putting that burden down and moving on. I never had my kids blood tested, and they seem fine, but I've love it if my experience helps someone else avoid the danger.