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

medicalxpress.com

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

#31
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?

I think IQ reflects your general cognitive ability AND a few other things like wealthy parents etc.

Just like your videogame score reflects your diet and a few other things.

Just like lots of things.

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

#32
post #23

Is IQ a piece of private information? Does everybody in the country get an IQ test in school? Can we just look that up in the public records? It sure would be useful if it was public and universal. For tracking the effects of lead poisoning for one. Or just factoring it into any big study. We might find something unexpected.

[flagged]

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

#33
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 is it specially allowed in hot water lines?

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

#34
post #23

Is IQ a piece of private information? Does everybody in the country get an IQ test in school? Can we just look that up in the public records? It sure would be useful if it was public and universal. For tracking the effects of lead poisoning for one. Or just factoring it into any big study. We might find something unexpected.

IQ being public might be problematic; I've heard from more than one lawyer that one ought-not use IQ as a hiring filter, unless you have evidence that the IQ test is not biased against any protected groups.

Indeed, hiring from more selective universities is, to a certain degree, a way of laundering hiring based off of IQ, since you can pass the buck to the university itself to not be racially biased.

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

#35
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?

If the chemical can complete nullify the advantages of having rich parents, how doesn't it sound bad enough...?

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

#36
post #26

Does anyone know the the risk is for electronics hobbyist?

considering almost all of this is in poor countries i'd say you are low risk if you solder infrequently and always have good airflow. that said there's no safe level of lead so wear a properly fitted p100 respirator if you want to be as safe as you can be.

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

#37
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 is it specially allowed in hot water lines?

I think that is allowed because we don’t drink from the hot water tap.

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

#38
post #16
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?

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?

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

#39
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it specially allowed in hot water lines?

I think that is allowed because we don’t drink from the hot water tap.

But when I googled hot water tap the first images it showed were... uh...

https://www.sinks-taps.com/articles/2018/9/21/the-benefits-o...

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