Half of US population exposed to adverse lead levels in early childhood

https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2118631119

by nabla9 • 4 years ago

140 97 4 years ago

graeme3• 4 years ago

Does anyone know if lead levels matter much in adulthood? Found out my local water had lead, old municipal pipes. Drank it about ten years. Or possibly just two. Either way, wondering if I should be concerned or do anything beyond filtering the water (which I do now)

joecool1029• 4 years ago

Provided the municipality treats their water correctly the lead should not dissolve into the water. Did you actually have the lead levels tested in the water?

If you're concerned get a blood test for lead levels. No level is good for you but adult exposure is magnitudes less damaging than early childhood (while brain is still developing).

ohazi• 4 years ago

Where?

graeme3• 4 years ago

Montreal. Lots of old pipes. They sent city workers to check, determined my unit’s levels were high and gave me a filter. Planning work in a few years.

sorry_outta_gas• 4 years ago

lead exposure makes people dumb af and mentally ill

toomuchtodo• 4 years ago

Crude, poor delivery but you may be on to something.

I am curious if this is why you see generational differences in mental models and belief systems (there is data showing an inverse relationship between religiosity and intelligence [1] [2]), and why younger, healthier cohorts operate with different mental models.

Riffing, if younger cohorts are healthier, you’d expect their average/aggregate cognitive ability to be higher, leading to social stratification.

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23921675/

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity_and_intelligence

kodah2• 4 years ago

People have a lot of misconceptions about water infrastructure. Approximately 6-10M lead service lines still exist in today's world. (https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/lead-ser...) Most of that is kept away from you by treating water with a chemical that causes a rust layer to form over the lead, preventing it from getting into the water at dangerous levels. Phosphates are typically used for this purpose. (https://alliancewater.com/why-the-us-still-has-lead-service-...)

Cities do screw this up, as evidenced in Flint and other areas. Not all filters are designed to remove heavy metals or lead, so you need to be picking a filter based on that. (https://www.consumerreports.org/water-filters/make-sure-your...) There's also other stuff in the water, so picking the right filter for your area is important.

Whether you're an adult or a child lead poisoning is equally dangerous (https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/lead-poisonin...). It is something that can be tested for though.

01100011• 4 years ago

I wonder what happens after, say, an earthquake? Can pipes bend enough to cause cracks in the passivated layer and temporarily increase lead levels?

graeme3• 4 years ago

To clarify: the measured levels from my tap were high, though not crazy high. High enough the city gave a filter to local residents and said not to drink the water from the tap.

7 micrograms per litre, legal limit 5. This was after running the water for a few min.

Spooky23• 4 years ago

Generally speaking, it’s not something to freak out about. Usually lead is found in the service lines from the main to your house.

Unless the people who run your water utility are criminally negligent (ie. Flint, MI), you’re fine. Run the water for a few seconds before you drink it in the morning to flush out sediment, and if you’re worried, use a filter.

Your water utility is required to test and publish results - look at those as well to understand if there is anything to worry about.

xattt• 4 years ago

I recently petitioned my local councillor to have my service line replaced at cost to the city. My only expense was to hire a plumber to do the connection to the house (several hundred bucks); digging was covered by them.

verelo• 4 years ago

I recall as a kid, soldering circuit boards. I distinctly remember the label "low lead" and also the smell of the smoke it made. At times, and this is stupid, i would find myself chewing on a piece of the unburnt solder as i debugged a circuit board. Mistakes were made...

emteycz• 4 years ago

When I was a kid, I explicitly didn't use non-leaded solder because I liked the smell of the leaded one. Mistakes indeed

bushbaba• 4 years ago

I too used leaded solder. But only because it was easier to use than the lead free versions

Teknoman1172• 4 years ago

I mostly used lead-free solder as a kid (1990's and 2000's) but I still recall the acrid smell of flux fumes. I've accidentally had a few good whiffs that left me recoiling and coughing a bit. I wonder if that'll have any long term effects...

jacobolus• 4 years ago

The fumes from non-leaded solder are worse for you (make sure to have good ventilation). The lead doesn’t go into the air; the fumes are from flux. As long as you don’t eat the solder, and wash your hands after soldering, there’s no problem with hobby soldering using lead solder.

The reason to prefer lead-free solder is primarily because at industrial scale with tons of trashed electronics the lead becomes an environmental pollutant. For hobbyists, lead solder is easier to work with, and not a serious risk.

qbasic_forever• 4 years ago

You were smelling the rosin in the solder burning.

All of that lead exposure likely pales in comparison to what was happening driving in a car with windows down (when AC wasn't common) and all the cars around you were burning leaded gas with zero emissions control equipment like catalytic converters. You were just getting blasted by air full of lead and other combustion products.

Eduard• 4 years ago

AC in general wouldn't help so much; air circulation would help a little

systemvoltage3• 4 years ago

Btw, solder fumes are not lead, but flux.

sjmm1989• 4 years ago

Good to know. I've always wondered, cause I accidentally got a good whiff of it once and ... my cheeks were red for what felt like hours or a day. My memory of it is hazy.

I've got ventilation going much stronger now.

mutagen• 4 years ago

I’m glad I wasn’t the only one!

throwawaycities• 4 years ago

My Dad was born in 1934 and growing up he had toy kits that consisted of lead, a smelter and casts of the toys/figures.

I can find these kinds of kits online from the 60’s but they all claim to be lead free. I wish I could find one of the original kits he had growing up.

goodpoint3• 4 years ago

I'm shocked by yours and similar comments. Did you simply assume that flux are solder are healthy?

(e.g. lead toxicity is well known since many centuries)

walkhour• 4 years ago

I'm guessing the health angle wasn't contemplated. Focusing on health wasn't that common before.

_yo2u• 4 years ago

Curious if theres any data on how US compares to other countries

bcrosby95• 4 years ago

This would be interesting to see - considering most European countries banned lead paint long before the US, I would expect exposure rates to be lower.

pkaye• 4 years ago

For leaded fuel, the European countries banned a few years after US so there was still some exposure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead#Phaseout_and_ba...

csee2• 4 years ago

Practically, what should one do to avoid lead poisoning here and now?

Lead petrol is banned. Lead paint is banned. Lead pipes are a problem in some areas, but let's assume we don't live in these areas.

What do we need to look out for?

micromacrofoot• 4 years ago

another one: get your soil tested, don’t wear your shoes in your house

goodpoint3• 4 years ago

don’t wear your shoes in your house

This is good advice for many other contaminants as well.

jeffbee2• 4 years ago

Paint chips are the main thing. Don’t needlessly demolish anything and if you do, do it right, with containment and wet cleanup. And, ideally, a trained and licensed crew. Don’t let your neighbors DIY exterior painting, scraping, or demolition, or do it with a fly-by-night unlicensed contractor and no permits. Don’t let your kids chew on the window sills. Don’t garden for food without thinking about it first.

mindslight5• 4 years ago

Don’t let your neighbors DIY exterior painting, scraping, or demolition

WTF? Yes, go ahead and advocate responsible techniques. But if you're the type of meddling busybody that harasses others just for working on their own homes, don't be surprised when nobody listens to you.

woodruffw• 4 years ago

My understanding is that the majority of lead exposure today comes from two sources: lead dust accumulation in older construction (lead paint is banned, but removal is usually not required), and lead contamination in consumer products.

The former is easier to avoid: make sure to maintain the integrity of the paint in your living space, particularly where it regularly encounters moisture or friction (like windowsills and mantles).

The latter is harder: lead is a useful industrial material, and it finds its way into all kinds of plastics, glass, etc. Dry spices can also have high amounts of lead, depending on the plant and the region it was grown in.

All of that said, lead is not like nuclear waste: it's not a latent risk. Leaded paint and lead jointing in pipes, when maintained correctly, do not pose an exposure risk. You can spend your entire life using lead tackles and lead solder without hurting yourself, as long as you take basic precautions during and after use.

lotsofpulp• 4 years ago

Small plane fuel is still leaded. I know a few air fields in my area that were converted to housing developments and/or parks/retail/offices. I assume the ground is still contaminated in those areas, and any fruits from plants growing on it will be contaminated also.

I also assume small planes rain down lead wherever they fly.

hgomersall• 4 years ago

I looked into this a short while ago and came to the conclusion that fruit is probably ok. It's root vegetables that are the worst and then leaf and stem, then fruit doesn't seem to pick much up even from fairly highly contaminated soil. I now can't find all the papers though, so YMMV.

CSSer• 4 years ago

Just wanted to add that it's planned to be phased out by 2030 now[0]. Kind of insane they're giving them that long if you ask me but I guess it's better than nothing.

[0] https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/faa-industry-chart-path-elimina...

thesausageking• 4 years ago

The CDC has a good site on lead exposure:

https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead/prevention/sources.htm

The biggest concerns are lead paint in older homes, contaminated soil, food and cosmetics, and toys and other consumer products.

Teknoman1172• 4 years ago

A bit of clarification that was something that didn't occur to me immediately from the title:

The article is that half of the living US population was exposed to adverse lead levels as a child, not that half of US children today are exposed to adverse lead levels.

JoeAltmaier• 4 years ago

Makes sense. We had it lying around when I was a kid (in the 1960's).

We used to make impressions in clay with ordinary objects then fire up the shop gas torch, melt lead chunks in a forge pot, and pour it into our clay molds! It cooled in seconds, you could break the clay and have a lead toy. Fun!

spdegabrielle• 4 years ago

I can’t find the reference but I’m pretty sure the majority of childhood lead exposure was via leaded fuel in cars.

narag• 4 years ago

In the 70s I made a pair of barbells melting 15 kg of the pipes that were replaced. Definitely fun!

holidayacct• 4 years ago

I'm from a family that has been in real estate since the 80s. Lead remediation was a mandatory requirement in the late 70s. There is almost no lead anywhere in the country except for cities where there were old industrial manufacturing plants or places where there was illegal dumping of materials.

You literally can't sell a home or purchase a home with lead issues because no one will purchase the property. There are exceptions where people are gaming the system by controlling the property and town inspection departments but largely lead paint poisoning is an old problem that was solved a long time ago.

The only reason children would have a drastic decreae in IQ is going to be a combination of Television and internet usage at extremely young ages which has deleterious affects on will-power, attentional focus, judgement, memory and visuo-spatial analysis. The lead argument really needs to go away it keeps popping up and it is literally impossible in most of the country.

monocasa• 4 years ago

I can tell you that lots of houses weren't remediated like you'd expect. An extra layer of paint, and now 50 years on since the 70s both are chipping sort of thing.

mikeyouse• 4 years ago

Yeah OP is completely wrong. There is tons of lead paint on the walls in just about every city in the US. Remediation has been completely ad hoc and the restrictions on selling a house with lead paint are almost always a single sheet o paper that says “Sign here to acknowledge that there may be lead paint.”

wpietri3• 4 years ago

It amazes me how long "the new thing has ruined the children" has been a trope.

You manage to combine two generations of it. Television started ruining children when the Boomers were growing up. The Millennials were ruined by the early internet. And now I hear the Zoomers are being ruined by TikTok. (Presumably Gen X was ruined by cable TV, which you left out.)

But that's just recently. The earliest iteration of this moral panic that I know of involved novels: https://www.economist.com/1843/2020/01/20/an-18th-century-mo...

That's right, the kids have been ruined since before America existed! Truly, it's amazing this steady worsening of the youth has not destroyed life as we know it.

astura• 4 years ago

According to the EPA

Many homes, including private, federally-assisted, federally- owned housing, and childcare facilities built before 1978 have lead-based paint

https://www.epa.gov/lead/protect-your-family-lead-your-home-...

Do you think they are lying?

paulpauper3• 4 years ago

Whether it's increased crime or lowered IQ, lead is likely not as potent as the media hype would suggest.

According to a meta study of lead vs. crime the results are inconclusive. Very high exposure to lead my cause a couple point reduction of childhood IQ, which may be temporary and not everyone exposed to lead has a reduced IQ.

Regarding lead & IQ and lead & crime ,some links to studies (and the meta study):

https://greyenlightenment.com/2021/08/02/the-effects-of-lead...

Also, the median childhood exposure to lead in the US for far back as the 1970s was around 15 ug/dl, which was the peak, which may have only conferred .5-2 pt decline in IQ

https://ourworldindata.org/exports/lead-blood-usa-children_v...

Also, this contradicted by Flynn effect, which shows IQs to be rising.

ceejayoz• 4 years ago

This comment would be a lot more useful with a link to the specific study you're referring to, instead of a fairly vague hint of its existence.

leonry• 4 years ago

Only tangentially related, but you may find the following little thread amusing: https://nitter.fdn.fr/literalbanana/status/15041549669984665...

etaioinshrdlu• 4 years ago

Is there anything that can even be done to treat lead exposure long ago?

andrew_• 4 years ago

The half-life of lead varies from about a month in blood, 1-1.5 months in soft tissue, and about 25-30 years in bone (ATSDR 2007).

https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp13.pdf

Even low lead levels in children can cause developmental issues. Not necessarily abnormalities, but possible issues vary widely.

jokoon• 4 years ago

Chelating treatments, although I have no idea how they can be administered or used it if there are constraints to their use. I think it's unavailable at the pharmacy.

I remember because the molecule is quite funny it has some kind of slot to capture the lead atom.

cpach• 4 years ago

Discussed recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30600539

wpietri3• 4 years ago

This amounted to a total loss of 824,097,690 IQ points, disproportionately endured by those born between 1951 and 1980

That is interesting, but what I really wonder about is more subtle cognitive effects. Did it make people meaner? More easily led? Less collaborative?

And as previously discussed here, lead was a known toxin when leaded gas was invented: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/leaded-gas-poison-...

Discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28500508

Alex39172• 4 years ago

At the risk of stating the obvious, IQ points aren't a measure and adding them up doesn't yield a meaningful number. It's like adding up the numbers on football player's jerseys; if the total of a team's numbers goes up, that doesn't make the team better. Similarly, a reduction in the total amount of "IQ points lost" could easily correspond to more damage to cognitive intelligence caused by lead exposure.

paulpauper3• 4 years ago

you are comparing something entirely cosmetic to something that is predictive and of real consequence

wpietri3• 4 years ago

If you're looking for a sports analogy, I think it's sort of like "change in total seconds it takes the players to run the 100-yard dash". Not directly tied to success, and in some sense a pretty arbitrary measure, but a number that's nonetheless concerning to see get worse.

I agree IQ is a pretty bad measure. And if you would like to go back and redo this study with a better one, I'm sure we (and this study's authors) would be grateful for the result. But since it's the measure we have, I'd say it's better than nothing, and this factoid is a good way to spark interest in the scale of the phenomenon.

pooper2• 4 years ago

> This amounted to a total loss of 824,097,690 IQ points, disproportionately endured by those born between 1951 and 1980
At the risk of stating the obvious, IQ points aren't a measure and adding them up doesn't yield a meaningful number. It's like adding up the numbers on football player's jerseys; if the total of a team's numbers goes up, that doesn't make the team better. Similarly, a reduction in the total amount of "IQ points lost" could easily correspond to more damage to cognitive intelligence caused by lead exposure.

This is how I read it when I saw this number based on the title (I didn't read the article):

There are about 300 million people in total. Half of that is 150 million. A loss of 824,097,690 IQ points over 150 million people is over five point per person.

https://www.google.com/search?q=824%2C097%2C690+%2F+150+mill...

This is, of course, extremely misleading because someone born in the late eighties didn't suffer the same as someone born in the sixties. Similarly, someone born on or after January 1, 1996 didn't suffer as much as someone born in the eighties. Therefore, "five points per person" would be more misleading.

At the end, the actual number doesn't matter much. What matters is that the number conveys a sense of magnitude. We collectively lost almost a billion IQ points!

It doesn't matter what it exactly means. We just need to know that "they" robbed us. When I say us, it isn't just those of us in the US, I mean the whole world as the baby boomers voted and continue to vote (older people are more likely to vote compared to younger people). Who knows maybe if we had higher IQ, we wouldn't have fallen for nonsense like "starve the beast". If you stop to think for two seconds, reducing income because you think you are spending too much is asinine. It doesn't matter whether it is the federal government or a small family, it makes no sense to say well I am spending too much but if I had less income maybe my expenses would suddenly come under control.

Maybe with a slightly higher IQ, the people who voted in the eighties would have demanded this nonsense be nipped in the bud. I can't even imagine how much of a better place the world could be if we took a different path instead of following Ronald Reagan's shenanigans.

manmal• 4 years ago

There is the hypothesis of lead causing increased crime rates: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead–crime_hypothesis

paulpauper3• 4 years ago

IQ has a interesting property in which it is multiplicative at the individual level, but not additive at the individual or collective level.

A 140+ IQ person is not 40% smarter than a 100 IQ person, but much smarter. Someone with an IQ of 100 may struggle at college math but someone with an IQ of 140 can do cutting edge research.

Likewise, adding two 120 IQ people does not equal a 140 IQ person. So even a dozen 100 IQ people working together will not be able to solve a math problem that a single person who has an IQ of 140 can solve.

dr_dshiv• 4 years ago

That is interesting, but what I really wonder about is more subtle cognitive effects. Did it make people meaner? More easily led? Less collaborative?

More boomer for sure

MrsPeaches• 4 years ago

Also this article in Mother Jones: https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/02/lead-exposur...

patall• 4 years ago

You probably wouldn't detect it since there are so many effects at play here. For example, the parents of those born after WW2 in western countries are on average much younger than before (especially men) or after. Parental age has a significant effect on mutation rate and hence mental illness. As a consequence, bare intelligence is slightly increased in the same generation.

ivanech• 4 years ago

Posted this in another thread about lead exposure: the Lead Exposure Elimination Project (https://leadelimination.org/) is an organization that's working to solve the problem of lead exposure internationally. I've been giving money on a monthly basis and have been blown away by their progress.

pgt• 4 years ago

Does lead exposure cause autism?

radycov• 4 years ago

Well that explains a lot. Seriously though, for a wealthy first world nation the levels intellectual rational debate in America is generally pretty shockingly poor.

aaaaaaaaaaab• 4 years ago

A lot of companies don’t hire people who were born before leaded gasoline was banned. For many roles with high mental load it’s seen as a liability.

chrismsimpson• 4 years ago

Explains so much

Half of US population exposed to adverse lead levels in early childhood

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