[HN Gopher] Lead poisoning among US children
___________________________________________________________________
Lead poisoning among US children
Author : CRConrad
Score : 217 points
Date : 2021-12-08 16:42 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| samstave wrote:
| Remember when they burnt down that super cockroach infested home,
| and it turned out it had like 50 years of layers of lead paint on
| it and the smoke affected a bunch of people in the area
|
| I'll find a link..
| nikkinana wrote:
| China is poisoning us with all their lead paints in toys and
| shit.
| jhallenworld wrote:
| The tap water pH in my town is 9.3. This seems extreme until you
| realize the lead risk with anything lower.
|
| https://www.belmont-ma.gov/dpw-water-division/faq/what-is-th...
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| > When public health officials in New York, Baltimore, and
| Chicago tried to enact regulations in the 1950s that threatened
| the industry's interests, lobbyists visited legislators and
| governors to get restrictions lifted. They succeeded. When
| Baltimore's health department called for the removal of lead from
| paint, the industry countered by proposing and winning a
| "voluntary" standard, reducing the lead content in paint. When
| New York City's health department proposed a warning label saying
| that the product was poisonous to children, the industry rejected
| the "poison" label and lobbied successfully for another label
| that simply advised parents not to use it on "toys, furniture, or
| interior surfaces that might be chewed by children," and
| deliberately avoided mentioning that lead paint was poisonous. It
| hired public relations firms to plan out strategies to forestall
| threats to the lead market.
|
| > The lead industry even sought to place the blame for lead
| poisoning epidemic on parents and children, claiming that the
| problem was not with the lead paint but with the "uneducable
| Negro and Puerto Rican" parents who "failed" to stop children
| from placing their fingers and toys in their mouths. Children
| poisoned by lead, the industry claimed, had a disease that led
| them to suck on "unnatural objects" and thereby get poisoned.
|
| > But the industry wouldn't remove all lead from their products.
| It fought every attempt at regulation. Industry representatives
| threatened lawsuits against television stations such as CBS that
| aired popular shows like Highway Patrol in which the product was
| depicted as dangerous ... All this despite records that show that
| the industry knew that their product was poisoning children.
|
| You know how many Americans have a weird dislike of government
| intervention. These are the guys that paid to make that happen.
| [deleted]
| colpabar wrote:
| But isn't it the government that ultimately prevented the
| proposed regulations? Why am I supposed to ignore that?
| estaseuropano wrote:
| The interesting thing is that 'the industry' or a specific
| company doing obviously evil things is nothing but people. Somr
| researchers and spin doctors found the arguments. Some
| marketing expert(s) compiled that text. Another put it in a
| layout. Another signed off. Another contracted the print.
| Another printed. None of them took action to stop it - else we
| wouldn't see it today.
|
| The evil underlying modern American legal and ethical systems
| is the weird understanding of a company as a concrete thing.
| This means none of the people that took the steps above ever
| faced (or even feared) liability.
| AlexTWithBeard wrote:
| Where these quotes are from?
|
| FWIW, the parent article's question is "why despite of lead
| being banned for 30+ years we're still getting cases of lead
| poisoning among children"
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Just a random article on the history, I felt there was a
| weird vibe of "well kids are being made ill by this lead
| that's everywhere for unknown reasons" as if it was some
| natural and unavoidable tragedy, rather than a century long
| conspiracy in plain sight, driven by greed that got us here.
| Paint manufacturers were talking publicly about it in 1904.
|
| There's an American amazed at how good the US response to
| this threat is vs the UK, possibly overlooking that the UK
| government and industry basically banned it 15 years earlier
| than the US, massively reducing the scope of the problem.
|
| The Doctor that in America is held as being responsible for
| proving there was an issue only starting looking into it
| years after that change in the UK had happened, decades after
| attempts at legislation started.
|
| I feel there's an important point there that's worth thinking
| about.
| bendbro wrote:
| > You know how many Americans have a weird dislike of
| government intervention. These are the guys that paid to make
| that happen.
|
| > Americans
|
| > Weird dislike
|
| Sounds like European coping.
|
| > These are the guys that paid to make that happen
|
| A GAN's smooshed rendition of the closing line of every
| documentary. This style is distinctly le redditour.
|
| What exactly is your background?
|
| Regardless, nobody paid to make Americans dislike government,
| and if you crack open a history book you'll find that
| governments did that themselves. I'd recommend you start with
| the reasons for the bill of rights.
|
| That said we should ban the lead
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| The government at the time of the Bill of Rights was voted
| for by, and therefore represented the interests of, about 6%
| of the population:
|
| > Generally, states limited this right to property-owning or
| tax-paying white males (about 6% of the population).[1]
| However, some states allowed also Black males to vote, and
| New Jersey also included unmarried and widowed women,
| regardless of color. Since married women were not allowed to
| own property, they could not meet the property
| qualifications.[2]
|
| Like the Magna Carta, and other historical staging-posts
| towards modern democracy, it was a step in the right
| direction, but somewhat ridiculous to hold it up as a reason
| to mistrust government generally.
| bendbro wrote:
| I never argued that the bill of rights is a reason to
| mistrust the government. I am arguing that the bill of
| rights is evidence that Americans have had some unspecified
| reason to mistrust the government embedded in their culture
| since founding, well before the lead paint guys started
| buying power.
|
| > The government at the time of the Bill of Rights was
| voted for by, and therefore represented the interests of,
| about 6% of the population
|
| where that population is
|
| > property-owning or tax-paying white males
|
| So are you arguing that mostly white males dislike
| government intervention? If not, what subpopulation are you
| arguing it is that dislikes intervention?
| willcipriano wrote:
| What you are missing is the government didn't regulate anything
| meaningful in the end. The government threatened to regulate
| something and that had it's desired effect, lobbyists were
| hired, dinners were had and campaigns were contributed to. Now
| having extracted it's protection money, it goes on to protect
| the organization that paid them with weak regulation to placate
| voters. This is the system working exactly as the regulators
| planned.
| AlexTWithBeard wrote:
| Wait. Are you saying there's no lead regulation in the US?
| willcipriano wrote:
| Read the OP above, regulations were going to essentially
| end the lead paint industry, those were scaled back to the
| point of having little effect. It wasn't until later, when
| the lead paint companies no longer had money for lobbyists,
| that we saw meaningful regulation around it. Things like
| this are just shakedowns that happen in public, if they
| really wanted to pass regulations they wouldn't do the
| public "Sure would be a shame if someone regulated you out
| of business" song and dance at the start.
| MisterTea wrote:
| > "Sure would be a shame if someone regulated you out of
| business" song and dance at the start.
|
| From the article:
|
| > "Baltimore's health department called for the removal
| of lead from paint, ..."
|
| > "When New York City's health department proposed a
| warning label saying that the product was poisonous to
| children ..."
|
| What song and dance are you talking about? The only thing
| I see are agencies doing the job they're supposed to do
| which is protecting the public while these greedy pig
| fuckers sabotage them.
| willcipriano wrote:
| See the words used "called", "proposed" not "enacted".
| The science and public health issues around this
| apparently changed once the lead paint companies made
| donations to the right campaigns and the regulators
| ensured that the lead paint firms had plenty of time to
| do that by loudly telegraphing their moves.
|
| If the mob wants to burn your store down, they'll just
| burn it down. They won't loudly pontificate on the issue
| unless they want you to try and stop them.
| MisterTea wrote:
| The simple fact that they wanted paint sold to the public
| containing lead to be banned or labelled as poison to
| protect people. There is no way you can think this was an
| extortion move unless you ate too many paint chips
| yourself or are a greedy asshole who doesn't give a shit
| about others (likely caused by the former).
| willcipriano wrote:
| > The simple fact that they wanted paint sold to the
| public containing lead to be banned or labelled as poison
| to protect people.
|
| The simple fact is they had the authority to do that, if
| they so wished. They decided not to for some reason. Why?
| MisterTea wrote:
| Why did you edit your original comment?
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| > weird dislike of government intervention
|
| History is the best reason not to trust the government, because
| it has been behind unbelievably evil things; and politicians
| have promised to solve every problem you can think of 10x over,
| enacted legislation to do so, and lo-and-behold they all still
| exist.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| > History is the best reason not to trust the government,
| because it has been behind unbelievably evil things;
|
| Government, being effectively the primary means that people
| have to organize themselves, is a force multiplier for human
| impact; it's intellectually dishonest to blame it for the
| unbelievably evil things people have made it do without
| crediting it for the unbelievably good things.
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| I didn't argue the government deserves no credit. Enforcing
| basic rule of law is essential for life to be anything but
| miserable. I argued giving it power to "intervene" has a
| proven track record of (at worst) causing evil things to
| happen, and (at best) not solving what it has sought to
| solve.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| To the topic of this article, it is largely due to
| government that we aren't still putting lead in our
| gasoline, paint and water pipes; most of the issue now is
| in the deteriorating housing stock that our (free-market-
| driven) development pattern (money goes into sprawl,
| leaving older, decaying housing stock in the hands of
| people who can't afford remediation, ditto at a local tax
| base level) hasn't updated.
| ZanyProgrammer wrote:
| Such a deep libertarian argument. Truly subtle, nuanced and
| full of deeply detailed examples.
| thewarrior wrote:
| And then lead poisoned voters with poor cognitive skills are
| more easily manipulated into voting against their own interests
| or their poverty is used to polarize the rest of the electorate
| and achieve the same outcome.
| jeffbee wrote:
| COVID-19 survivors also have reduced cognitive abilities,
| equivalent to about 7 points on IQ scale, which isn't great
| for countries that have been hit with many infections.
|
| https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5.
| ..
| [deleted]
| Alex3917 wrote:
| > COVID-19 survivors also have reduced cognitive abilities,
| equivalent to about 7 points on IQ scale
|
| Ostensibly true for those on ventilators. However, IQ is
| normed to those who are the same age as you. So if being on
| a ventilator also takes a couple decades off your life
| expectancy, then there isn't necessarily any difference, at
| least if you think of yourself as being a couple decades
| older.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| No, they don't. This is a completely false statement.
| xanaxagoras wrote:
| I dunno, I heard that people who had recovered from
| COVID-19, including those no longer reporting symptoms,
| exhibited significant cognitive deficits versus controls
| when controlling for age, gender, education level,
| income, racial-ethnic group, pre-existing medical
| disorders, tiredness, depression and anxiety.
| fartattack wrote:
| Well if you heard it, it must be true
| [deleted]
| wolfram74 wrote:
| Completely false in that survivors all have 0 or positive
| impacts on cognitive abilities?
|
| or that survivors have a range of cognitive impacts, none
| or only some of which could be the equivalent of 7 iq
| points?
| random314 wrote:
| OP has cited the Lancet.
| jMyles wrote:
| Poorly. The paper in question does not even purport to
| support this conclusion, when stated in such matter-of-
| fact terms.
|
| It's a very interesting study, with laudable measures
| taken to overcome confounding factors. But I imagine the
| authors cringe when someone flogs it around as "COVID-19
| reduces your IQ by 7!!!!!"
| mlyle wrote:
| > OP has cited the Lancet.
|
| In an exceptionally misleading way:
|
| > > COVID-19 survivors also have reduced cognitive
| abilities, equivalent to about 7 points on IQ scale,
|
| Failing to mention that one key thing:
|
| * He uses "COVID-19 survivors" -- which it sounds like
| that's everyone who's infected-- to refer to patients who
| were on a ventilator.
|
| Further, despite attempts at case control, I really doubt
| the comparison population is well matched to those who
| actually ended up on a vent.
|
| It's unsurprising there's a decent sized effect for those
| who are hospitalized in intensive care: this is known _in
| general_. And it may be a bit overstated here because of
| confounds.
| camgunz wrote:
| The paper says
|
| > but also for non-hospitalised cases who had biological
| confirmation of COVID-19 infection (N = 326)
|
| I think it applies to everyone?
| mlyle wrote:
| See figure 2. A standard deviation of IQ is about 15 IQ
| points. Only the ventilator patients have an effect
| anywhere _near_ the claimed magnitude.
|
| Average across the COVID patients weighted by prevalence
| of outcomes (to match the overall population's COVID
| experiences) is more like 0.5-1.0 IQ points. And some or
| all of this effect may be generated by confounds.
| camgunz wrote:
| Figure 2 shows a pretty clear correlation between
| severity of respiratory illness and cognitive deficits.
| If it were really confounded or a random effect, you
| wouldn't see 100% correlation like this. I do agree their
| N could be higher for all groups, but that's really hard,
| and again the correlation is 100%.
| mlyle wrote:
| I'm not saying there's not a real effect here. Hell, if
| there wasn't, that would be unexpected: just about _any_
| sickness is correlated with measuring lower cognitively
| for a time afterwards, and being hospitalized and being
| on a vent are more so, independent of COVID-19.
|
| I'm just saying that:
|
| * The claim that there's a 7 IQ point drop from being a
| COVID-19 survivor is completely bogus, unless you're only
| a survivor after being on an ventilator.
|
| * The effect size and causative relationship are dubious,
| because the controls and matching on this study are
| imperfect. There's plenty of opportunity for significant
| confound. E.g. if dumb people were more likely to not
| take precautions against getting COVID, it would look
| like getting COVID was associated with lower cognitive
| performance in this study.
| camgunz wrote:
| Oh, yeah I see what you're saying now. Yeah it's too much
| to say getting COVID-19 chops 7 points off your IQ.
| random314 wrote:
| Makes sense
| neuro007 wrote:
| Yes, they do. The statement is basically verbatim from
| the article. They study findings are robust (n~=80000,
| pvals<1e-5).
| jMyles wrote:
| To be "basically verbatim," there would need to be a
| sentence making the same assertion with different
| wording.
|
| It's true that the paper appears to show cognitive
| differences lasting months among some subsets of people
| with previous COVID-19 infections in the UK. It is not
| true that the paper asserts that being a "COVID-19
| survivor" reduces IQ by 7.
|
| This is not only not "basically verbatim", but not among
| the assertions made by this paper.
| mlyle wrote:
| I suggest you actually read the paper.
|
| * Only the patients on a ventilator showed an effect
| anywhere near "7 IQ points" --- which was not a metric
| measured by the paper, but if we're going by about
| 1/2SD-- (n=44, not 80000).
|
| * The P values are impressive, still, but that doesn't
| mean that the control population chosen to be "like' the
| ventilator patients is really equivalent.
|
| * We already know that being in critical care or on a
| vent is bad for cognitive performance afterwards. Indeed,
| we know that being sick in _any_ way is bad for cognitive
| performance for some time afterwards.
| eightysixfour wrote:
| Is it particularly surprising? The UK Bio Bank study
| showed a loss of grey matter: https://www.medrxiv.org/con
| tent/10.1101/2021.06.11.21258690v...
|
| This study was great because they had data from before
| COVID that was just part of the Bio Bank, so they were
| able to review participants already in the bio bank based
| COVID status. 394 COVID patients and 388 controls. Based
| on a small sample size of only 15 that were hospitalized,
| it also appears to increase grey matter loss based on
| severity, although sample size is not large enough to say
| so conclusively.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| Pre-print, not peer reviewed. Biased sample, not
| conclusive. No long term studies done, etc. Also says
| nothing about IQ. Show me the clinical trials that
| measure IQ prior to Covid over a broad sample and then
| measure IQ 3 months, 6 months, 12 months after recovery,
| etc.
| eightysixfour wrote:
| You'll have your perfect data in around 5 years. In the
| mean time, there is significant evidence that suggests
| COVID impacts the brain. You can ignore it or argue
| against it all you want, but it is there.
| ipaddr wrote:
| That sample size isn't enough to say anything without
| some other controls in place.
| vajrabum wrote:
| Did you read the article referenced? If not, then I don't
| see how you have no basis for saying this is completely
| false. If you did read it, then can you explain how you
| square your bald assertion with the facts presented in
| the article. Notice that it's published in a Lancet
| associated journal. They have pretty high standards and I
| can't see any conflict of interest on the part of the
| writers.
| wyager wrote:
| Exactly which voting bloc do you think is composed of lead
| poisoning victims?
| warning26 wrote:
| I think it's pretty clear that severe cognitive impairment
| would be required to think Trump was a good or effective
| president.
| pmarreck wrote:
| Can we please at least skirt around the political claims,
| here? It's not like disprovably-false things haven't ever
| been claimed en masse by leftwingers
| pmarreck wrote:
| Logically it would be the ones living in rural areas with
| old homes that haven't actually had all their lead removed,
| yet.
|
| The fact that most rural areas are also conservative is
| neither here nor there.
| mandmandam wrote:
| Both.
|
| Smart voters wouldn't allow executive orders, forever wars,
| bank bailouts, hackable voting machines, winner takes all
| voting, the destruction of environmental regulations,
| subsidies to fossil fuel, unwinnable cold wars, outsourcing
| of all manufacturing, stagnant wages despite record
| productivity, record inequality, pandemic profiteering,
| opioid crises with obvious correlations, the smearing of
| heroes like Assange, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.
| munk-a wrote:
| And it keeps happening again and again. The cost to society of
| prolonged lead usage can't be properly attributed to the
| damaging parties since they've all long since ceased to be
| solvent - ditto with the next wave and the wave after that.
| There is a real problem with insisting that regulations be
| lifted to allow business development and then ending up with
| tax payers suffering the long term externalities, we've seen it
| with global warming (and we're still not properly attributing
| any costs there) along with fracking and other environmental
| disasters. In my former state of Vermont a nuclear plant
| (Vermont Yankee[1]) tried their damnedest to avoid paying for
| contamination cleanup.
|
| This is a scenario we see play out time and time again.
|
| 1.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermont_Yankee_Nuclear_Power_P...
| hinkley wrote:
| Not only are the companies insolvent, at this point half the
| perpetrators are probably dead. Just stall long enough and
| you'll never have to deal with the problems you created.
| philips wrote:
| Relatedly, I have been working on a project[1] to encourage
| municipalities to implement stricter land use requirements on
| gas stations because responsible party searches so rarely pay
| out. Here is a funny (depressing?) quote from an Oregon DEQ
| report I read recently:
|
| "The site has a complex history, but the primary
| owner/operators have been Ron and Nancy Huddleston. The
| Huddlestons owned and operated the facility from the 1960s
| through 1979, when they sold the site to Tony and Michel
| Tocco. In 1987, the Toccos sold or gave the property and
| business to their son in-law, who after some difficulties
| running the store, returned it to the Toccos. The Toccos gave
| it back to the Huddlestons in 1988, who ran the store again
| until 1993. Finally, in 1993, the Huddlestons sold the store
| to Dewey Best (now deceased); Mr. Best operated the store
| until 1995, when he sold it to Harley Frisby, and operations
| continued under Kim and JeffBomark (Mr. Frisby's daughter and
| son-in-law). Mr. Frisby sold his interest in 1996 to the
| Bomarks, who declared bankruptcy in 1998. In May 1999, the
| bankruptcy court returned the property to the Huddlestons.
| Based on an ability-to-pay analysis of the Huddlestons, DEQ
| determined in March 2003 that they are unable to fund
| required investigation and cleanup activities. DEQ will
| continue to investigate other parties connected with the
| property to determine whether they may be responsible for
| cleanup costs."
|
| [1] https://postpump.org
| GordonS wrote:
| The level damage that lobbying has caused and continues to
| cause in the US is absolutely _crazy_ - you could say
| _poisonous_.
|
| How can this status quo possibly ever be changed though, when
| the only people who could do so are the ones that benefit from
| it the most (corrupt politicians)?
| chaostheory wrote:
| > You know how many Americans have a weird dislike of
| government intervention.
|
| We have plenty of government intervention, but as you've
| pointed out these regulations are created by lobbyists for
| their special interests
| nightski wrote:
| I have a different take. Americans dislike government
| intervention because they don't trust the government due to
| corruption and being so easily manipulated by corporate
| interests. Fix that instead of granting government more power
| to wield its corruption.
| yongjik wrote:
| In other countries, when the government is corrupt, people
| get outraged and call for reform. In America, when the
| government is corrupt, people say "Well it's the government,
| what did you expect?"
|
| America is like this because corrupt corporations spread the
| meme that the government is always corrupt, lest those pesky
| people demand that the government actually do something to
| those corporations.
| unclebucknasty wrote:
| With all of the arguments about government, elected
| officials have managed to divert attention from the two
| reforms that matter most: campaign finance and term limits.
|
| Disastrous rulings like _Citizens United_ , which further
| codified direct avenues to further government capture
| should still have people in the streets.
|
| These two reforms would absolutely overhaul our system,
| greatly diminish corruption, and restore democracy. But,
| you rarely even hear them discussed.
| colpabar wrote:
| Any popular movement to address corruption would
| immediately be decreed a "dangerous conspiracy theory" and
| demonized by the mainstream media. Any politician would be
| excluded from mainstream debates. And even if they could
| get into office, they would be totally unable to do
| anything, because the rest of the system would be against
| them.
|
| I know this sounds like more of "well it's the government,
| what did you expect?" But my point is that the American
| government is rotten to its core and it's going to take _a
| lot_ to undo it. In other countries there is sometimes
| violent revolution, but we consider that unspeakable here.
| scohesc wrote:
| With the number of firearms scattered around the USA,
| ripe for the taking (according to the media) - I'm
| surprised the proverbial nut hasn't been tightened enough
| for the bolt to shear - yet.
|
| (I am not condoning or encouraging violence in any way
| with this comment)
| yongjik wrote:
| Compared to most of the world, America's government
| system is still very competent and accountable. Think
| about highways, OSHA, FAA, NASA, etc. I'd certainly not
| call it "rotten to the core." Other countries' citizens
| rage not because they have it better than America - they
| rage because (usually) they have it worse!
|
| But calling it fundamentally corrupt serves as self-
| fulfilling prophecy, because once citizens internalize
| the concept that the government is corrupt and nothing
| can be done (short of an armed revolution), then _of
| course_ nothing can be done - because even in the most
| pessimistic scenario America will still take a generation
| before an armed revolution would look palatable. It sets
| up the false dichotomy between "uprooting the society
| and everyone's lives in it" vs. "doing nothing and saying
| that nothing can be done."
| trasz wrote:
| > Compared to most of the world, America's government
| system is still very competent and accountable.
|
| Compared to third world countries. I'd argue most people
| complaining how broken US government system is are
| citizens of developed countries, most of which score
| better than US.
| watwut wrote:
| I dont think so. It this would be true, the same Americans
| would be for interventions that go against corporate
| interests.
| nightski wrote:
| Do you have evidence they are not? Because in my (albeit
| small) circle there is not a single person I know that does
| not want to restrict money flowing to politicians and/or
| their campaigns from corporations (even indirectly through
| paid for advertisements and the like). Everyone wants to
| crack down on this, but legislators have no incentive to do
| so.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| The causality is the other way around. _Because_ Americans
| distrust their government it is easily hobbled. It 's open to
| corruption because it's too weak, not to strong.
|
| The US has an usual degree of openness when it comes to the
| political process. Directly elected representatives, local
| politics, everything is broadcasted to the public,
| everything's open to money, and so forth. This kind of
| openness enables lobbying, it creates the opportunity to
| influence elected officials, which is considered a feature
| because it looks superficially 'democratic', but in reality
| just aids oligarchic interest groups.
|
| The way to fix it is literally give more power to the US
| government, in particular the executive and regulatory bodies
| and shield them from outside influence, so they can do their
| job.
|
| This debate also has an analog on the other side of the
| political spectrum, namely policing. The US police is not
| unusually violent because it's too strong but too weak,
| because there is too much symmetry between force wielded by
| citizens and force wielded by authority.
| tremon wrote:
| How do you fix corruption without giving government the power
| to fight corruption?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| That is a lazy take. Americans are the government. By
| claiming that the government is corrupt, the implication is
| that you and your fellow Americans are corrupt. The solution
| has to be getting involved in governance, from local to state
| to even federal levels depending on your abilities.
|
| Which is unfortunate because there is still a salvageable
| amount of cohesion and trust in US society (free and fair
| elections, mostly good people with good intentions not
| explicitly seeking bribes, etc). At least, on a global stage,
| we are still in a relatively good spot.
| colpabar wrote:
| And yours is a naive take. Money wins elections in America,
| and regular people who would benefit from such regulations
| do not have enough compared to the industries fighting
| against it.
| newbamboo wrote:
| "your fellow Americans are corrupt"
|
| Yes! They are. And lead is the main culprit. Tv and sugar
| didn't help.
| mandmandam wrote:
| I honestly don't think any of that optimism is remotely
| warranted.
|
| And Americans are certainly very, very disconnected from
| the actual political sausage factory, thanks to corrupt
| media and corrupt law - why would you give them a pass
| here?
|
| I'm shocked that so many Americans are so blind to so much
| rot. You can smell it in the air.
|
| Even the Democrats are seemingly fine with executive
| orders, the Patriot Act, black sites, extrajudicial
| killings of American and other friendly nations citizens,
| smearing and torturing whistleblowers like Assange and
| Donziger.
|
| "On a global stage", America is seen as the number one
| threat to democracy and world peace, and has consistently
| been seen as such since Afghanistan. It's _wild_ that
| Americans don 't ever seem to grasp how they are seen
| abroad.
| nickpp wrote:
| It's first principles reasoning: the only motivation for
| politicians to become politicians is gaining advantages
| they can't obtain in the private sector. And since
| administration jobs don't pay that well, corruption it is.
| dang wrote:
| Could you please not post generic tangents like this? It's
| specifically against the site guidelines because it reliably
| leads to lower-quality, less on-topic, more generic discussion
| --all of which, unfortunately and predictably, we got below.
|
| Worse, shallow-indignant comments like this tend to get upvoted
| to the top, where they accrue mass and sit astride the entire
| thread, crowding out the interesting comments. That's where I
| found this one when I marked it offtopic (which downweights
| it). Doing that had a big effect - now there is a diverse
| assortment of interesting, informative comments for people to
| read when they first see the thread.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| mcbuilder wrote:
| I had a horrible experience recently due to a demolition of a
| 1930s house just a dozen feet away from dozen feet away from our
| home. I have 3 kids 10 or under, 1 aged 2. The home's exterior
| was covered in lead paint, probably all original. The contractors
| doing the job were completely ignorant of the dangers of lead,
| and did not follow the basic EPA guidelines (e.g. laying down
| plastic, picking up paint chips, paint chips scattering into our
| yard, etc). It was basically an illegal operation.
|
| We kept mentioning the problem to them, but you could tell they
| were ignorant of the dangers. The general contractors quote was
| "I'd be doing this the same if it was my daughter in your house".
|
| Anyway, I printed out the EPA guidelines, shouted them down when
| they fired up the back hoe that they were in violation of federal
| law. Luckily that stalled them for the day it took the city to
| get out to the site and shut it down. Now the GC was no idiot,
| but his general attitude was that we were overblowing the
| problem. When they resumed work, plastic was laid down, they
| picked up the paint chips, but none of the workers wore masks. If
| I didn't aggressively take action, nothing would have been done.
| RankingMember wrote:
| This is super common in my experience: contractors pretending
| to be ignorant of safety regulations to speed up work.
| [deleted]
| wnevets wrote:
| >but his general attitude was that we were overblowing the
| problem.
|
| I've had similar experience when talking with contractors about
| it. I've been told multiple times that unless a child eats a
| handful everyday its not a problem.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > Anyway, I printed out the EPA guidelines, shouted them down
| when they fired up the back hoe that they were in violation of
| federal law.
|
| When in doubt, call up your city's code enforcement office.
| They _love_ showing up to work sites and catching contractors
| violating code. And the contractors will listen, too.
| afandian wrote:
| A someone outside of the US (and who never quite understood
| the state/federal divide!), I'm really curious about what
| state regulatory enforcement is in now. It seemed [0] that
| the recent Republican government aimed to make as much damage
| as possible to these safety nets. Are they still there and
| functional?
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_policy_of_the
| _Do...
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > who never quite understood the state/federal divide
|
| This is key. The states in the US hold a huge amount of the
| actual power. As a practical matter the EPA will never be
| involved with something like this. It will be the state DEQ
| (or equivalent agency) that really has the teeth.
| cogman10 wrote:
| The original intent of the US foundation was that state be
| ran like nations are ran in the EU. That is, for the most
| part they are independent with a federal government that
| makes sure everyone plays nice.
|
| That all changed with the civil war and the 14th amendment.
| After that, the federal government gained a LOT of power
| that it didn't previously have.
|
| However, it's not something that was universal. In the US,
| federal still, for the most part, only deals with things
| that can be conceived to effect more than one state at the
| same time. There is, for example, no federal murder law.
|
| With that in mind, you have 50 states and for the most
| part, how the little things are handled are entirely up to
| each state. What a state will do in regards to regulations
| and safety nets is simply all over the board.
| danlugo92 wrote:
| From a non american viewpoint, I find it impressive that
| states like Florida and Texas have been able to do away
| with covid restrictions independently of all other
| states.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Very generally, federal agencies write nation-wide minimum
| sets of regulations (which have to be based on laws passed
| by Congress, which in turn have to be grounded in
| allowances in the Constitution - powers not explicitly
| granted to the federal government belong to the
| people/states [see below]). Some of these federal agencies
| have enforcement officers, but nowhere near enough to
| police everything. In the case of the EPA, the rules relate
| to pollution, toxic materials, etc (lead paint, asbestos,
| petro-chemicals, etc). FDA is about food production and
| drug safety. OSHA is work-place safety.
|
| States (and cities, counties, etc) generally have their own
| building codes and enforcement agencies. But, the states
| still have to follow federal rules where they exist.
|
| So, in this case, there are EPA rules about lead paint
| handling. Very likely three are also OSHA rules dealing
| with worker safety when dealing with lead (wearing a
| respirator). And while the EPA might have some enforcement
| officers, they won't be interested in a single house
| renovation (more likely interested in factories, sky-
| scrapers, etc). OSHA also has enforcement, but a lot of
| that ends up being after-the-fact (ie somebody loses a
| limb, OSHA gets called, and shuts down a factory until
| remedial action taken).
|
| But, the local building inspectors office is able to
| enforce the EPA rules as well as local building codes. And
| there's probably a local work-place safety office as well.
| But, in the case of small construction jobs, local code
| enforcement is the easiest/fastest way to get something on-
| site changed.
|
| With respect to the Trump administration, you are correct -
| he went out of his way to install department heads who were
| either incompetent or had business goals opposed to the
| agency they were tasked with leading.
|
| [] - The 14th Amendment gives the federal government the
| power to ensure all people are protected equally under the
| law. Pretty darn broad power there. Similarly, the Commerce
| Clause in the Constitution grants the federal government
| the power to regulate trade between the states and other
| countries. Again, you can read that very widely - pretty
| much any serious level of commerce impacts more than one
| state.
| Wohlf wrote:
| The states and larger cities have their own sets of
| regulations and enforcement agencies so it's not a simple
| question, but as best I can tell COVID restrictions and
| hiring issues have been a bigger blow to regulatory
| enforcement than the past administration, any changes they
| made would be marginal in comparison and are likely already
| undone by the new administration.
| xapata wrote:
| It's not easy to hire good staff when budgets are cut.
| CapitalistCartr wrote:
| I'd love to see a massive project to test every child in the
| nation. It's hard to plan without good data. Once we know who
| is the worst off, we can better protect everyone. Of course,
| property owners have massive political clout, and they don't
| want to find any problems.
| greedo wrote:
| I'll believe that when I see it. We can't even test for a
| virus that's killing 400K/year. Nor can we provide safe
| drinking water for a city that's been stuck with crappy water
| for years and well publicized to boot.
| derekpankaew wrote:
| They just got a slap on the wrist? It seems like there should
| be much heavier penalties for spreading a neurotoxin ... ...
| motohagiography wrote:
| Would lead paints have a relatively unique RF refractive
| signature? Wondering if flying a drone with some wave guides
| could inventory buidlings with external lead paint, and then
| use the data for permitting to require additional environmental
| controls.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| You really only need to know the age of the building to know
| if it has lead paint, generally.
| giardini wrote:
| Here's a link if you're worried:
|
| "Lead Paint - What Years Did They Use It?":
|
| https://buyersask.com/education-center/lead-paint-what-
| years...
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| Note that every contractor I've spoken to assumes
| anything built before 1978 has lead paint. My
| understanding is that it's probably going to be more
| expensive to test every spot you need to test for lead
| paint vs just treating it as if it is lead paint in the
| first place.
| tdumitrescu wrote:
| If it _had_ lead paint. Could have been scraped and
| repainted later.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| There seems to be a disturbing lack of interest in figuring out
| how these people are actually getting poisoned. Will replacing
| all the lead pipes actually have an effect? Why is it that
| hundreds of thousands of people in Rhode Island drink water from
| lead pipes, but only hundreds are poisoned per year? What about
| other causes, like lead-based paint exposure, or less obvious
| things like giving your kid 5oz of fruit juice per day[0]? Every
| non-child pictured in the article is obese and I begin to wonder
| what their knowledge or interest in nutrition is - I know
| multiple people who feed their child way more than 5oz of fruit
| juice per day, even after I told them about heavy metal concerns,
| because they can't believe that 'getting fruit' can be bad.
|
| https://www.consumerreports.org/food-safety/arsenic-and-lead...
| klyrs wrote:
| There are leaded pipes in Flint, MI too. That was fine, until
| the city changed its water supply. Old lead pipes have a
| passivating layer, due to reactions with the water -- but
| changing the pH of the water can strip the passivating layer,
| and dissolve the lead into drinking water. I don't think
| there's a "lack of interest" in determining how the poisonings
| occur (otherwise I wouldn't know this about Flint). But, that's
| not the purpose of this specific study, which aims to be a
| cross-sectional analysis of how much lead is in kids' blood.
| This sort of study can inspire more targeted research into
| specific causes.
| hinkley wrote:
| Chloramine also strips the layer, so mixing water from
| another district that uses chloramine can also cause this
| problem. Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't that the case in
| Flint?
|
| I believe the same thing happened around the turn of the
| century somewhere in Pennsylvania? In that case it just
| affected one section of the distribution grid, not the entire
| city. Somewhere on the order of a thousand kids. IIRC they
| got free testing and I think some health care for life.
| dm03514 wrote:
| I'm wondering this too, which exposure vectors? How much
| exposure is necessary? I really couldn't find anything on it?
| Will one inhale of lead dust cause poisoning or a spike in
| levels? Does it require consistent ingestion? Like we know lead
| is bad for children and the best case is lead free environment,
| but that's not available to most of us. What's the in between?
| How does exposure manifest in lead blood levels?
|
| I just bought an old house with known lead paint. I had as much
| remediated as I could but there is still (covered) lead paint
| on the radiators, door casings, stairs, soil and porches.
|
| What sort of exposure does this provide my children? How likely
| are these to be airborne? How much ingested lead dust is
| necessary to affect my children's blood levels?
|
| We had a baseline blood test before we moved in, but now it's
| just waiting 4 months until their updated test, and me being an
| anxious mess and wiping everything down and touching up paint
| constantly.
| nabla9 wrote:
| > Why is it that hundreds of thousands of people in Rhode
| Island drink water from lead pipes, but only hundreds are
| poisoned per year?
|
| For the same reason why Flint water trough lead pipes was good
| for decade turned dangerous very quickly after one change.
|
| The questions you asks have answers. Those answers are clearly
| communicated in the news and research. They are basic
| information by know for anyone interested.
|
| Just asking them reveals that you don't follow issues. This is
| not a good way to be skeptic.
| chaganated wrote:
| The article presented no evidence as to the source of these
| specific poisonings. " _It was the pipes!_ " is sloppy
| guesswork. There are so many contaminants in the environment
| today. It would be better for everyone if they broke out the
| test kits & left no stone un-turned. Remember what they say
| about assumptions.
| hpoe wrote:
| Shhh, don't bring that up. Come on over here we have a nice
| identity driven controversy to get you invested in, look at how
| bad this [OTHER GROUP] is, they did this bad thing. Isn't that
| much more inflammatory, doesn't that make you want to click and
| complain more. Good, focus on what we tell you is important.
|
| Good see don't you feel that dopamine, doesn't it feel good to
| be angry about things your identity is invested into.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't post this kind of thing to HN. Like most high-
| indignation/low-information comments, it's well below the
| quality line for interesting discussion.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| bmitc wrote:
| > "But if you don't test for it, it's like it doesn't exist."
|
| This is exactly it. During our house purchasing process, our
| state gives you the so-called right to know if lead exists in a
| house. But all a seller has to do is check on the form that they
| have no knowledge of lead in the house. The house could literally
| be filled with it on the walls, door jams, windows, but if they
| check "we're not sure", then both them and the state have washed
| their hands of the issue. So basically, you need to test for
| yourself. Meanwhile, the state has covered their ass by providing
| the requirement of the disclosure, even though the disclosure is
| completely worthless. The same goes for radon testing. And it's
| practically impossible to get an offer accepted if you do not
| waive your right to test for lead and radon before purchasing.
|
| It's just irritating to me that industries and the government go
| through all this trouble to do nothing but cover their ass and
| stop right before they do something that would actually help the
| issue in the real world. Additionally, nearly all of the stuff
| you do when purchasing a house protects somebody else except you
| as a buyer. It's amazing to me that there aren't stricter
| requirements, standards for testing, and regulations around
| testing for lead and radon, two things that are easy to test for
| but have seriously adverse health effects.
|
| Also, it's surprising just how much stuff still has lead in it.
| When I was researching ideas for a compost bin in my backyard,
| many suggested wire mesh (aka chicken wire, wire cloth, etc.).
| However, I found out that the galvanizing process leaves a fair
| amount of lead on the wire, which could then leach into the
| resulting compost, then the ground the compost is used on, and
| then your garden vegetables. Just touching the stuff at the store
| now means you have lead dust on your hands.
|
| Even researching what soldering wire to use is a pain because
| apparently leaded solder is just so much "better" when it comes
| to flowing than non-leaded. It just doesn't seem to be taken that
| seriously at the hobbyist level (whereas my understanding is that
| industrial processes already have switched to non-leaded solder).
| I get that it's easier to use, but what about when kids or pets
| are around, or you forget to wash your hands, or when disposing
| of it?
| belval wrote:
| > Even researching what soldering wire to use is a pain because
| apparently leaded solder is just so much "better" when it comes
| to flowing than non-leaded. It just doesn't seem to be taken
| that seriously at the hobbyist level (whereas my understanding
| is that industrial processes already have switched to non-
| leaded solder). I get that it's easier to use, but what about
| when kids or pets are around, or you forget to wash your hands,
| or when disposing of it?
|
| I guess I fit in the hobbyist you mention here so I'll try to
| chime in and explain. I use lead solder for my drone repairs
| and a few small home automation projects. Lead solder is not
| really dangerous at a hobbyist scale because the usages are
| spaced enough that even if you weren't washing your hands each
| month after soldering the measurable lead in your (or people
| around you) blood stream wouldn't be anywhere near worrying. In
| a way it's similar to asbestos, while it's 100% bad, the mere
| fact of studying in a room that has asbestos in the ventilation
| probably won't have an impact on your health. It's the longer
| exposure of say a teacher that worked 30 years in that
| environment that's much more dangerous.
|
| There is also the tradeoff of non-leaded solder wire that needs
| higher temperatures. To compensate you would need to use more
| flux and that flux is a significant threat to your lungs.
| bmitc wrote:
| > There is also the tradeoff of non-leaded solder wire that
| needs higher temperatures. To compensate you would need to
| use more flux and that flux is a significant threat to your
| lungs.
|
| From what I've read, I did learn that this is an issue. I'm
| trying to get a setup going at home, and I've been debating
| on what to do. I know the lead solder can be mitigated and
| issues only come from handling it (and not breathing it in),
| but it gets tougher with things I can't control like kids and
| pets. Also, what do you do with the parts you've soldered?
| Does handling these not expose you to lead? I think disposal
| is still an issue.
|
| I think part of my lament is that there just isn't a lot of
| pressure to find better solder materials for non-industrial
| use. I'm assuming industrial use has solved problems.
| Although I can be careful with lead solder at home, it still
| feels wrong to be buying it and then disposing of it, even
| through the proper recycling/disposal channels. Lastly, I
| actually didn't realize until recently that solder had such
| significant lead portions in it (if I did, I forgot), which
| means that all the times I handled it at work (admittedly
| infrequent) was done without that knowledge. That's on me,
| but that was part of my point that it's in things that may
| not be clear to people.
| belval wrote:
| If you are really concerned about flux and lead I would
| suggest using a lead-free solder with a good (i.e. not the
| cheap on with "active charcoal filters") fume hood.
|
| As far as handling leaded PCB goes I really don't see it as
| being an issue unless you voluntarily lick it, and even
| then I am not sure that there would be nefarious
| consequences (aside from probably getting sick from
| leftover flux).
|
| What I do is just use leaded solder but wash my hands
| afterwards. I solder about every two weeks so I just don't
| think it would even show up in a blood work. I don't have
| children but I suppose you can just lock your supplies
| somewhere or educate them depending on their age.
| [deleted]
| mindslight wrote:
| > _But all a seller has to do is check on the form that they
| have no knowledge of lead in the house. The house could
| literally be filled with it on the walls, door jams, windows,
| but if they check "we're not sure", then both them and the
| state have washed their hands of the issue_
|
| You're using moralizing language, but what else do you think
| could happen here? Barring government funding, by-the-book
| remediation costs a lot of money. So the two options are either
| completely remediating the lead and offer that as a selling
| point, or just kicking the can down the road ("I don't know but
| it was painted before 1978 so make your own informed guess").
| If the seller checked the box for positive existence of lead,
| they would be doing you no favors since you'd be getting the
| exact same physical house, but would also have to check the
| known-lead box when selling the house down the line.
|
| If you only want to buy a house that has been fully remediated,
| you could make your offer contingent upon that. But since your
| offer has to be competitive with the rest of the market, that
| would cost a similar amount to buying the house as it is and
| then doing your own remediation afterwards.
|
| If you go to rent that house out and the renters have small
| kids, then you can no longer kick the can down the road. It
| makes for a painful immediate situation, but barring government
| funded remediation or straight up mandating that every bit of
| lead paint needs to be remediated before a house can be sold
| (despite it being fine for the majority of people), I don't see
| how else it could be handled.
| bmitc wrote:
| One point is that one should be proactive in testing things
| on your house and property because no one else is going to do
| it, which is obviously and unfortunately exclusionary due to
| socioeconomic factors, as the article points out. Although
| that only gives you power to test things you have control
| over.
|
| The other point is basically what you've already made by your
| elaborations. The entire lead and radon disclosure and right
| to test is basically theater. The disclosures are toothless,
| and at least in the market I'm in, you will not get an offer
| accepted if you keep your right to test. So the whole thing
| is pointless and only exists to protect industries and
| governments from repercussions. As you've also pointed out,
| the current process just creates conflicts of interests.
|
| For radon, testing is cheap and easy. I think short term
| testing or testing records should be required when
| selling/buying a house with long term testing recommended
| (and prior long term test logs provided). For lead, I agree
| that the situation on testing and remediation is more
| complicated. For one, it shows the major and long-running
| repercussions to using and allowing lead in the first place
| and for so long. I.e., there are consequences to our actions
| and they can create a mess. In my view, _actual_ knowledge is
| better than the current situation, which is one of theater,
| covering ass, and conflicts of interests. The practicalities
| of enforcing that knowledge I think are tough, but it should
| be better attempted. I don 't think it's reasonable to
| completely remove lead from houses. That can basically only
| be done by a gut renovation (to my knowledge). But I do think
| it's more reasonable to think about testing and logging when
| it comes to windows, door frames, and other high probability
| areas, including when these areas were last replaced or last
| painted.
| mindslight wrote:
| > _[the seller] and the state have washed their hands of
| the issue_
|
| I took this as judgement that the seller or the state
| should be doing something else. Which seems like you, as
| the new owner of the house, wanting someone else to have
| completely solved the problem for you without fully owning
| that stance and paying to get it done. It seemed like you
| were passing this judgement having only considered half the
| issue, which feels like the same perspective that got us
| this useless _do-something_ disclosure legal dance in the
| first place.
|
| Ignore that feel-good disclosure song and dance, here is
| the actual knowledge: if you're buying a house that was
| built before 1978, it behooves you to assume that every
| painted surface has been painted with lead paint, period.
| The "what if" scenario isn't the house having lead, it's
| the house _not_ heaving lead - a newer-built addition
| _could_ be a lead-free bonus. But barring any written
| representation by the seller or negative test, that 's the
| condition of the house.
|
| There are other comments in this thread talking about
| remediation companies being a racket (not surprising
| because any time anything gets regulated in such a way, it
| becomes a captive market). Making testing mandatory would
| further entrench that racket - eg "your house tested
| positive for lead when you bought it, and now it's testing
| negative. How could that have happened without hiring a
| certified ripoff remediation company?". In reality a P100
| respirator, good worksite hygiene, and disposal in
| municipal trash will get the job done (at least last time I
| checked a decade ago, disposal regs may have changed).
|
| (I'm sympathetic to the socioeconomic angle, but
| enforcement of current tenant law as written would actually
| solve that for lead paint, at least in the states I'm aware
| of. So unless you're thinking a government program that
| pays for proactive lead remediation, I don't know what else
| could be done)
| [deleted]
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| Radon is comparatively cheap to mitigate. Burying your head
| in the sand about that is kinda dumb.
|
| Completely removing lead is economically unfeasible. When
| we bought our house, which was built in '72, we replaced
| all the door jams and window sills. It wasn't as cheap as
| mitigating radon but it wasn't "tear out all the drywall"
| expensive, and should generally be good enough as long as
| you don't let the house completely deteriorate.
| newaccount74 wrote:
| The problem is that there is an incentive to not check.
|
| But the state could easily change that. The state could
| introduce a law where the seller must cover remediation costs
| if lead is discovered after the sale.
|
| Then sellers would have an incentive to check for lead
| contamination ahead of the sale.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > what else do you think could happen here?
|
| The seller could actually care about the health of the fellow
| human being they're doing business with.
|
| > proper remediation costs a lot of money
|
| So what? Not doing it means harming other people. That's
| criminal negligence.
| camhenlin wrote:
| Inert lead, like asbestos, is safe to be around. It only
| really becomes a problem if you start taking actions that
| could allow it to become airborne in some way. There's
| nothing especially negligent about allowing lead paint to
| remain somewhere, especially if it's been sealed under
| layers of non-lead paint as is going to be the case in most
| situations at this point.
| [deleted]
| throwaway946513 wrote:
| Only once have I physically encountered leaded solder, and
| immediately wrapped it up with the lead-acid batteries I had to
| take to hazardous waste in my city.
|
| I always try to reduce the exposure I have for myself if at all
| possible. My family's house was built in the 80's and we've
| ensured that there's no leaded paint on the house or water
| pipes on the property.
| DanBC wrote:
| >Even researching what soldering wire to use is a pain because
| apparently leaded solder is just so much "better" when it comes
| to flowing than non-leaded.
|
| This used to be true (I remember having to grind through many
| different solders on different boards for work and they sucked
| compared to the Multicore 60/40 5 core rosin fluxed solder),
| but modern alloys are pretty good. Whatever you're using you
| must use ventilation too, so the comments about flux are
| already answered.
|
| I feel that there's a much wider range of soldering tasks that
| solder has to cope with now. In the past hobbyists had single
| or dual layer PCBs with big pads and through hole components,
| or stranded wire and big connector buckets. But now we have
| tiny surface mount components on tiny pads, or a big FET on a
| 12 layer board with a big ground plane. If it's something
| you're doing at work you get used to the feel of it and can set
| your iron station up accordingly, but if you're a hobbyist you
| don't get that practice and set up time.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| I don't understand why people wouldn't bother testing for radon
| - the mitigation systems tend to be cheap when compared to
| getting rid of lead, which might involve tearing out all your
| drywall.
| bluGill wrote:
| Every realtor has told me not to test for lead paint. If the
| house is older it has it, so if you test you have to check the
| box and then the new buyer will make you do something about it.
| If you don't test though you can remain ignorant.
|
| Every house I've lived in has been painted a few times since
| lead paint was common, which covers up the problem. Getting rid
| of lead paint is possible, but not really affordable.
| aaron695 wrote:
| This article is bullshit.
|
| It's about a kid with autism.
|
| In your little conspiracy world how do you know if the lead gave
| him autism or a vaccine?
|
| Lead in pipes doesn't cause this sort of severity like reduced
| speech and suppressed appetite, autism does this. Lead in pipes
| probably causes nothing. We don't know what it does because if it
| does do something it is small, it'll be epidemiological.
|
| Just because you watched a blog about the fall of the Roman
| Empire doesn't mean your fixation on lead in pipes is meaningful.
|
| > As a toddler, he had to be rushed to the hospital and started
| on months of "chelation" treatments to soak up the lead in his
| body.
|
| This is very suspicious, I don't believe this is from lead in
| pipes. Things that come to mind, why not the whole household. Was
| the house demolished? It won't just be one special house, this
| should be regular.
| dionidium wrote:
| I always come away from these articles about lead more confused
| than before. I grew up in a house that almost certainly had lead
| paint. We currently live in a house (in Rhode Island) that almost
| certainly has lead paint (an initial test was inconclusive, but
| it's very likely). Millions and millions of households have lead
| paint.
|
| So why was the kid in this article found to have levels many,
| many times higher than the average kid living in houses with lead
| paint? What are the practical concerns for a parent living in
| such a house? What happened here?
|
| It's not even remotely clear.
| ghaff wrote:
| Presumably living in a house with a lot of old flaking paint
| with paint chips all over the place. Which is the reason it's
| generally a class/income problem; houses of poorer people are
| often less well-maintained--especially if they're rented. In
| general, the houses with lead paint owned by people who are
| better off have the lead fairly well covered with newer paint.
| And/or lead pipes which haven't been updated.
| theptip wrote:
| I suspect that if we did an ROI calculation on government funding
| to remove lead from buildings, we'd find a very good return vs.
| other spending in the infrastructure bills. This could serve as a
| solid backlog of Keynesian stimulus to inject money & jobs into
| the economy in recessions.
|
| I recall in 2008 the recovery act included funds for broadband
| build-out, which took years to actually get through planning, and
| so did not serve the stated goal of getting people back to work;
| seems like you could do many of these smaller lead removal
| projects on a much shorter timeframe (especially during a
| recession when construction resources would tend to be
| underutilized as investment dries up).
| k2enemy wrote:
| A few years ago I bought a 90 year old house and it was an eye
| opening experience.
|
| My state has fairly strict lead laws and a lead paint test is
| required if you purchase a house built before a certain date and
| have children below a certain age. But I only knew that because I
| carefully read all paperwork in the process. No realtor mentioned
| it, but begrudgingly agreed when asked about it. None of my
| friends with kids had done a lead test when they purchased homes
| built before the cutoff date. Many of whom have gone on to do
| renovations.
|
| So I get the lead test (independent lead testing company as
| required by state law) and many painted wooden surface had lead
| paint at the base layer (but not the top). The required mediation
| was for all lead paint to be removed from friction surfaces and
| windowsills, and all other surfaces needed intact paint over the
| lead paint.
|
| It cost $40k for the remediation and they did an absolutely
| horrible job. Zero common sense. It didn't fit the letter of the
| law or spirit of the law. The house would have been hardly safer
| than before mediation. Yet it passed independent inspection with
| no problem. I had to fight hard to get the remediation company to
| come back and fix the sloppy work. It took almost $60k and
| delayed moving in to the house for four months.
|
| I came away from the experience convinced that the lead
| remediation operations in my area are a racket. The inspectors
| don't care. The remediators don't care. And I only know one other
| family that even bothered to do the required testing when they
| bought their house. And this is in a fairly affluent area. So it
| does not surprise me that we have a lead poisoning problem.
| sokoloff wrote:
| There's a reason people avoid the testing. It's because the
| remediation companies are a racket and the fact of learning you
| have lead in the house is value destructive way beyond the
| value gained from the knowledge.
|
| My house was built in 1926. I'm sure it had lead paint. The
| windows have all been replaced with (crappy) vinyl windows. If
| that wasn't the case, we'd have done it, but otherwise, I had
| no intention to perform any testing for lead paint.
| nate_meurer wrote:
| Sloppy remediation can make the problem worse. Can you talk
| more about the work they did on your house?
| denimnerd42 wrote:
| I live in a 1920s home. No asbestos that I know of thankfully but
| it does have lead paint that's been covered by 20+ layers of
| paint. The windows are the biggest concern since they are
| original and in relatively poor condition. They are painted shut
| so no issues of paint chipping off during opening. Unfortunately
| single pane windows are just prone to condense water which leads
| the paint to chip so annual re-painting is what I do. My young
| toddler loves playing on the windows and there's not much one can
| do to stop him. I just try to wash his hands before meals.
|
| Also it's frustrating because I asked my pediatrician for blood
| lead test and they wouldn't do it as they said it's unnecessary.
| I am going to switch doctors and try to push harder at the next
| checkup. I've heard there is a finger prick test that's not very
| good and then a blood draw that's actually fairly good but of
| course more invasive.
|
| I'm sure the neighborhood has lead all over in the soil so it'd
| be nice to keep an eye on the levels. There's also some more
| modern concerns like the shredded tires used in one playground or
| the crumb rubber used in another.
| howdydoo wrote:
| >I asked my pediatrician for blood lead test and they wouldn't
| do it as they said it's unnecessary
|
| Ask to get that refusal in writing. I bet they'll change their
| mind.
| cure wrote:
| > Also it's frustrating because I asked my pediatrician for
| blood lead test and they wouldn't do it as they said it's
| unnecessary. I am going to switch doctors and try to push
| harder at the next checkup. I've heard there is a finger prick
| test that's not very good and then a blood draw that's actually
| fairly good but of course more invasive.
|
| Huh, yeah, sounds like you need a better pediatrician. That's
| not cool.
|
| Several states in the Northeast also have mandatory testing for
| lead levels for young children.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > Also it's frustrating because I asked my pediatrician for
| blood lead test and they wouldn't do it as they said it's
| unnecessary.
|
| It's certainly not part of the usual screening tests but it
| would make sense for certain populations. Lead exposure seems
| to be more common in the USA, the CDC even recommends testing.
| In my country lead exposure is most common in certain jobs and
| those workers are certainly tested every 6 months or so.
|
| > I've heard there is a finger prick test that's not very good
| and then a blood draw that's actually fairly good but of course
| more invasive.
|
| The finger prick test is more sensitive. It has a higher rate
| of false positives. A negative result is good but a positive
| result must be followed up with a proper blood test.
| newbamboo wrote:
| This is why the romans couldn't accomplish much. They would go to
| watch Christians being fed to the lions. Not at all unlike
| contemporary American culture. I hate lead so much.
| AlexTWithBeard wrote:
| To add some more color to the discussion: a water filter removing
| 99% of lead from water can be had for under 50 bucks.
|
| https://www.consumerreports.org/products/water-filters-32980...
| im3w1l wrote:
| Is bone demineralization an issue when using filters like that?
| r00fus wrote:
| Even if you drink distilled water, you get plenty of those
| "dissolved solids" from actual food (or if you're extra
| paranoid, a supplement).
| nate_meurer wrote:
| Why would it be?
| exhilaration wrote:
| No, carbon filters don't remove calcium and other minerals
| from water. You'd need a reverse osmosis filter for that. Or
| a water softener, but that won't filter lead.
| newaccount74 wrote:
| The average family uses a lot more water than a pitcher like
| that can filter in a day.
| AlexTWithBeard wrote:
| Brita uses 2 gallons per day as a guideline [1] for a small
| filter.
|
| Which is pretty much the recommended 2 liters per day per
| person for the family of four.
|
| [1] https://www.hunker.com/13408481/how-often-do-you-really-
| need...
| newaccount74 wrote:
| I was thinking that you'd want to use filtered water for
| cooking/washing foods/etc and not just for drinking.
|
| But I guess just filtering the water you drink is probably
| already a big win.
| ars wrote:
| You can install 06-250-10-GREEN or 06-250-125-975 in an
| undersink filter.
| dpflug wrote:
| We have a similar one with a larger reservoir. I haven't
| measured, but it can easily filter several gallons a day. If
| we needed more, I'd buy a second.
|
| If you can, under-sink filters are cheaper/gal and more
| convenient.
|
| Make sure you're using fluoride toothpaste so your pearly
| whites stay pearly.
| 1cvmask wrote:
| This reminds me of the Flint, Michigan water drinking
| "controversy":
|
| https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/flint-water-...
|
| Obama In Flint: 'Can I Get Some Water?' | NBC News
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjugN-nUHh8
| gengelbro wrote:
| This might be my hobby horse, and I've commented to this effect a
| few times in the past, but here goes:
|
| Hobby aviation still uses leaded fuel and this is detectable near
| regional airports. The primary reason for this that the vast
| majority of the existing fleet is stuck in the 1970s essentially
| as new airframes and engine designs are expensive and viewed as
| risky.
| sokoloff wrote:
| It is risky without a drop-in fuel.
|
| There is a significant, recent milestone on the journey here:
| https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/faa-approves-600-engines...
|
| That accounts for around 25% of the gallons sold per year, but
| the underlying engineering is in better shape than that first
| step regulatory approval indicates. (The fuel has been running
| in the test cell and flying in the higher-powered, tighter-
| margin engines for years already with the airplanes in the
| experimental-R&D category.)
| edrxty wrote:
| The FAA just approved a blanket lead free replacement. It's
| still being rolled out but it shouldn't be an issue for much
| longer.
| gengelbro wrote:
| A huge amount of this, "spraying lead on your head" is not for
| training or any similar purpose, but for amusement.
| edrxty wrote:
| The vast majority is flight training, fulfilling currency
| requirements and commercial operations (135 charter ops,
| survey and similar, fire fighting, etc.)
|
| Most of the pushback against lead free fuel is actually from
| the commercial operators that consume the vast majority of
| the fuel and operate higher compression engines that need the
| octane boost normally obtained with lead. The recreational
| side could have switched ages ago if not for the shared
| infrastructure. The recreational part 91 side is already
| increasingly using automotive gasoline through newer engines
| (rotax 91x series), increasingly common EAB airframes and
| mogas STCs. Given that auto gas is half the price in most
| areas, the cost sensitive recreational market has already
| been moving in that direction.
| gengelbro wrote:
| > The vast majority is flight training
|
| Can you substantiate that claim for me? I've never seen a
| breakdown, since you've claimed 'vast majority' perhaps you
| know better.
| wittyusername wrote:
| We bought some children's sized coat hangars off Amazon and used
| a lead testing kit on them. They popped positive for lead :(
|
| No name brand from China. I wonder what else in our lives might
| have lead in it..
| dwater wrote:
| Lead is still popular in alloying metals because it's ductile,
| easy to work, and easy to machine. I would assume if I was
| buying a brass product made in China it would have lead in it.
| I try to buy copper and brass plumbing products made in the US,
| South Korea, or other countries with strong regulation and
| legal systems.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Leaded brass fittings are still permitted for non-potable
| applications. You won't find them at Home Depot and other
| places that have giant consumer lawsuit targets on their back
| but if you're buying fittings not commonly used for potable
| water from sources that mostly do B2B sales you'll still
| encounter them and (IMO it's basically a non-issue in that
| context).
| derbOac wrote:
| To add additional dimensions to this, because the risk of lead
| per se is so salient, there's been a shift to using other
| metals such as cadmium as a substitute. Can't use lead because
| it's got so much baggage! Use cadmium instead!
|
| There's a different set of issues involved with different
| substances -- many problems associated with lead are due to its
| historical use -- but lead is not the only heavy metal causing
| problems with health.
|
| Not meaning to undermine what you're saying -- on the contrary,
| I think it's more widespread than people realize.
| bhouston wrote:
| I bet a bunch of Wish, Amazon and AliExpress cheap goods are
| filled with toxic chemicals.
| jakub_g wrote:
| FR gov asked Google and others last month to shadow ban Wish
| as they're basically a hazardous materials shop.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/technology/france-take-steps-
| against...
| jquast wrote:
| Just bought a 1985 home in rural Michigan with well water,
| testing for lead was never required by any part of the process.
| Post-sale I paid for a detailed water analysis, about $200, which
| found 4PPB of Lead. I called a few plumbers and they weren't
| willing to do any inspection or make any recommendations.
|
| It cost about $6k in total to install a (Kinetico) water softener
| & RO system to remove it from my drinking water.
|
| I previously lived in Flint during the early few years of the
| changes that introduced high lead levels in the city drinking
| water. I tell this to doctors but they suggest there isn't any
| tests they can do, as it is deposited into tissues and bones and
| not really found in blood tests, that such tests are typically
| for children.
|
| I guess I'm just saying there is no doubt I've had a great deal
| of lead in my drinking water throughout my life so I think a lot
| about how it shaped me and the communities I've lived in, how it
| shaped my experience with school and work.
|
| How many people are being treated for anxiety, anger, or
| depression in a seemingly incurable medicated loop, all the while
| unknowingly exposed to lead?
|
| Anyway as a PSA, I suggest that you should only believe that your
| water is lead-free when it has been tested directly from the tap
| and you have a report of 0PPB. Landlords and home sellers have a
| financial incentive to ensure that such testing is never done,
| and if lead is found, I don't know what can be done other than
| pulling out your wallet one way or another
| adolph wrote:
| _Findings This cross-sectional study linking Quest Diagnostics
| childhood lead testing and US Census data captured individual-
| and community-level disparities in lead exposure from October
| 2018 through February 2020. In adjusted models, the proportion of
| children with detectable (>=1.0 mg /dL) and elevated (>=5.0
| mg/dL) [Blood Lead Levels] BLLs increased significantly among
| those with public insurance and for progressive quintiles of
| community pre-1950s housing and poverty._
|
| _Results Of the 1,141,441 children (586,703 boys [51.4%]; mean
| [SD] age, 2.3 [1.4] years) in the study, more than half of the
| children tested (576,092 [50.5%; 95% CI, 50.4%-50.6%]) had
| detectable BLLs, and 21,172 children (1.9% [95% CI, 1.8%-1.9%])
| had BLLs of 5.0 mg /dL or more._
|
| https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/article-abst...
| trezemanero wrote:
| teehee amongus sus
| nfw2 wrote:
| In 2014 I consulted my father, a lawyer, in writing an amicus
| brief to a lawsuit relating to lead exposure in baby food.
|
| Basically, lead exposure testing in food can have highly-variable
| results because of how the particles adhere to the food
| substrate, variability between food batches, and the way the
| exposure tests work. Because of this, lead exposure testing
| generally involves testing several samples and taking the mean to
| estimate the real level of exposure.
|
| Despite several samples showing high levels of lead, the defense
| got off by claiming that the geometric mean was the correct
| average to use to infer the total exposure. This is obviously
| incorrect because the geometric mean is a multiplicative mean.
| With a geometric mean, all you need is one sample with lead
| exposure close to 0 to get a mean that's close to 0, even if all
| the other samples tested positive for extreme levels of lead
| exposure.
|
| Just as a sanity check, we checked official literature on food
| toxicology, and every resource we could find stated that using
| arithmetic mean was the correct methodology, and not one
| mentioned geometric means.
|
| The defense ended up winning the case, which is absolutely
| horrifying because 1.) baby food is the most dangerous product
| imaginable to contain lead and 2.) now there is a legal precedent
| to defend yourself against lead exposure claims using total BS
| statistics.
|
| Edit: thankfully, it looks like the FDA is getting involved now
| https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2021/10/01/baby-foods-co...
| BeetleB wrote:
| > With a geometric mean, all you need is one sample with lead
| exposure close to 0 to get a mean that's close to 0, even if
| all the other samples tested positive for extreme levels of
| lead exposure.
|
| Not going to comment on whether arithmetic or geometric mean is
| more appropriate, but your comment is incorrect.
|
| Yes, a number close to 0 brings everything down. But then you
| take the nth-root, which brings it back up again. Some examples
| - assume one of the numbers is 0.01 (close to 0).
| 2 samples means square root - that becomes 0.1 3
| samples means cube root - that becomes 0.215 10 samples
| means 10th root - that becomes 0.63 20 samples means
| 20th root - that becomes 0.794
|
| The more samples, the less impact an outlier like a number
| close to 0 will have.
|
| Put another way, the arithmetic mean has the same problem.
| Extreme outliers can greatly influence the sum. But if you have
| enough samples, each extreme outlier is tempered a bit by
| dividing by n.
| nfw2 wrote:
| If you want to be precise, what I meant was that there is no
| level of exposure in the first n samples so great that the
| geoemetric mean of n+1 samples is certain to be over any
| arbitrary value X
|
| This is not true of arithmetic mean. If you have 9 samples
| with value 10, then the arithmetic mean of 9 samples plus one
| more is certainly at least 9.
| BeetleB wrote:
| Ignoring the context, and speaking only to the math, the
| two examples you give are not analogous.
|
| In a geometric mean, picking a number below 1 is the
| equivalent of picking a _negative_ number in the arithmetic
| mean. The multiplicative identity is 1, and the additive
| identity is 0. Going below 1 for the geometric mean is like
| going below 0 in the arithmetic mean. So mathematically,
| you do not have a guarantee with the arithmetic mean
| either.
|
| Of course, in your case, the numbers aren't allowed to be
| negative. Either approach you take, there is some
| "contextual" bias going on.
| nfw2 wrote:
| Why is it helpful to ignore the context? My examples
| clearly state I am making statements in the context of
| taking exposure samples
| montalbano wrote:
| I think you're making potentially invalid assumptions about
| the about the relative scales of the numbers involved.
|
| The issue is that if the small outlier leads to the product
| being less than 1, the degree of the root doesn't matter
| because the largest value possible of the n-th root
| approaches 1, which may be below whatever meaningful
| thresholds are relevant here.
| errcorrectcode wrote:
| Awareness with surveillance is important. Leaded gasoline (TEL),
| lead pipes, and leaded paint were a problem for IQ before the
| 1980's that most Americans view as "solved" today.
|
| https://www.damninteresting.com/the-ethyl-poisoned-earth
|
| Here's what the CDC recommends:
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead/prevention/sources.htm
| errcorrectcode wrote:
| It sounds like a problem of poverty means old buildings were
| never decontaminated.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| It's also an issue of disrepair.
|
| Any house built in the 70s (or before) in California probably
| has lead paint. Which is a lot of them - that's when the
| primary population booms occurred. Those houses aren't being
| stripped of all paint, instead you need to keep the paint in
| good condition.
| geekbird wrote:
| I literally can't get my 1904 Victorian house painted with
| any of the modern energy saving paint on the outside
| because the contractors all look at the age of the house
| and say "that's a lead job" and then can't find a
| remediation contractor, plus want to charge me $100k for a
| paint job. But the house has been pressure washed and
| repainted with lead-free pain by the former owner. Has me
| tearing my hair, since I'm disabled and can't climb ladders
| to do it myself. So my house has a decaying paint job.
| [deleted]
| johncessna wrote:
| It's a hard problem.
|
| Remediating lead is _expensive._ The standard appears that
| you sign an attestation that you don 't know there's lead in
| the house. This leads to a situation where no one actually
| does any testing.
|
| Lead pipes and contaminated ground have their own challenges,
| but I was under the impression that the cheap way to
| remediate lead paint was to paint over it. Is that not the
| case, or have these places not been painted in 45 years?
| sokoloff wrote:
| If you have a window or door that inherently rubs during
| usage, merely painting over it won't fully eliminate the
| lead dust exposure. Similarly, chipping paint (from
| ordinary wear) will often chip off all layers of paint.
|
| Painting over it helps, but isn't an elimination.
| errcorrectcode wrote:
| It's "screw the poor by sticking ones head in the sand."
|
| Paint chips. Kids touch the paint underneath, don't wash
| their hands, and then ingest toxic residue with their food.
| randomifcpfan wrote:
| No, what happens is they eat the paint chips, because
| lead is sweet.
|
| https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/news/publications/health-
| matt...
| hinkley wrote:
| Urban areas still have high lead content in the soil. The
| obvious one is around the foundation due to paint flecks, but
| also any soil near the street, due to accumulation from car
| exhaust.
| questiondev wrote:
| i worked construction for a bit, and you wouldn't believe the
| exceptions we made for certain "historic" buildings. i remember
| discussing this with my foreman, we were in an impoverished area
| of the city that just so happened to be "historical" by the
| cities standards. i am a-ok with preserving the past but these
| engineers told us that when we pull out the old lead piping, we
| gotta replace it with another lead pipe to "preserve the
| historical value" of the property. this was the lateral going
| into the housing from the water main. do you realize how
| ridiculous that is? their excuse was that lead pipes deal with
| expansion and contraction better than pvc, or some other type of
| piping. and they said that the inside of the pipes are now coated
| with some type of sealant that keeps the lead from seeping into
| the residence water supply. so next time you buy a city property
| make sure you check the water laterals, you can get this
| information from the city engineering office. i think the records
| are found in the same building as where you get your construction
| permits but you'll have to double check.
| willis936 wrote:
| I just put in a countertop RO system. It's likely too late for
| me, but if I have kids I'll do my best to keep them from having
| dementia.
| errcorrectcode wrote:
| Never drank city water, it's always disgusting regardless if
| it's toxic or not.
|
| I've put in and maintained 3 RO under sink systems, but I've
| never heard of a countertop one. Does it have a product tank?
| How much are the consumable parts?
|
| Currently, since I'm in an apartment, I have a subscription at
| an independent commercial/retail water store that has a
| 10-stage system. My mom's house has a 3-stage whole house water
| filter down to .2 micron, a water softener, and a 6-stage RO
| filter with UV sterilization. The whole house and RO systems
| use commodity parts and filters so they're not as expensive as
| those branded ones with proprietary "easy change" filters.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| I use RO for my garden, but not for drinking. The amount of
| water waste for a commercial RO system is fairly large. For
| what it's worth the WHO also claims low TDS water long term
| is not good for health/intestines/kidneys.
|
| https://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/nutrientscha.
| .. * Direct effects on the intestinal mucous
| membrane, metabolism and mineral homeostasis or other body
| functions. * Little or no intake of calcium and
| magnesium from low-mineral water. * Low intake of
| other essential elements and microelements. * Loss
| of calcium, magnesium and other essential elements in
| prepared food. * Possible increased dietary intake
| of toxic metals.
| willis936 wrote:
| Is this paper a joke? The adverse health effects they list
| are under the noise floor and there is no mention of the
| alternative being risking exposure to heavy metals with
| health risks far above the noise floor. Additionally, the
| recommendations entirely ignore the idea of
| remineralization. I have to wonder why they would publish
| such an incomplete study and conclude it with dangerous
| guidance.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| Because remineralization doesn't actually work? Makes
| perfect sense to remove the minerals just to add them
| back. Many water treatment companies
| suggest that because reverse osmosis systems remove the
| minerals from water that you should add a remineralizing
| filter afterwards for the purpose of restoring minerals
| to your water. I've tested these filters and while the pH
| rose dramatically due to carbonates in the filter there
| were no minerals added. A number of companies
| use coral calcium as the remineralizing filter and it is
| true that coral calcium contains some 70 trace minerals.
| The problem is that the water passing through a filter
| system is not in contact with the coral calcium long
| enough to dissolve it. The water picks up carbonate and
| as a result the pH increases but essentially no minerals
| are added. You might see trace amounts of calcium and
| magnesium.
| willis936 wrote:
| I bought an Express Water setup that cost $150 with a 3 year
| supply of filters for $90. I also got an alkaline stage that
| I put just before the carbon post filter (it wouldn't fit in
| the kit otherwise). Water input and waste output screws into
| the kitchen sink aerator.
|
| There is no tank, which was the biggest con to me when
| weighing my options. I considered getting a tank to put
| inline with the output, but I don't think my pressure is high
| enough and my SO would not appreciate the counter space loss.
| I've been using a large Brita tank in my fridge for many
| years, so I just fill that up daily. It's about 30 minutes of
| babysitting: very reasonable while doing other chores. It
| isn't as convenient as it could be, but its a solution that
| fits the shape of the problem.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| As a european I find this seriously disturbing.
|
| We've had water supply for hundreds of years, even in Russia
| it is generally decent, there is no excuse for a first world
| country.
|
| Bottling industry is harmfull, wastefull and inefficient.
| ryankask wrote:
| As an American living in the UK, it's interesting to see the
| disparity in almost all aspects of the treatment of lead. In the
| US, for example, there is an abundance of research and activism
| coupled with laws and a huge abatement/remediation industry. In
| the UK, however, where there is a large stock of old housing that
| very likely contains lead paint, pipes, and other products, there
| is nothing comparable.
|
| Are children in the UK silently suffering from lead poisoning, or
| "losing IQ points"? I have lead paint in my house and If I took
| my children to get tested at the GP, I would expect a strange
| look in response.
|
| Compare this to asbestos, where a survey is always recommended
| when purchasing an older property in the UK. While I think a lead
| survey would be suggested in the US if purchasing a pre-1978
| property (and is required in some areas when renting to a family
| with children), I would guess only a handful are done here every
| year.
| walrus01 wrote:
| > In the UK, however, where there is a large stock of old
| housing
|
| note that the article mentions Rhode Island. The US northeast
| is full of a lot of very old houses, and is a lot "closer" to
| the UK in terms of age of average house than the US western
| states.
| ghaff wrote:
| Basically all older houses in the Northeast US--which as you
| say is many of them--have lead paint to greater or lesser
| degrees. (As well as elsewhere of course. It's just that the
| average age in the Northeast tends to be older.) If you get
| new windows installed for example, the installers just assume
| they have to take lead mitigation efforts. There's really not
| much you can do about it other than covering it up with new
| paint.
| xwolfi wrote:
| In France lead paint completely disappeared.
|
| But the main driver of criminal behaviour and loss of IQ is
| lead gasoline you breath all day long anyway and that's nearly
| gone too. I think Algeria is finally removing it this year, it
| was one of the last country.
| Svip wrote:
| Algeria ended it this summer.[0]
|
| [0] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/30/leade
| d-p...
| throwaway946513 wrote:
| I'm curious as to if Cuba still uses leaded gasoline, as
| quite a few years ago I spent a night in Havana during a
| cruise and some sight-seeing around the old city.
|
| I knew that the exhaust of vehicles smelled different from
| the U.S., or even busy cities in the U.S.
| trasz wrote:
| Cuba might not have a choice, thanks to US sanctions.
| thingification wrote:
| I suspect there is lead pipe in my water supply in London, UK.
| I got a lab test done in Germany -- I checked the German
| standards and I believe they mandate the use of the appropriate
| testing techniques; it seems impossible to get a reliable test
| done in London. The measured lead concentration was not above
| the last EU recomended safe level before they decided there was
| no safe level, but it wasn't much lower than that either.
|
| The agency in London responsible, Thames Water, will replace
| any lead pipe in the public network leading to your building if
| you agree to replace any lead pipe on your property within 3
| months.
|
| But I live in a "leasehold" flat (common in London). So "you"
| for the purposes of that agreement would be not me but the
| "freeholder", who is responsible for building maintenance. To
| get them to do anything, I have to go to a lot of effort to get
| action out of the "management company" hired by the freeholder
| (and probably then be blamed by other leaseholders -- most of
| whom don't live here -- for costing them money to replace the
| pipe). I followed up with them maybe four times before giving
| up. I'm not the customer of the freeholder or of the management
| company. Reading up on the impact on adults (thought to be low
| compared to the impact on kids), I decided to just run my tap
| for a few minutes every day and store water to drink for that
| day (wasting lots of water in the process). I notified the
| other residents, some of whom have children, suggesting I could
| help take it further if others helped out. Nobody responded.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| The official guidance is to not test, since the test wasn't
| very good, the number of kids with genuine issues is low (so
| high false negative rate) and the treatments being dangerous if
| you don't actually have the problem.
|
| It should be relatively easy to get someone to test your water
| though, and get that sorted if there's an issue found.
| hinkley wrote:
| The intersection of "your neighborhood has lots of lead in
| it" and "you flunked an inaccurate test" probably has a lot
| fewer false positives in it, right? You _were_ exposed to
| lead. You might have lead poisoning, we can 't be certain,
| but you're categorically in danger of getting it, based on
| environment and/or behaviors.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Note, I'm talking about UK guidance. Possibly they're
| missing some cases, but they do have a program of
| nationwide testing to monitor if there's any issues and the
| NHS has a direct financial incentive to report it and get
| it fixed via prevention if it's an issue.
| jraby3 wrote:
| As a landlord in the US I have to sign a lead paint disclosure
| every year for my tenants stating I have no knowledge of lead
| paint on the property. This may be state specific though.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| Related New Jersey had an odd requirement of repainting
| between tenants of apartments to try to remediate it.
| (Cynically kickbacks seem more likely given a proper
| stripping would fix it more permanently.)
| bluGill wrote:
| Landlords need to paint every few years. The better ones
| are painting between tenants anyway. Paint is cheap, and
| covers a lot of ugly (most of it harmless ugly). Thus I
| doubt the state got much push back. Doing a proper lead
| mitigation would be expensive.
| vkou wrote:
| I got one of those papers from my landlord. It's a beautiful
| document that I can, at best, use as toilet paper.
|
| My landlord has no knowledge of _any_ of the work that was
| done on the building, prior to him buying it. The previous
| managers did _not_ keep meticulous records.
|
| Is there lead paint on the property? Maybe. Maybe not. My
| landlord not knowing about it doesn't change anything in this
| equation.
| ghaff wrote:
| If the property is older than the mid-1970s or so, it
| likely has lead paint. (It was banned in the US in 1978 but
| I don't know how widespread its use was in the years
| leading up to the ban.)
| sschueller wrote:
| I think the biggest issues is probably lead piping. Lead in
| paint only becomes a problem when it starts chipping and
| chalking. It should still be removed eventually however.
| woeirua wrote:
| Lead plumbing should absolutely be removed where its found.
| Lead paint... Is a different story. As long as its not
| chipping or easily accessible it's not really that much of a
| problem.
| thingification wrote:
| But presumably if somebody starts sands it down, people can
| get exposed to very high levels.
|
| The boy's story in the article involves lead paint.
|
| I'm doubtful that painters here in the UK take great care
| over it. And from what I've read, it may be the costs fall
| heavily on kids and not so much adults.
| mumblemumble wrote:
| Lead piping, galvanized steel piping with lead service lines,
| lead paint, your actual back yard if you live in an area that
| was densely populated during the leaded gasoline era, the
| kitschy old toys at grandma and grandpas house... the biggest
| issue can be just about anything, depending on your specific
| living environment.
| exact_string wrote:
| In some European countries there is a New Year tradition of
| melting lead and pouring it into water
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molybdomancy). The sale of these
| kits was only banned in 2018.
| jakub_g wrote:
| TIL! There's similar thing in Poland but with wax and on 29th
| November (St. Andrew's). Arguably, less harmful than using lead
| :)
| paulpauper wrote:
| As usual, bad reporting.
|
| "'We're losing IQ points': the lead poisoning crisis unfolding
| among US children"
|
| no mention in the article how many IQ points. based on my
| research, it's not that much.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| "based on my research, it's not that much."
|
| How much is not much? What if all i had is not much to begin
| with?
| queuebert wrote:
| I mean, does it matter?
|
| I would think there is no acceptable level of IQ loss.
| [deleted]
| Proven wrote:
| As usual, the Guardian pop-sci crap.
|
| It's almost winter, no catastrophic heat waves in the
| hemisphere so what choice do they have...
| errcorrectcode wrote:
| Citations and data needed.
| renewiltord wrote:
| I think the reporting is pretty good since it cites most of the
| claims. However you are correct that none of the sources say
| how many points you would lose.
| samstave wrote:
| Combine this phthalates and Teflon and the Hormonal balance of
| newborn and frowning young organisms, the the balance of the
| endocrine system is fucked.
|
| ----
|
| I have a theory about the seemingly rise in gay/trans people is
| related to the pesticides and the rise of this...
|
| So in the Philippines and other sea countries, pesticides are so
| heavily pushed to rural farmers to the point where they actually
| have advertising signs (think political lawn signs) that they
| place in the rice fields that advertise the pesticide they are
| spraying on the rice...
|
| The exposure to pesticides and phthalates and lead, and the
| robust bust still fragile chemical balance of the hormonal
| systems in biological organisms is whacked and results in, my
| personal opinion, an additive factor to all the different
| expressions of how humans identify...
|
| /r/unpopularopinion
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