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

A lady named Tamara Rubin has spent years testing household products and other commonly handled objects for lead. She uses an XRF tester, which is the gold standard for high accuracy lead testing. She has thousands of items listed, from dishes to door hardware to childrens toys, and a lot of these will put a family at high risk of lead poisoning. There&#x27;s some woo-y stuff on her website, but her XRF data is a gold mine:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;tamararubin.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;tamararubin.com&#x2F;</a><p>I personally have used both XRF and swabs on various objects around by home, and I found some really scary shit. The scariest were the older Lenox dishes we used for years; the decorative glaze on the eating surface tested high in lead via XRF, and the swab lit up bright red which means that lead was also coming off in our food.<p>I threw away all our dishes and bought new Corelle.<p>Other problems I found include old electrical cords and things made out of brass, including all plumbing fittings made before about 2012. These will also turn a swab red, especially if there&#x27;s any corrosion, which means the lead is mobile.

How about Chicago:<p>&gt; The biggest reason is that essentially Chicago and other cities around Illinois <i>required</i> the use of lead service lines all the way until 1986, long after it was recognized that lead was poisonous and other cities had stopped using it. A decade after other cities had stopped using it Chicago and other cities in Illinois were not only using it but requiring the use of lead long after everybody else.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.wttw.com&#x2F;2021&#x2F;03&#x2F;24&#x2F;chicago-has-more-lead-service-pipes-any-other-us-city-illinois-most-any-state" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.wttw.com&#x2F;2021&#x2F;03&#x2F;24&#x2F;chicago-has-more-lead-servi...</a>

My wife and I are particularly concerned about lead, especially since there is no way to really cure lead poisoning. Any house built before the 1980s could have lead in it, with varying degrees of concern for children. Around the home here is what we found are sources of lead to worry about (or not):<p>- Paint: lead was banned in paint in 1979, but lead was used less and less even before the cutoff date. Paint is especially a problem when it is chipping or wearing off, like on windows or doors.<p>- Plumbing. Very old homes may have lead pipes which should be removed. Lead solder was used with copper pipes until ~1984, but this is somewhat less of a concern, depending on your water source (cities can change the water to leach less lead from pipes).<p>- Plumbing fixtures: this is actually a pretty major source of lead in water, and luckily it is easy to change old faucets. You can run water for a minute to mitigate risk with old faucets.<p>- Flooring: Lead can be in any ceramic tiles, but generally not too much. It is only a problem if you are removing tiles and are creating lots of dust.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.epa.gov&#x2F;lead" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.epa.gov&#x2F;lead</a>

<i>scientists saw observable levels of the toxic metal in about half</i><p>As a former analytical chemist, we can detect most metals down to the parts per trillion or lower.<p>So the more sensitive our instruments get the “more kids have lead”.<p>With sufficiently sensitive testing you’d probably find lead in 100% of people.

My kid took a routine test and was found to have 5.0 μg&#x2F;dL, which is elevated but not alarming. The source is most likely paint chips or dust. I&#x27;m in an old building which has lead paint that was painted over. It&#x27;s totally legal to just paint over the lead paint, but since the building is settling the paint on the door frames often chips off.<p>My landlord has been good about offering to strip in repaint the frames, but I would rather not because I feel like all of the scraping would place even more lead chips and dust in the environment. I&#x27;d rather be diligent about cleaning and have them do that strip it after we move.

This article is pretty bad, for all the usual clickbaity reasons. It&#x27;s worth at least scanning the study they&#x27;re citing, which is (even as a layman) pretty easy to read.[1]<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jamanetwork.com&#x2F;journals&#x2F;jamapediatrics&#x2F;fullarticle&#x2F;2784260" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jamanetwork.com&#x2F;journals&#x2F;jamapediatrics&#x2F;fullarticle&#x2F;...</a>

How big a concern is lead in adults, and is there anything that can be done about long run exposure to lower levels?<p>I live in Montreal, and found out the city pipes in my area had lead. So I&#x27;ve been drinking it about ten years; have bottled water now.<p>My understanding is that chelation is good for acute exposure but wasn&#x27;t sure it&#x27;s recommended for lower levels. Now do I know if this is actually something to be concerned about, at low levels in an adult.<p>I had the city worker do a measure without flushing: 16 ug&#x2F;L<p>(I drink bottled water now so there&#x27;s no ongoing exposure. I also can&#x27;t be sure my old places had it, so it could have just been for two years that I was exposed, but likely was for ten)

It&#x27;s shameful the EPA still hasn&#x27;t banned leaded aviation fuel.

My house was built in the 70s and I&#x27;ve tested surfaces over the years and have not found any lead paint yet. Another source of lead, unfortunately, is in children&#x27;s toys.

The problem with looking at things this way is that there is no discussion of amounts and dose-dependent effects. The article just says &quot;For lead there&#x27;s no &#x27;too low&#x27;&quot;. and &quot;we want zero.&quot; Fine enough, but as we are very good at measuring ever-smaller quantities of things we will find all manner of out-of-place chemicals that we have been tolerating just fine. I&#x27;m sure I have measurable amounts of arsenic, lead, aluminum, chlorine, radioactivity, etc in my body right now, in levels that do not have a meaningful impact on my health.<p>The real question we should ask is whether there is substantial evidence of a negative health impact from the levels of lead that are measured.<p>We should want to know exactly what levels were measured in these kids and be able to plot it out. We should have some idea of the health impacts of various doses. With that we could come to more meaningful conclusions.

I wonder what percentage have detectable levels of PFTE&#x2F;PET&#x2F;etc? At least we know the long-term effects of lead: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;particleandfibretoxicology.biomedcentral.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;10.1186&#x2F;s12989-020-00358-y" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;particleandfibretoxicology.biomedcentral.com&#x2F;article...</a><p>&quot;Although these combined studies highlight the possibility of uptake and translocation of micro- and nanoplastics into the human body following oral and inhalation exposure, there is an overall scarcity of studies that conscientiously and systematically investigated the extent of particle translocation to different organs in relation to particle dose and particle size. Moreover, the potential health risks resulting from micro- and nanoplastics exposure, uptake and translocation is poorly investigated and is an important matter of ongoing debate.&quot;

Is there no biological mechanism in the body to help promote the removal of lead?

&quot;...linked to poverty — especially old housing in underserved communities.&quot;<p>It&#x27;s always the same story. #blacklivesmatter should also become an environmental and rapid climate change movement. Most oft those paying the price, for what mostly rich white men do to our planet, are people of color.

If you are interested in lead exposure as a global problem, I recommend the &quot;There&#x27;s Lead in your Turmeric&quot; episode of The Weeds podcast. Some of the largest sources of lead are adulterated turmeric, improperly fired pottery, and others that I never would have expected.

more than half of all humans, but yes, that includes kids; keywords &quot;body burden chemicals&quot; or more recently &quot;forever chemicals&quot;

It would be nice if they had some more data in here. Instead of statements like, “For lead there’s no too low. We want zero.”.<p>Like what is the sensitivity of the test? If we get more sensitive tests, does that mean out target changes? Where are the limits that we see issues?

The important question is how many kids have 5 micrograms of lead per decaliter of blood [0]. This is the reference blood lead level and much more useful for tracking progress (or decline).<p>I’m surprised that the article sticks with the “no lead is good” rather than the public health level.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cdc.gov&#x2F;nceh&#x2F;lead&#x2F;prevention&#x2F;blood-lead-levels.htm" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cdc.gov&#x2F;nceh&#x2F;lead&#x2F;prevention&#x2F;blood-lead-levels.h...</a>

My dad was a civil engineer on the clean water side of public health. In the late 1970s, when my parents moved into the house I grew up in, he replaced the supply line to the street and most of the plumbing. We never talked to him about it, but lead seems like a good guess (a side benefit, the water pressure from a slightly larger meter and clean pipes is a wonderful thing).

NYC has a website that lists sources <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www1.nyc.gov&#x2F;content&#x2F;leadfree&#x2F;pages&#x2F;lead-sources" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www1.nyc.gov&#x2F;content&#x2F;leadfree&#x2F;pages&#x2F;lead-sources</a><p>Toys, spices, supplements, cosmetics as well as the usual pottery, water, paint etc

..and about 100% of their parents have lead in their blood. That&#x27;s progress, right?

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Lead%E2%80%93crime_hypothesis" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Lead%E2%80%93crime_hypothesi...</a>

Wait till you learn that hobby aircraft still use leaded fuel

Roofers weld lead and breathe in some of the fumes here in UK. I thought perhaps they ought to carry portable fans to improve ventilation on calm days.

Even if our products were manufactured here, rather than China, we might still have this problem. We can’t regulate without increasing costs.

Anyone know what is normal in other countries? I grew up grinding and sanding our old lead-painted house. I think its probably common.

Toys are regularly a source of lead as well. Paints and materials usually end up in the mouths of young kids.

There&#x27;s a study tying drop in crime rates correlate with end of leaded gasoline usage.

I was diagnosed w&#x2F; ADHD in 2019. When doing research and seeing what the causes could be -- I noticed that lead paint was among possible contributors. I decided to google what lead paint looked like, and realized the apartment I was raised in was covered in it.

As a kid I did a lot of lead-based soldering. Could this be an issue?

If you go to here to the Internet Archive <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.org&#x2F;details&#x2F;boysbookofindust00noyc" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.org&#x2F;details&#x2F;boysbookofindust00noyc</a> and view or download the book titled <i>The boy&#x27;s book of industrial information</i> by Elisha Noyce published in 1858 — <i>note I said 1858 - 163 years ago</i> — and then turn to (book page 58, not the PDF #) then on the topic of <i>WHITE LEAD</i> you&#x27;ll read this amazing statement:<p><i>&quot;White lead is a very poisonous substance, and produces the disease called painters&#x27; colic, when taken into the system in minute quantities and for a long time, so that all who have much to do with this dangerous substance, as house-painters and artists, should be extremely careful that their hands are well washed frequently, and especially before going to meals. Cisterns of lead, used for containing water, very soon become coated inside with a thin flim (sic) of sulphate of lead, this prevents the water from acting further on the lead, and the water from such cisterns is never found to be poisonous; but, if distilled water were used, it would act rapidly on the lead, corroding it, and causing a deposit in the water of white lead, which would render such water dangerous in the extreme.&quot;</i><p>Remember this book was written for the information of boys; it wasn&#x27;t in a new learned research paper from the Royal Society, etc. which means that 163 years ago it was very common knowledge that lead was very toxic. So how the fuck did we get to the point where we let the likes of Thomas Midgley Jr. and Big Industry introduce tetraethyllead - leaded gasoline ca 1923 and then pollute the world for another 70 or so years? Why weren&#x27;t there more stringent regulations on white lead in paints, especially during its removal (somewhat like the asbestos regulations of today)? I acknowledge that avoiding lead in paint until about the mid 20th Century would have been difficult but at least some attempt to reduce its spread much earlier than when it was removed from paint should have been undertaken.<p>This is the same old story with industry doing its thing and to hell with the consequences. Lead was known to be dangerous in Roman times, so was mercury and asbestos and some 2000 years later we&#x27;re still cursed with the mismanagement of these dangerous substance. Moreover, it doesn&#x27;t stop there, we knew cigarettes and tobacco were dangerous long before the 1950s and see the fight we had over that. ...And there are many more such examples without even having to look for them.<p>It&#x27;s a never-ending battle with Big Industry, Monsanto, Bayer, etc, etc. I&#x27;m beginning to think it&#x27;ll never end whilst we have the current political mindset.<p><i>BTW, there&#x27;s some truth to the &#x27;cisterns of lead&#x27; being less poisonous although that wouldn&#x27;t be tolerated these days. Not that long ago I&#x27;ve stayed in houses with lead water pipes. As far as I know they&#x27;ve not been changed, so until recently it was a common practice to use lead for water distribution. However, note carefully Noyce&#x27;s caveat about the type of water that should be stored within them.</i>

Only half?

Now imagine what children in China have in their blood.

Topics like this bring modern attitudes about identity to a tricky spot. A common view is that you aren&#x27;t defined by XYZ, you can choose your identity and who you are or what you do. In reality, things like lead poisoning have a very powerful and undeniable impact on who you are and what you can do, e.g.<p>&gt; Slow development of normal childhood behaviors, such as talking and use of words, and permanent intellectual disability are both commonly seen.<p>&gt; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Lead_poisoning#Effects_on_children" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Lead_poisoning#Effects_on_chil...</a><p>If lead is really a widespread problem, and especially if it continues worsening, then we&#x27;ll eventually reach a point where we need to identify individuals who have been impacted by lead and ideally take pre-emptive measures to help them with the consequences of it.<p>This makes me wonder how people with more woke attitudes approach other group-specific issues like sickle cell anemia in black people or myopia in Asian and Jewish people. In these cases, being XYZ does define you and the things you&#x27;re at risk for.