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Also: Preserved hair reveals just how bad lead exposure was in the 20th century (livescience.com) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46872282

Explains a great deal, honestly.

I remember going to LA in the late 80's and my eyes watering (I also remember the pants-less man on the side of the strode but that is a different story). Environmental regulations are a win. Unfortunately there is a large segment of the population that doesn't believe something until it happens to them directly. That makes it a challenge to maintain environmental, or any regulations for that matter, over generations. It isn't practical, but it would be interesting to create 'pollution cities' where the regulations were loose so long as the entire company drew its workforce (including management) from the local population (like within a mile) and a significant portion of their drinking water and foods must also be sourced locally. Go ahead, pollute your own drinking water. I bet cities like this would be cleaner than ones with stricter regulations.

Fun fact - leaded petrol isn't actually banned in the UK, you can legally buy it and use it. The legislation at the time of bans just made it so that leaded petrol could only be a small % of overall petrol sales by any given fuel station, arguing that it allowed time for owners of unleaded-incompatible cars to purchase it.

And....it worked pretty much exactly as designed - initially only the largest stations carried it because they could justify the storage costs, and eventually it disappeared from almost everywhere. Just before covid there were still 3 small garages selling leaded petrol by the drum, but afaik they all stopped doing so.

And regardless - you can stil buy actual real Tetraethyl Lead fuel additive which turns your petrol into actual real 4-star leaded petrol, just like in the old days:

https://www.demon-tweeks.com/tetraboost-e-guard-15-fuel-addi...

In my opinion it is obvious and should be uncontroversial that some environmental regulations work and are great and should if anything be reinforced, while other environmental regulations do more harm than good and need to be reigned in or eliminated.

Turning "environmental regulation" into a unified bloc that must be either supported or opposed in totality is a manipulative political maneuver and it should be forcefully rejected.

Regulations are not people, and they don't have rights. It is fair and reasonable to demand that environmental regulation justify its existence with hard, scientifically verifiable data or else get chopped. Clearly, banning leaded gasoline has that kind of justification, and therefore I'm strongly in favor of maintaining that ban and extending it wherever it isn't in place yet. The same reasonable standard should be applied to other regulations across the board.

I really want to see elimination of lead (projectiles, lead styphnate primers, etc.) in firearms next.

When I go to the range, every once in a while, I'll see one of the older marksmen who's there with his squirrel hunting rifle, chambered in .22 LR. I've noticed that he seems to have a tremor in his hands when he's loading his magazines. Essential tremor is linked to lead exposure [0]

Most .22 LR projectiles are either just lead or have a copper "wash" over the lead, not a proper jacket like you see on other rounds.

I wonder, if you shoot those loads for long enough, and breathe in enough gunsmoke, do you get that problem?

As for the proof being in our hair... well, not mine. Chrome dome over here XD

[0] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1241711/

It's definitely lead.

But when you do look at the details it doesn't look like the results point to the measured lead coming directly from gasoline itself.

Just as likely if not more so coming from the neighborhood lead smelter that operated over a period of decades where the phaseout probably overlapped from both mineral and gasoline sources, in step with the regulations.

These are rare samples but I wonder if it would be possible to determine how much lead was on the outside of the hairs which could be expected to settle from the atmosphere, compared to within the biological matrix itself which could have been incorporated metabolically?

And in a ubiquitous TEL-using environment, would that form of lead build up more so on the outside of the hairs or the inside?

With or without a lead smelter in the neighborhood?

Hopefully next we can help fix mercury in fish, the number one contributor right now is burning coal. Seems like it would be a easy decision.

no one has mentioned "The Secret History of Lead" published by The Nation in March 2000. The long and detailed article exposed the deliberate and long-standing cover-up of leaded gasoline's dangers by major corporations. Villians include General Motors, Du Pont, and Standard Oil of New Jersey (now Exxon).

As if tetraethyl lead in gasoline wasn't bad enough, they also added ethylene dichloride and/or ethylene dibromide, which acted as a lead scavengers, preventing deposits of insoluble lead (II) oxide from forming and clogging up engines/exhaust equipment. Instead, water-soluble-at-high-temperatures lead (II) chloride and lead (II) chloride were blasted out the tailpipes of vehicles using tetraethyl lead. These are mildly soluble at ambient temperatures, allowing the lead to permeate even further than it otherwise would have.

unless you live next to an airport or even remotely close to it

then lead is being sprayed all over you, your car and home, daily

for THREE DECADES NOW

no rush, not like it's poison or does permanent damage to your health/IQ

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/leaded-gas-wa...

The punchline being:

  The findings, which appear in PNAS, underscore the vital role of environmental regulations in protecting public health.

  The study notes lead rules are now being weakened by the Trump administration in a wide-ranging move to ease environmental protections.

  “We should not forget the lessons of history. And the lesson is those regulations have been very important,”

Don’t worry, we can get our lead from spices and every food that includes them. Lead is cheaper to get than cinnamon and even cocoa, so it ends up being favored adulterant to increase weight at sale.

During the past year I have discovered that almost all retailers here in Sweden have voluntarily replaced their usual Teflon/polytetrafluoroethylene/PTFE frying pan coatings with something called 'ceramic'. (This includes IKEA globally, I assume.)

The thing is - it's simply not as good. The worst case is probably frying frozen gyoza. They will get stuck when they get gelatinous on that 'ceramic' surface.

I ended up looking up some slightly offbrand stores to get the pan that I wanted.

You used to be able to buy leaded 110 gas as Sunoco in the early 2000's. It would make your exhaust tips turn white and had a sort of candy like smell when combusted.

> The Utah part of this is so interesting because of the way people keep track of their family history.

Definitively interesting that they could get so many old hair samples with good provenance.

The concerning thing is how lead, arsenic are being found in things they are not reported in or labelled as being safe.

I would argue it worked, but not fast enough. I think the current American politics run by 50-80 year olds with significant lead poisoning.

I wish someone would do a large RCT of water fluoridation in pregnant women looking at long term cognitive outcomes if fetuses. It would be an easy study to do (just randomize each group to receive free deliveries of either fluoridated or not fluoridated water) and then look at their offspring’s scores on cognitive tests every few years. I think reputable scientists don’t touch this because they’re afraid of being labelled kooky.

If someone in the admin reads this, there is a chance this will be reversed and lead will be allowed in gas again :)

I am so grateful that much of my childhood was in a town rather than a city.

That is expected. The problem is that people are not getting healthier, or more intelligent, quite the opposite.

Obviously there is an absolutely massive problem that you're missing as you're congratulating yourself on "succeeding" with a massive effort with no clear result.