[HN Gopher] Lead poisoning causes more death, IQ loss than thoug...
___________________________________________________________________
Lead poisoning causes more death, IQ loss than thought: study
Author : wglb
Score : 273 points
Date : 2023-09-21 15:55 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (medicalxpress.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (medicalxpress.com)
| hinkley wrote:
| Recently read that sweat concentrations of heavy metals can be
| about 7-8 times higher than blood serum levels. So you can sweat
| out heavy metals, but just barely. My guess is you lose more in
| skin flakes and hair.
| rngname22 wrote:
| epic water filter + nalgene 32 oz hdpe bottle is a great,
| lightweight filtered drinking water on-demand system
|
| filter pitchers are easy to use and a good safe guard against
| poor plumbing if you haven't had your home water tested
| djmips wrote:
| It is my understanding that the common filter pitchers don't
| filter out lead.
| gpt5 wrote:
| That's not correct. It depends on the water filter. A common
| Brita filter doesn't filter lead. But the referenced filter
| (Epic) does. There are other filters that can do that, the
| most popular is ZeroWater, which you can check their
| datasheet https://www.zerowater.eu/wp-
| content/uploads/ZeroWater-NSF-ce...
| myth_drannon wrote:
| The problem with ZeroWater is it filters out everything. I
| would be always thirsty after drinking from ZeroWater, it
| was a weird feeling.
| whichfawkes wrote:
| So then you have to remineralize it...
|
| But how are those minerals being sourced, and does that
| mixture contain lead? Ugh, it never ends.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Be dubious of those claims. Lead can be in hundreds of
| chemical compounds. I very much doubt they have tested the
| filter against all of them.
|
| Only reverse osmosis will do a decent job of removing lead,
| and even that won't be perfect.
| hedora wrote:
| HDPE Nalgene bottles probably leach PFAS:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Nalgene/comments/wqdgbi/are_nalgene...
|
| Glass or stainless steel would be a better choice (especially
| for storage).
| rngname22 wrote:
| My old bottle with this same filter was glass, but it was
| very heavy and it also ended up shattering when I was
| climbing a mountain and lost my balance and had to toss it
| onto a nearby ledge. And the filter itself filters a lot of
| pfas and other microcontaminants.
|
| "That's why we've taken a layered approach, incorporating a
| variety of high-performance filter media into one powerful
| filter. Crafted and rigorously tested in the United States,
| this multi-layered filter is engineered to effectively target
| both tap water pollutants such as chlorine, microplastics,
| lead, PFAS, and more, as well as outdoor water contaminants
| like bacteria, viruses, and microbial cysts like
| cryptosporidium and giardia."
|
| And the lid and straw itself is also made of plastic. Life is
| hard and something is better than nothing.
| bobmaxup wrote:
| Whats my risk of exposure to lead from improperly made glass
| or stainless steel?
| londons_explore wrote:
| Stainless steel could easily contain quite some ppm of
| lead. Metals are frequently recycled, and hard to separate.
|
| Glass could also contain lead in contaminants - but actual
| metallic lead won't end up in the finished product - but
| lead oxides might well.
|
| Having said that... There are probably many devices in your
| house or supply chain which deliberately contain lead in
| double digit percentages. Worry about those before worrying
| about contamination.
| spacephysics wrote:
| Micro plastics in the Nalgene, especially if it's exposed to
| any sort of heat.
|
| There's no BPA, but there have been "cousins" of BPA created
| that essentially are just as, if not more, harmful
| jopsen wrote:
| While a lot of this appears to be estimates... it's pretty wild
| of 30% of deaths from cardiovascular are caused by lead.
|
| Mostly in low/middle income countries.
|
| > It's items in the kitchen that are poisoning them
|
| On a positive note: This is something that can be fixed.
| lkbm wrote:
| I'm reminded of an old SSC post[0]:
|
| > See, my terrible lecture on ADHD suggested several reasons
| for the increasing prevalence of the disease. Of these I
| remember two: the spiritual desert of modern adolescence, and
| insufficient iron in the diet. And I remember thinking "Man, I
| hope it's the iron one, because that seems a lot easier to
| fix."
|
| The discovery that we can dramatically reduce mortality by the
| relatively straightforward solution of _using pots and pans
| that don 't contain lead_ is a cause for excitement. Compare
| that to the solutions like "convince people to exercise more
| and eat less (or less tasty) food". We _know_ how to make our
| dishes lead-free!
|
| [0] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/10/society-is-fixed-
| biolo...
| jstarfish wrote:
| Wow. How does one develop an iron deficiency in America?
| Bread and breakfast cereals are fortified with it and it's in
| multivitamins, eggs, pasta, most meats, and even some
| chocolate. I get spinach and peas aren't for everyone, but
| how does one end up with a deficiency in _iron_ when it 's
| added to the trashiest of food?
|
| (We shit on it now, but maybe this is why the "food pyramid"
| was shaped so contrary to current sensibilities? Or maybe
| it's a _potassium_ deficiency mislabeled as something else.)
| Natsu wrote:
| One problem with a lot of the studies is that the studies have
| a lot of confoundeing and estimates of lead's harm seem to be
| rising even as exposure decreases, which should make people
| stop and think more. But this doesn't come up that much because
| it is obviously bad for you, and there's generally no good
| reason not to avoid exposure and not many people care about
| precisely how bad it is for you.
|
| But it's weird that lead exposure has been dropping while the
| things it's supposed to cause don't seem to be decreasing in
| proportion to the lack of exposure.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _estimates of lead 's harm seem to be rising even as
| exposure decreases, which should make people stop and think
| more_
|
| Is the effect size or confidence rising? The latter makes
| sense. We're moving from a population systematically exposed
| to lead (no control) to one with lead-free kids for a change.
| hinkley wrote:
| You think the effect of a toxin is a certain curve. A giant
| initiative to remove it is moderately successful, but the
| numbers in the population are not coming down as much as
| you expected.
|
| Is it that the toxin is correlated with another substance
| that is responsible for part of the harm? Is it corruption
| and the cleanups have been faked, leading to underreporting
| of exposure without underreporting of results? Or did you
| underestimate the harm at lower exposures (maybe because
| you underestimated the exposure of some of your subjects)?
|
| Science is hard. As is public policy.
| Natsu wrote:
| Effect size, at least for harm to IQ:
|
| What is the effect of 1 mg of lead on IQ?
|
| Good studies from the different research eras can be used
| to illustrate how lead effect sizes have changed over time.
|
| Landrigan et al. (1975) represents the Early Era. In this
| study, there were 46 children in the high lead group and 78
| in the control group. Their respective BLLs were 48.3 and
| 26.9 in 1972 and 40.5 and 26.5 in 1973, and they were 8.3
| and 9.3 years old, respectively. So we have a gigantic 14
| mg/dL gap between these groups. The high lead group had an
| average IQ of 88.02 versus 92.88 for the low lead group, or
| a 4.86 point IQ gap, and thus a per mg effect of 0.35 IQ
| points.
|
| Baghurst et al. (1992) represents the Middle Era. In this
| study, there were 494 children who had IQ results, and they
| were divided into quartiles by BLLs. The mean
| concentrations of blood at assessment age were 6.6 mg/dL
| for the lowest quartile, 10.1 for the second, 13.7 for the
| third, and 20.0 for the final one. Their IQs were 109.6,
| 107.7, 102.7, and 98.7, respectively. Going from the lowest
| to the highest lead exposure quartiles, we have a BLL
| difference of 13.4 mg/dL and an IQ difference of 10.9
| points. Going quartile to quartile, the effect of 1 mg of
| lead was 0.54 IQ points, 1.39 IQ points, and then 0.63 IQ
| points, with the aggregate (1 - 4) being 0.81 IQ points.
|
| Kim, Yu & Lee (2010) represents the the Modern Era. In this
| study, there were 302 children who were median-split by
| BLLs. The high BLL group had a mean BLL of 3.74 and the low
| BLL group had a mean of 1.92 with IQs of 106.4 and 110,
| respectively. These differences of 1.82 mg/dL and 3.60 IQ
| points mean that the per mg/dL IQ drop was 1.98 points.
| highwaylights wrote:
| I'd be interested to know how someone can be sure that the
| cookware/tableware/cutlery in their home is safe.
|
| Is this a result of far lower standards in other places or just
| a result of that being the region that was tested for the
| report (the post doesn't say, it just mentions that samples
| were collected from developing countries).
|
| This could very easily be a massive problem in the developed
| world too and you wouldn't know from the report here.
| mrob wrote:
| Here's a study showing various levels of lead leaching into
| drinks from ceramic mugs found in the US:
|
| https://foodsafetyandrisk.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186.
| ..
|
| Important quote: "The estimated daily dose of lead exceeded
| the California Maximum Allowable Dose Level of 0.5 mg per day
| for one of the five mugs tested."
|
| Previous HN discussion:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29606600
| nayuki wrote:
| I probably dodged this ceramic problem because I drink from
| borosilicate glass beakers. (Yes, I buy new, unused labware
| for cooking/drinking use.)
| asdff wrote:
| Are those not too fragile for daily use? A pint glass is
| so much thicker in comparison than a beaker.
| coding123 wrote:
| How can it be fixed?
| conkeisterdoor wrote:
| If I'm reading the GP correctly, by replacing kitchen items
| containing lead with alternatives that don't contain lead.
|
| That should be much easier and less expensive to do than eg,
| replacing lead pipes in the house or town/city that may be
| delivering poisoned drinking water.
| eterps wrote:
| Is there a way to know which alternatives don't contain
| lead?
| narrator wrote:
| DMSA, which is the treatment for lead poisoning, is cheap, can be
| taken orally and has a good safety profile. Shame that doctors
| are not more familiar with it.
| shawnz wrote:
| Doctors certainly are familiar with chelation therapy (like
| DMSA) as a treatment for heavy metal poisoning (like from lead)
| astrange wrote:
| Since taurine can be used to chelate lead, I propose everyone
| drink a lot of Monster.
| hcrean wrote:
| [flagged]
| colechristensen wrote:
| Jet fuel never contained lead. (re: "chemtrails")
|
| Old small piston-engined aircraft are now in the processes of
| validating and phasing out leaded fuel.
|
| The primary sources of lead people consume will be from
| industrial pollution, old paint, and old water pipes.
| cooper_ganglia wrote:
| I honestly don't know enough about the theories to dismiss or
| validate them offhand, but the article quotes an official as
| saying that it seems as though the primary issue is that things
| like ceramic cookware and other household items had more lead
| in them than initially believed:
|
| > Fuller said part of this "missing piece of the puzzle" was
| revealed in a Pure Earth report released on Tuesday, which
| analyzed 5,000 samples of consumer goods and food in 25
| developing countries.
|
| >It found high rates of lead contamination in metal pots and
| pans, ceramic cookware, paint, cosmetics and toys.
|
| >"This is why poorer countries have so much lead poisoning,"
| Fuller said. "It's items in the kitchen that are poisoning
| them."
| adasdasdas wrote:
| Anyone worried about lead should take calcium pills with vitamin
| D which helps absorption. Calcium should always be taken with
| food otherwise your body just ignores it. It works because your
| body interprets lead as calcium.
| m00x wrote:
| You mean calcium reduces lead absorption?
|
| Edit: Ah, vitamin D helps calcium absorption, which then
| reduces lead absorption.
| digitcatphd wrote:
| Studies like these always make me wonder what the equivalent of
| this today. Microplastics? Carbon? What else?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Chemical pesticides, nitrogen runoff from fertilizer
| (particularly cow dung), nuclear waste, all the CO2 from the
| 300-ish years of industrial scale fossil fuel usage, hundreds
| of years of devastation brought onto local wildlife which drove
| _a lot_ of species to extinction, leftover from bombs and
| chemical weapons that was just casually dumped into the ocean
| after WW2 [1], leftover from silicon production (a shitload of
| Silicon Valley is superfund sites [2]), land mines and
| unexploded ordnance in former fighting areas such as the "zone
| rouge" from WW1 [3] or what's going to be left behind in
| Ukraine, all the NBC weapons that especially the US and
| (Soviet) Russia manufactured.
|
| [1] https://www.geo.de/wissen/forschung-und-
| technik/weltkriegsmu...
|
| [2]
| https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/09/silic...
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_rouge
| chinathrow wrote:
| TikTok?
| rabuse wrote:
| Social media has caused the largest brain drain we've ever
| seen.
| colordrops wrote:
| Pretty much anything our ecosystem hasn't had time to evolve
| and adapt to is likely going to have some deleterious effect on
| the life forms within.
| fodkodrasz wrote:
| > Carbon
|
| could you elaborate?
| nayuki wrote:
| Probably referring to climate change / global warming. Carbon
| dioxide doesn't kill people by itself, but it can trigger
| floods, droughts, heat waves, etc. that will harm human
| habit.
| amluto wrote:
| Lead. It's not gone.
|
| And maybe some PFAS? We don't have great data, and PFAS isn't
| reliably disclosed in products. (Also, surely different
| perfluorinated chemicals have different effects.)
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| There are lead detection q-tip swab kits but annoyingly they
| also test positive for copper. I didn't realize that until
| after I threw out a copper tongue scraper.
|
| But I did find that one of my girlfriend's keychain trinkets
| tested positive while saying "stainless steel".
| xnx wrote:
| PM2.5 particulates https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/resources/inhalable-
| particulate-matte...
| Exuma wrote:
| Its not gone... pretty much every single person that shoots
| guns need to be aware of this. Of course gun people don't care
| about their health and they think with their 45 ug/dL lead
| level that youre "overreacting"...
|
| D-Lead is a very good company for deleading that i use
| obsessively, when shooting
|
| I once called them and talked to an engineer about lead for
| like 1.5 hours. I think it really surprised him someone was so
| interested and he was happy to share.
| Modified3019 wrote:
| It's definitely a concern of mine, thanks for the heads up
| about that company.
|
| For those that aren't aware, the primer in cartridges
| typically have lead styphnate, barium nitrate, and tetrazene,
| among other things. So even if your bullets have a complete
| copper jacket, you still get significant lead particulate
| exposure, especially indoors or with a suppressor with high
| back pressure. No idea if whatever smokeless powders are used
| are doped with something _fun_ or not. Bullets with exposed
| lead have additional concerns, as the surface gets flash
| melted /vaporized in addition to particles generated from
| barrel friction. This all adds up.
|
| Never clean guns/suppressors with vinegar (acetic acid),
| because that just creates lead acetate, a highly
| bioavailabile form of lead that makes elemental lead look
| safe by comparison, and legally and morally requires proper
| hazardous waste disposal.
|
| Fortunately there are alternatives showing up now, including
| some with lead free primers, but damn if it isn't expensive,
| and as expected copper/zinc/mild steel bullets have trouble
| competing with lead for performance because it comes down to
| mass.
| asdff wrote:
| Are lead pellet air rifles even worse then? I remember
| cleaning the barrel of one and the cleaning tool was so
| very dirty.
| Exuma wrote:
| The lead acetate thing is fun to research, I went down that
| rabbit hole once, not because I'd ever do it but I like
| watching other people do it. It is called "the dip" and
| theres tons of videos saying DONT DO THIS but then showing
| you how to do it, haha. It turns bright blue or purple, I
| can't remember... but it's very colorful. Reminds me of the
| good old days of emerald green which was made of arsenic in
| the 1920s.
| 8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote:
| So is IQ a "largely pseudoscientific swindle" to quote a popular
| article from a few years ago, or is it not? Because if the
| consensus is that it doesn't matter, then why bother using it as
| a metric here?
| dralley wrote:
| It's complicated. Firstly because there are a lot of "IQ
| studies" that cited in places such as The Bell Curve that had
| utterly horrendous methodology. Second because there is a lot
| of cultural baggage around the very concept of IQ, as if it
| were a measure of someone's intrinsic intelligence rather than
| just measuring the result of the combination of intrinsic and
| environmental factors.
| [deleted]
| 0xcde4c3db wrote:
| I think it depends on the scope of what's being addressed as
| "IQ". As far as I know, there are some fairly robust methods
| and results around IQ, but it's usually hard to make the leap
| from those to a sales pitch for any particular
| product/service/policy/program in a similarly robust way. So
| any given invocation of IQ in the wider world has a high
| likelihood of being somewhere between scientifically sketchy
| and outright nonsensical. It's reminiscent of quantum mechanics
| and epigenetics in that sense.
| paulpauper wrote:
| taleb's argument has changed to IQ only matters for downside,
| not upside.
| astrange wrote:
| Not changed, that's always what the article he was referring
| to said.
| bluGill wrote:
| Yes and no. IQ isn't useful for saying anything about a
| particular person. However it is a consistent measure so if one
| group tests different from a different one we should suspect
| there is something wrong and look deeper.
| seventytwo wrote:
| It's not that binary. IQ is like any other statistical measure
| of human characteristics - it's very nuanced.
|
| The IQ tests measure _something_ and we can correlate that
| thing with other aspects like academic performance, other test
| scores, income, wealth, etc.
|
| It's a useful comparative metric, but it is not useful when
| people try to use it for things like racist bullshit.
| emodendroket wrote:
| Do you have another suggestion? Many of the criticisms of IQ
| seem less relevant in this context.
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| Just a data point here, an acquaintance of mine gave himself lead
| poisoning by visiting the shooting range too often for target
| practice. I think he wears a breather when he goes now.
| 98codes wrote:
| Wow -- how often for how long were/are they going?
| bloaf wrote:
| There was a recent study which found child blood lead levels
| were higher in areas with high gun ownership after
| controlling for socioeconomics.
|
| https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/higher-rates-
| of-f...
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| I don't know how much their exposure was but I'd estimate
| they are closer to the skinny edge of the bell curve.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Maybe they had especially bad practices, like never washed
| their hands, exclusively eats finger food after picking
| through their spent bullets and licks their fingers?
| GaryNumanVevo wrote:
| Lead dust settles everywhere, gets into your lungs,
| especially if it's an indoor range.
| GaryNumanVevo wrote:
| Yep, also a reason why I refuse to take my children to an
| indoor range. Lead dust gets everywhere, I also keep separate
| set of shooting clothes which I wash outdoors to avoid
| contaminating my children's clothing.
| cltby wrote:
| Question for any IQ skeptics here (e.g. "it just measures your
| ability to take tests" or "it just tells you how rich your
| parents are"): what's your response to studies like this? Is
| there anything that can be said about the effect of lead on
| cognitive function? Why might IQ be a good measure of lead-
| induced stupidification, but unreliable for literally anything
| else?
| raincole wrote:
| If the chemical can complete nullify the advantages of having
| rich parents, how doesn't it sound bad enough...?
| colechristensen wrote:
| IQ is a mediocre-at-best metric for intelligence.
| "Intelligence" is probably real and variable among people, but
| poorly defined, very hard to test, and subject to a whole lot
| of opinion.
|
| IQ is bad at comparing people from different backgrounds,
| especially across cultures, languages, etc.
|
| _But_ IQ can be a valid comparison for a single non-cultural
| variable. i.e. lead exposure in otherwise identical cohorts.
| cltby wrote:
| > otherwise identical cohorts.
|
| You could do this stratification/matching for any IQ study.
| What's special about lead-IQ?
| hedora wrote:
| I assume the study authors controlled for such things. For
| example, they could bin the study participants by socioeconomic
| group, race, location, etc, etc, etc, and then show the average
| IQ loss per bin.
|
| I haven't read the study, but statisticians do this stuff for a
| living, and there are definitely ways to control for sample
| biases that let you distinguish between "poorer people have
| lower IQs and are exposed to more lead, and the root cause of
| both is being poor", and "lead leads to lower IQs within all
| socioeconomic groups we could think of and measure"
| cltby wrote:
| But these controls could be done for any IQ-related study. Is
| IQ-skepticism based on the belief that IQ researchers
| generally don't use controls? That lead-IQ researchers alone
| do this?
| mkoubaa wrote:
| Most IQ skeptics think IQ correlates with intelligence. The
| argument is generally over how good a proxy it is for
| intelligence and what conclusions can and can't be drawn from
| statements about IQ
| [deleted]
| csa wrote:
| > "it just measures your ability to take tests"
|
| This is largely wrong. One could be a master at test-taking and
| not come close to a high score.
|
| That said, familiarly with the test/item structure almost
| certainly helps, especially for folks with the potential to
| score high (see below).
|
| > or "it just tells you how rich your parents are")
|
| Hmm... family wealth and IQ may be correlated, but not
| perfectly so. There are plenty of low-IQ rich people and also
| plenty of high-IQ poor people.
|
| > what's your response to studies like this?
|
| Probably too many confounding variables. That said, this study
| is a publishable unit that can push one or more funded agendas,
| so here we are.
|
| > Is there anything that can be said about the effect of lead
| on cognitive function?
|
| While I know a bit about IQ, I don't know much about the
| details of the relationship of IQ and lead.
|
| > Why might IQ be a good measure of lead-induced
| stupidification
|
| Maybe it's not. See "funded agendas" comment above.
|
| > but unreliable for literally anything else?
|
| (the main reason I replied is below)
|
| People really need to let go of this idea in a reasonably
| reliable way.
|
| 1. IQ measures reasoning ability. It is quite good at measuring
| this.
|
| 2. People put a lot of weight onto how IQ correlates with a
| bunch of other things, but these are not things that IQ tests
| are designed to measure. As such, these correlations may not be
| meaningful in some cases. So the "literally anything else" that
| IQ is allegedly not good for is almost entirely things that IQ
| tests are not designed to measure. I don't think it's prudent
| to disregard the test/measure because of misuse by some folks
| (typically within agendas).
|
| 3. People get very self-conscious about IQ scores. Let me help
| with that. IQ scores are a measure on a particular day that can
| vary from day to day for any one person. For any given test
| taker, they are trying to optimize what they score out of a
| theoretical max (i.e., their "true IQ"). Many, many things
| cause people to score lower than their potential max -- lack of
| sleep, lack of food, external distractions, distress (physical,
| mental, emotional), anxiety, ambivalence, lack of test
| familiarity, etc. Very few things cause them to score higher
| than their max (it will almost certainly be within the
| confidence interval). It's ok. Retake the test if it matters
| (it usually doesn't).
|
| 4. IQ matters most in three areas, imho. The first is at the
| extremes. Gifted/genius folks and learning disabled folks need
| additional resources. How and whether this is implemented is
| highly debated. The second is in leadership positions. You want
| your leaders (e.g., in the military) to be within about 20 IQ
| points of those they lead. The idea is that > 20 IQ delta folks
| see the world in fundamentally different ways, so leading
| someone who views the world so differently is difficult and
| largely inefficient. The third is with one's significant other.
| Same as above, it will be hard to be understood (if that's your
| goal) by someone who is +/-20 IQ points away from you.
|
| I hope this helps.
| gpt5 wrote:
| Dude, you are spewing out random things as if they are fact.
| Yet you lack an understanding of what IQ is.
|
| IQ is an attempt to measure a general intelligence factor
| (g-factor). What happened is that researchers noticed that
| people who are good at some tests tend to also be good at
| other tests, even if it's from very different domain. E.g.
| say you are good with math, you also tend to be good in you
| language skills. This led to the assumption that there is a
| general factor out there that is shared across all skills
| (the g-factor). So determining how good you are at math is a
| combination of your math specific skills + the g-factor. Same
| with other domains.
|
| How do you extract the g-factor? You measure a large set of
| people across a cognitive challenging set of tests, and do a
| factor analysis (statistical technique) to extract a linear
| g-factor. Each test can have a "g-loading" which essentially
| calculates what portion of it is due to the general g-factor.
| For example, one of the tests with the highest g-load is
| simply hearing a sequence of numbers and repeating them in
| reverse. This test has nothing to do with "reasoning skills.
| Yet for some reason you claim that it's designed to measure
| reasoning skills but not designed to measure "a bunch of
| other things".
|
| You also claim that IQ varies significantly day to day, but
| that has not been shown in studies. In fact, IQ measurements
| tend to be remarkably stable across the person's entire adult
| life.
|
| Than you spewed up a bunch of unsubstantiated claims about
| the difference of IQ between a leader and his team.
| csa wrote:
| > Dude, you are spewing out random things as if they are
| fact. Yet you lack an understanding of what IQ is.
|
| In my previous career, I did quite a bit of research on IQ.
| I'm pretty sure I have a decent understanding of what it
| is.
|
| If you take out your straw-mans and overstatements of what
| I said, then I think you will be able to find research that
| supports everything I said above about IQ approximately to
| the degree of confidence that I stated it.
| jiofj wrote:
| [flagged]
| rjsw wrote:
| Or people just haven't tried hard enough to find a
| politically correct explaination.
|
| I think slavery itself could be one cause of it. Restricting
| the freedom to pick a partner of one group compared with
| other nearby groups seems likely to have an effect.
| hedora wrote:
| Critical race theory explains IQ differences between
| socioeconomic groups (including races) extremely well.
| klyrs wrote:
| Critical Race Theory is politically incorrect, under any
| definition of political correctness I know
| omginternets wrote:
| Nit: CRT certainly offers an explanation, but I don't think
| it's a particularly good one. Because it always appeals to
| "systemic injustice", it can't account for things like
|
| 1. the persistence of between group IQ differences amongst
| children people who have relocated to other
| countries/culture;
|
| 2. the disproportionate success of certain historically-
| marginalized groups;
|
| 3. regression to the mean; and,
|
| 4. other factors that marginally influence IQ scores (e.g.
| single-parent household vs dual-parent household)
|
| without engaging in circular reasoning.
|
| At best, CRT's explanation is incomplete.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| Does it? Most of what I've seen amounts to assume races are
| have equal inherent IQ distributions, given test results
| are unequal the assumption is then tests must be inherently
| biased (examples of recent immigrant non-English speaking
| Jews improving their IQ scores as they learned English) or
| differences are caused by socio economic factors. That
| logic would fall apart if the original assumption wasn't
| made, but anything starting with a prior that races can
| have different IQ distributions is thrown out as racist.
| The progressive book 'The Genetic Lottery' kind-of makes
| the case for polygenic factors considered evenly
| distributed amongst the races as a basis for that
| assumption but in my view their logic has a number of holes
| in it. If there is a better treatment of the topic I'm
| genuinely interested in reading it.
| swayvil wrote:
| I think IQ reflects your general cognitive ability AND a few
| other things like wealthy parents etc.
|
| Just like your videogame score reflects your diet and a few
| other things.
|
| Just like lots of things.
| masfuerte wrote:
| It's possible for IQ to be a good population measure while
| being a poor individual measure. (FWIW, I think proponents and
| opponents of IQ testing all overstate their cases.)
| omginternets wrote:
| I think it's a pretty straightforward thing: intelligence
| somewhat correlates with life/career outcomes overall, and it's
| not linear. Separately, IQ tests are reasonably good, though
| imperfect measures of general intelligence. Also separately, if
| you look at careers where high intelligence is needed, then IQ
| correlates much better.
|
| IQ does not principally measure test-taking abilities or SES.
| Yes, those correlations exist, but their effect sizes are not
| nearly as large as a certain political ideologies would have
| you believe. And simultaneously, it's not as ironclad as the
| _other_ political ideology would have you believe. It 's very
| reliable as these things go, but noisy at the margin.
|
| EDIT: a sibling comment correctly points out that aggregate
| effects do not always apply individuals.
| swayvil wrote:
| Is IQ a piece of private information?
|
| Does everybody in the country get an IQ test in school? Can we
| just look that up in the public records?
|
| It sure would be useful if it was public and universal. For
| tracking the effects of lead poisoning for one. Or just factoring
| it into any big study. We might find something unexpected.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| IQ being public might be problematic; I've heard from more than
| one lawyer that one ought-not use IQ as a hiring filter, unless
| you have evidence that the IQ test is not biased against any
| protected groups.
|
| Indeed, hiring from more selective universities is, to a
| certain degree, a way of laundering hiring based off of IQ,
| since you can pass the buck to the university itself to not be
| racially biased.
| swayvil wrote:
| This is a common predicament.
|
| A piece of information that, if it was made public, would be
| immensely useful in countless ways for the management of our
| society, But it might also be exploited by bad people. So it
| is made private.
|
| And the icing on the cake. We say "it's private because
| privacy is intrinsically good and a _basic human right_ ".
| Not, "It's private because we fear bad people".
| pixl97 wrote:
| >would be immensely useful in countless ways for the
| management of our society,
|
| Such as?
|
| Now, maybe if one person had an IQ of 80 and the other
| contender had an IQ of 105 it seems like it could be useful
| in some particular fields. But for the most part you'll run
| into the "I'm 200 times smarter than you because my IQ is
| 102 and yours is 101".
|
| And there is no icing on the cake. Privacy is a multipolar
| topic and there are many pros and cons around it.
|
| We have rights not because they are some intrinsic part of
| the universe, or inalienable text written by a deity, we
| have rights because people working together and learning
| from the past mistakes in history have decided that
| something better than what was is attainable, and the
| moment we forget it something worse will take its place.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| There are some races with average scores of 70. Can you
| believe it?
|
| Why of course I am talking about "white america" in 1900s
| [1].
|
| [1] https://www.apa.org/monitor/2013/03/smarter
|
| > Over the past 100 years, Americans' mean IQ has been on a
| slow but steady climb. Between 1900 and 2012, it rose nearly
| 30 points, which means that the average person of 2012 had a
| higher IQ than 95 percent of the population had in 1900.
| uoaei wrote:
| Goodhart's law strikes again.
|
| As soon as IQ becomes a measurable thing, populations that
| measure it will act in ways that increase it. Shocking, I
| know.
| bmacho wrote:
| Indeed, except that IQ has not became a thing to optimize
| for, and even if it was, there are no known ways to
| increase it.
| polski-g wrote:
| There is one way:
|
| https://gwern.net/embryo-selection
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| Education and QoL seem to be correlated.
| swayvil wrote:
| It's interesting how closely tied "goodness" and
| "intelligence" are.
|
| To make a mistake is to be a bad person. To be stupid is
| to be bad.
|
| I can call you weak. I can even call you ugly, cowardly
| or a flibbertigibbet. But if I call you stupid look out!
|
| Like our whole worth as humans is summed in our ability
| to talk smart and solve riddles like a trained animal.
|
| Which seems pretty stupid.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| It will seem even stupider once computers can
| convincingly do all the "intelligent" things better than
| us.
|
| In fact, they can already _seem_ smarter, even when they
| 're not.
|
| Maybe we can move on to prioritizing humans on other
| criteria -- like how nice they are to each other, how
| good they are at making nice art, or skiing an amazing
| line down a mountain, etc.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| > I can call you weak. I can even call you ugly, cowardly
| or a flibbertigibbet. But if I call you stupid look out!
|
| This might be a bit peculiar to the HN crowd; calling
| someone cowardly is fighting-words in many groups.
| gpt5 wrote:
| In general, if you are using any test in your hiring that
| does not relate to the job responsibilities, you are not
| allowed to use a test that doesn't have equal outcomes for
| any protected class.
| raincole wrote:
| [flagged]
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| It's almost as if circumstances matter and we should be
| looking for ways to improve :thinking:... I don't think
| anyone would classify white people from the US from the 1900s
| as mentally handicapped but, well, at least someone else said
| that and it wasn't me.
|
| > Over the past 100 years, Americans' mean IQ has been on a
| slow but steady climb. Between 1900 and 2012, it rose nearly
| 30 points, which means that the average person of 2012 had a
| higher IQ than 95 percent of the population had in 1900.
| raincole wrote:
| And if the public (sometimes even people in academia)'s
| reaction to any data they don't like is outrage, how could
| we look for ways to improve anything?
| yieldcrv wrote:
| reminds me of those comic where the adult explains to the kid
| that every physical attribute was explained by genetics
|
| and then stumbles over his words trying to explain cognitive
| ones as inherently different
|
| was just a funny perspective I'm not trying to start a pogrom
| with this observation
| swayvil wrote:
| If we neutered everybody who scored under 130 IQ, what do
| you think society would look like in 3 generations?
| whatshisface wrote:
| It'd collapse from underpopulation and there'd be no
| guarantee that the survivors would be any smarter because
| "smart genes" interact in complex and nonlinear ways - if
| they didn't we'd have already evolved to a point they did
| due to the strong selective pressures already acting on
| us.
| [deleted]
| Willish42 wrote:
| This feels like a good time to bring up the lead-crime hypothesis
| (flaws and all). For those who don't know, there's a strong (if
| faulty) correlation between lead levels in preschool children and
| crime rates: https://www.vox.com/2016/1/14/17991876/crime-drop-
| murder-lea...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93crime_hypothesis
|
| Regardless of what you think about the hypothesis, the growth and
| crunch in lead levels during the last many decades is astounding
| and probably still has many bad effects on IQ and related
| factors, at least in the US
| jeffbee wrote:
| The subsequent evidence is so strong that I don't think it's
| appropriate to call it faulty. In the paper "Life After Lead"
| they study a boundary effect of children who were just above
| and just below treatment thresholds for blood lead levels and
| the outcomes in terms of crime, school success, etc are stark.
| Figure 4(F) particularly.
|
| https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/app.20160056
| myshpa wrote:
| Even american eagles are increasingly dying of lead poisoning.
|
| https://gasanature.org/bald-eagles-across-the-us-are-being-f...
|
| _Lead found in the bullets of hunters, who tend to hunt larger
| game like deer, poison the meat of the deer. Once the lead enters
| the gastrointestinal tract, it becomes toxic. If the deer runs
| and can't be recovered by the hunter, it typically will die and
| be consumed by scavengers - like the bald eagle._
| jeffbee wrote:
| There have always been people on this site who think RoHS was a
| conspiracy. There are a few people who do not take the public
| health problems caused by lead very seriously.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| I have a conspiracy theory that people recommending leaded
| solder (And reacting hostilely to suggestions it may be
| dangerous) are demonstrating the effects of lead exposure.
|
| I don't buy the "just wash your hands" argument.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I don't think leaded solder is dangerous to the home
| hobbyist, provided reasonable precautions are taken (no food,
| drinks, or smokes on the bench and wash your hands
| immediately upon getting up from the bench).
|
| If you're repairing something that used leaded solder, you
| pretty much have to use leaded solder. That's fewer and fewer
| things post-RoHS, but when you have something older, you're
| going to use leaded or you're going to have a bad time.
|
| With a decent iron and flux, hand soldering with lead-free
| solder is fine. All my new work is lead-free, but I have zero
| concerns having my kids work with leaded solder at the
| frequency and using the reasonable precautions.
| Syonyk wrote:
| And you can't, with a straight face, tell me that lead free
| solder matters, while we're still using lead acid batteries
| with dozens of pounds of lead in every car out there (to within
| a rounding error, and, yes, it includes almost all EV/PHEVs).
| The list of exemptions is very long.
|
| Lead free solder is _objectively worse_ as a solder for just
| about any metric related to longevity. So you have to weigh the
| risks of lead in solder against the reduced longevity of entire
| electronic devices from solder joint failures. Lots of BGA
| components have had problems related to their solder, and the
| usual result is that the entire device gets thrown out.
| klondike_ wrote:
| Lead free solder is fine. When RoHS was first implemented, a
| lot of manufacturers had trouble changing their processes for
| the new solder. The result was a plague of bad, broken solder
| joints.
|
| Nowadays, lead free solder is accounted for starting in the
| design stage. Manufacturers have had 15+ years of experience
| with leadfree solder and have largely worked out the issues.
|
| Lead-acid batteries are extensively recycled. Electronics are
| usually just dumped in the trash, making the lead issue much
| more important.
| pixl97 wrote:
| >while we're still using lead acid batteries with dozens of
| pounds of lead in every car out there
|
| Mostly those cars stay outside and the batteries tend to be
| expensive and highly recycled, electronics on the other hand,
| show up everywhere and have a poor history of recycling.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Battery retailers will pay you $25 for the old one and even
| if you just dump it, desperate people will collect it and
| hump it down to the recycler to get the core refund.
|
| Nobody wants your old soldered electronics. That stuff is
| nothing but trash.
| jhallenworld wrote:
| Batteries are recycled, check it out:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNGg0P7B5fI
| londons_explore wrote:
| In the last year, how many tons of lead ended up in solder?
|
| And how much has gone into fuels (especially aviation fuel)?
| sokoloff wrote:
| The EPA estimate for avgas is roughly 500-600 tons of lead
| annually (depending on the exact estimation factors used).
|
| I found an estimate of lead from e-waste (all sources of
| lead, not just solder) being 58,000 tons per year, roughly
| 100x the avgas figure.
| djmips wrote:
| Does anyone know the the risk is for electronics hobbyist?
| weaksauce wrote:
| considering almost all of this is in poor countries i'd say you
| are low risk if you solder infrequently and always have good
| airflow. that said there's no safe level of lead so wear a
| properly fitted p100 respirator if you want to be as safe as
| you can be.
| snuxoll wrote:
| I typically use lead-free solder unless I'm dealing with some
| annoyingly massive thermal mass like a joystick anchor, but I
| use the same rule whenever I'm dealing with solder, fishing
| weights, and ammo: wash hands before they go near my face after
| handling lead products. _Inorganic_ lead is not readily
| absorbed through the skin (that 's not to say it cannot be, or
| never is), so generally speaking as long as you avoid ingesting
| it (hence wash hands after handling it) there's little to worry
| about.
| mrob wrote:
| Soldering doesn't get hot enough to make significant lead fumes
| (although flux fumes are also bad to breathe). The main risk
| from lead solder is from cleaning your soldering iron. Both the
| common techniques (damp sponge and brass wool) make many tiny
| balls of solder. They can be hard to see, and because they're
| round and dense, they can travel much farther than you expect
| by rolling and bouncing. They can get caught in clothing, and
| from there potentially fall into food.
|
| I don't personally use lead solder for this reason. If you have
| a good temperature-controlled iron then SAC305 is almost as
| easy to use.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Unless you're dealing with electronics made prior to 2006,
| almost all of what you'll be soldering with is lead-free. Thank
| the EU's RoHS directive for that.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restriction_of_Hazardous_Subst...
| rkagerer wrote:
| There's a lot of argument that lead-free solder isn't as good
| (or easy to use) and several hobbyists still use leaded
| solder.
| Syonyk wrote:
| Have you ever tried the lead free stuff as compared to a
| good 60/40 or something like that?
|
| It's horrid to use. And the lead-free stuff is far worse in
| manufactured equipment - how many devices have failed early
| due to BGA solder joint failures that basically didn't
| exist before RoHS requirements? I think the nVidia 8600M
| issues were traced to that, and plenty of other BGA
| equipment since 2006 or so has failed rather early.
| XorNot wrote:
| Your hobby really isn't worth breathing lungfuls of
| leaded-solder fumes. Manufacturing is done by robot, not
| you sitting over a desk (said as someone who was doing
| this till I realized it myself).
| CarVac wrote:
| It's only horrid when the flux it comes with is crap.
| Most people try the cheapest garbage they can find on
| Amazon, and that's the problem.
|
| I use Chipquik SAC305 with water-washable no-clean flux
| core and I actually prefer working with it over Sn63Pb37.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Yep, I was around for that shitshow with two laptops.
| Soldergate was annoying but to be honest there haven't
| been any similar issues at scale I'm aware of, as the
| issue was identified and fixed.
| bluGill wrote:
| Solder comes in many different alloys. Some of them are
| really terrible. However some of the better ones are
| pretty good. Spend some money to find a good one. If you
| can find a manufacture they often have a lot of data and
| will tell you which is good for what. Often bad solder is
| great for some purpose, but that purpose may be something
| not useful for you (you probably don't need the maximum
| strength joints as one example), cheap while still
| working is useful at industrial scales, but odds are $75
| of the most expensive solder will outlast your lifetime
| so why cheap out?
| snuxoll wrote:
| Lead-free solder can be a bitch to work with for some
| projects due to the higher melting point, and I do keep a
| spool of leaded wire around for that reason - but generally
| speaking for most hobbyist uses it's a non-issue as long as
| you have a relatively modern iron that can output enough
| heat (and retain it).
| AdamH12113 wrote:
| Yeah, a good iron and wire with a decent flux core helps
| a _lot_. Lead-free solder will never melt like butter the
| way leaded does, but I solder with it fairly often at
| work and it 's not a show-stopper by any means.
| snuxoll wrote:
| Flux in general is probably the most important right
| after making sure you have an iron capable of handling
| the thermal recovery (you can't get the shit to stay
| liquid long enough if your iron can't handle keeping
| temp). The difference between relying on the flux core in
| even my leaded solder and adding a tap of my MG Chemicals
| flux when making a joint is night and day.
|
| My lead-free joints come out nicely rounded and shiny
| just like my leaded ones with some practice and the right
| consumables. But I certainly have to break out hot air
| station more than I would when using leaded solder to
| deal with larger thermal masses (and why I will still
| break out my spool of leaded wire on rare occasion when
| I'm working with temp-sensitive components and just want
| it on the freaking board).
| giantg2 wrote:
| Yeah I use lead free for some stuff. I have switched back
| to lead for finer work since it just behaves better. Seems
| like the sweet spot for lead free is very small - too cold
| and you get a weak dome connection, too hot and it doesn't
| want to leave the tip.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Not nitpicking but solder for military and public transport
| applications is exempt and still used, due to better
| performance under vibration and shock.
| Syonyk wrote:
| Don't lick your boards, wash your hands before you eat, and if
| you're really concerned, wear gloves while handling solder
| wire.
|
| The smoke from soldering isn't lead - a soldering tip is (if
| it's not literally glowing into the yellows) far, far too cold
| to vaporize any lead from solder - you need to be 1500+C for it
| to start being a problem, and you're not soldering that high.
| It's rosin smoke, and if you're in doubt, leave your iron in a
| puddle of solder - it shouldn't smoke, it should just sit there
| liquid after the initial rosin has burned off.
|
| The rosin smoke isn't great, but it's not a lead toxicity
| issue.
|
| Your concern is lead on your hands from the wire, and then
| eating afterwards without a good scrubbing. I don't think it
| will penetrate your skin, but you could always wear a pair of
| gloves if you wanted. There are some shooting sports soaps that
| are designed to help really rip any lead off your hands, so you
| might use one of those if you're concerned.
| CarVac wrote:
| None if you use quality lead-free solder.
| tpmx wrote:
| Unfortunately lead-free solder is a lot harder to solder
| with; it just doesn't flow as nicely. Companies doing it in
| an automated way have long figured it out though.
|
| This is why hobbyists are often still using leaded solder,
| particularly outside of the EU. But also in the EU, because
| it just flows so damned nice.
| CarVac wrote:
| That's not actually true though.
|
| I find SAC305 to wick into joints faster than leaded solder
| does, provided you have quality flux in the solder.
|
| If you get the cheapest lead-free solder you can find on
| Amazon it will be bad.
|
| Doubly so if you have a non-temperature-controlled
| soldering iron. Too cold, and it won't melt effectively.
| Too hot, and exposed metal will oxidize rapidly.
| djmips wrote:
| What is your favoured temperature for let's say through
| hole DIP connections?
| hedora wrote:
| I'd like to point out that, although it is illegal to put lead in
| water supply lines in the US, there is a loophole that allows it
| in hot water lines.
|
| As a result, for certain fittings, most big-box hardware stores
| only sell the leaded variants, and label them "hot water heater
| supply line" or something similar.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| A few feet of hot water pipes in fittings won't create a
| problem. Think of the thousands of feet of pipe that water runs
| through, where it often sits for days, then spends a fraction
| of a second in a tap or shower nozzle. Worried? Just run the
| tap for half a second before drinking.
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| That doesn't make any sense. Half a second is barely enough
| time for water to move through the hose from the wall to the
| faucet.
| bluGill wrote:
| That depends on the chemical makeup of the water (I think PH,
| but maybe something else). Some water will dissolve lead
| quickly and thus be unsafe, while others will not. Some water
| will leave a coating on the insides of pipes and so the lead
| doesn't even touch the water (this coating can build up over
| time though), while others will clean that coating off and so
| lead can touch the pipe.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Something interesting to point out is that until about 2014
| "lead-free" plumbing could in fact contain amounts of lead. I
| forget the cut-off level but it was something like 8%.
|
| I'm not all that worried about lead. In most places it's not an
| issue because of how restricted it's been, we have tests for it
| in products, tests in people, etc. I'm more concerned about
| plastics, forever chemicals, etc which are everywhere, aren't
| routinely tested for, and have known negative impacts (not on
| the same severity as lead).
| yterdy wrote:
| This comment doesn't make sense, particularly wrt TFA.
| giantg2 wrote:
| What doesn't make sense?
| soperj wrote:
| the article says it's more poisonous and causes more IQ
| loss than previously thought.
| [deleted]
| brianwawok wrote:
| [flagged]
| thiht wrote:
| Why are there so many loopholes in every single US law?
|
| Everytime there's a major health issue or anything extremely
| anti consumer it's because of a loophole in the formulation of
| a US law.
|
| Are US lawmakers that bad? Or is it judges who interpret laws
| literally instead of using the intent?
| jstarfish wrote:
| People shit on California's Proposition 65, but the notices
| at Fry's made me aware of the lead content of solder, and the
| ones at Michael's highlighted the lead in Christmas
| decorations, lights, and fake trees/garland.
|
| I went most of my life ignorant of all of this. But banning
| stuff outright seems like it would be counterproductive to
| either industry (banning soldering would be disruptive) or
| public image ("Liberals declare war on Christmas!").
|
| (Tangential mention of McDonald's, whose warnings highlighted
| the acrylamide released in the potato-frying process.)
| XorNot wrote:
| Lead-free solder exists though. It works fine -
| particularly for plumbing where you don't have tin-whisker
| concerns.
|
| The only problem I've ever had with it is (1) that it turns
| out Bunnings in Australia sells utterly atrocious flux (the
| good stuff is also non-toxic, potable compatible and made
| in USA - and it works perfectly) and (2) that people aren't
| aware enough of the problem (i.e. my parents house has lead
| solder all through the plumbing where my father didn't know
| there was a difference and extended it).
|
| EDIT: For any Australians out there - this one -
| https://www.totaltools.com.au/154135-la-co-56g-soldering-
| flu... - buy this one. This is the one which works.
| gmkabro wrote:
| It's money. The answer is money. Somebody makes money by
| producing lead-infused products, so they pay off lawmakers to
| add a loophole that allows them to continue making money.
| tlrobinson wrote:
| Bill Gurley's recent talk is worth a watch
| https://youtu.be/F9cO3-MLHOM
| ip26 wrote:
| There are often fairly sensible reasons or good intent behind
| many of them. People don't normally drink hot water; it's not
| a great idea, as it has higher levels of dissolved solids and
| higher risk of contamination by organisms (like
| legionnaires). Meanwhile, lead helps make metals and solders
| more resilient to high temperatures and fatigue at low cost.
| Banning lead from the hot side could therefore decrease
| reliability and increase cost, for arguably little to no
| health benefit.
|
| I don't have a vested interest in the lead industry, but it's
| pretty clearly not simple maleficence.
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| Basically nothing you said here is true.
|
| _People don 't normally drink hot water_
|
| People drink hot water all the time not to mention cooking,
| tea, instant coffee and more.
|
| _legionnaires_
|
| That's from water being stagnant for long periods of time.
|
| _lead helps make metals and solders more resilient to high
| temperatures_
|
| Not only is this not true, but water is never going to go
| above boiling. Propane torches (used for soldering pipes)
| burns at 1,980C
|
| _Banning lead from the hot side could therefore decrease
| reliability_
|
| This is ridiculous. Soldered pipes have been in use for
| over 70 years. Where are getting this idea?
| kube-system wrote:
| If you write laws without an exceptions for exceptional
| cases, then you get more laws with unintended consequences.
| trashface wrote:
| There is also an exception for leaded gas in small/private jets
| ("AVGas") so its used in some of those formulations.
| jstarfish wrote:
| That can't be the only exception. Maybe nobody sells it
| premixed anymore but back in the 90s we had to mix lead
| additive into gasoline for vintage motorcycles.
| placesalt wrote:
| It took ages, but that is finally being phased out
|
| > On February 23, 2022, the FAA joined aviation and petroleum
| industry stakeholders to announce a comprehensive public-
| private partnership to transition to lead-free aviation fuels
| for piston-engine aircraft by the end of 2030.
|
| https://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/avgas
| slapshot wrote:
| No jets use or have ever used leaded products. Jets run on
| Jet-A, which is a close relative of kerosene. It has never
| been leaded. The purpose of lead was to prevent cylinders
| from prematurely detonating ("knocking") in internal
| combustion engines. Jets do not have any cylinders to knock;
| the fuel burns continually in an open combustion chamber.
|
| You may have been thinking of 100LL (100 Low Lead) fuel for
| piston engined planes. Many airports stopped selling 100LL in
| January of 2022. The FAA has approved a lead-free replacement
| in fuels like UL94 that are steadily replacing 100LL.
| sokoloff wrote:
| > Many airports stopped selling 100LL in January of 2022.
|
| Really? That is news to me. Googling reveals that _two_
| airports did that, both in the same county: Reid-Hillview
| Airport (KRHV) and San Martin Airport (E16).
| slapshot wrote:
| Bay Area bias, sorry. Many airports _near me_ did. I have
| no knowledge about Oklahoma.
| sokoloff wrote:
| > Many airports _near me_ did.
|
| Could you list a few of the many? I looked around Bay
| Area airports, and found most of them selling 100LL:
| KSFO - San Francisco International Airport - $9.90
| KHAF - Half Moon Bay Airport - $6.42
| KOAK - Metro Oakland International Airport - $8.21/$8.64
| KHWD - Hayward Executive Airport - $7.99/$7.55
| KPAO - Palo Alto Airport - $6.35/$6.95/$6.59
| CA35 - San Rafael Airport - $6.84
| KSJC - Norman Y Mineta San Jose International Airport -
| $10.07/$8.95 KLVK - Livermore Municipal Airport -
| $6.54/$7.54 KCCR - Buchanan Field
| Airport - $7.15/$6.98 KDVO -
| Gnoss Field Airport - $7.67/$7.87
| KAPC - Napa County Airport - $9.20
| 0Q3 - Sonoma Valley Airport - $8.00
| C83 - Byron Airport - $6.35
| 0Q9 - Sonoma Skypark Airport - $6.30
| O69 - Petaluma Municipal Airport - $6.95
| GuB-42 wrote:
| At last! I live in France and it is still 100LL everywhere,
| except for ultralights which mostly use automotive gas
| (mogas) or sometimes UL91.
|
| But do they actually sell it everywhere? My experience with
| aviation is that change happens incredibly slowly. The
| simple fact that they still use that abomination that is
| 100LL is telling. Poisoning thousands of people for decades
| just because of paperwork essentially. As an amateur pilot,
| I understand the idea of using only tried and tested
| solutions, you really want things to be reliable up there,
| but our representatives can at least make the necessary
| efforts to make our already environmentally questionable
| hobby not needlessly poison people.
| sokoloff wrote:
| > exception for leaded gas in small/private jets
|
| Jets run on jet fuel (which is basically kerosene and has no
| lead). Avgas is used in many piston-powered small aircraft.
| amluto wrote:
| There's another loophole: "lead free" means that the wetted
| surface is no more than 0.25% lead (by mass, I think).
|
| As far as I know, lead has nice properties as an element added
| to brass alloys. _Which is not an excuse for using it, IMO._
|
| (Why is any of this still a thing? Stainless steel is cheaper
| than copper these days, and it's a great material as long as
| you aren't trying to screw one piece of stainless steel into
| another, and there isn't a great reason why one should need to
| do much of that. And there are some excellent plastics
| available, too.)
| thfuran wrote:
| Are there? It seems like plastics are shaping up to be the
| modern day lead.
| ironmagma wrote:
| Those don't seem like comparables though. Lead is just one
| (or arguably a handful of) compounds, while there are at
| least dozens of species of plastic.
| hadlock wrote:
| Lead roofing tends to get recycled into bullets in time of
| war, but those roofs that don't, are typically there
| forever (400+ years) and never leak. Some plastics are UV
| resistant due to additives but even copper struggles to
| compete with lead as a roofing material. You only need to
| look back to the 1970s to find PEX water piping and the
| disaster/flooding it can cause due to age.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Are you thinking of _polybutylene_ pipe, rather than Pex
| (cross-linked polyethylene)?
| jacquesm wrote:
| Plastics for potable water tend to be copper lined where I
| live, not sure what is used elsewhere.
| tredre3 wrote:
| I've never heard of copper-lined PEX, can you tell me
| more?
| jacquesm wrote:
| I still have a length of it in storage but I don't know
| the brand by heart. It was pretty expensive stuff and it
| needed weird fittings, which were also expensive, the
| inner liner was blue, that much I do recall. In the end I
| mostly regretted going for plastic, I'd probably use
| regular copper pipe and crimp fittings again, less hassle
| and I'm just more familiar with it.
| amluto wrote:
| Do you mean PEX-Al-PEX? It's mostly obsolete now, in
| favor of "oxygen barrier" PEX. The latter is generally
| approved for potable use, but there's no reason to use
| it. It's intended for closed-loop heating or cooling
| systems that contain non-stainless iron alloys, and the
| idea is that any oxygen initially in the water will be
| rapidly depleted, and deoxygenated water is not
| corrosive.
| londons_explore wrote:
| I think op may be referring to 'barrier pipe', which is a
| plastic -copper-plastic sandwich, which is designed to
| keep out pollutants which can diffuse through the plastic
| - eg. Diesel oil.
|
| If you don't use it for underground water pipes in
| cities, you'll normally get complaints from homeowners
| about 'chemical smelling' water, particularly first thing
| in the morning when water has been sitting stationary in
| pipes all night.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| oh dear i forgot that plastics are permeable to
| petrochemicals lile paper is to water
| sbradford26 wrote:
| So most likely that is focused on hydronic heating systems.
| Personally at my local home improvement store all the fitting
| in the plumbing section are listed as potable/lead free.
|
| If you have some examples of fittings that you are referring to
| I would be interested. I can only really find hydronic
| circulator pumps that are only low lead instead of lead free.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| What are we going to do? Pass a law? To force the millions of
| voters paying hardly any property tax who bought their lead-
| loaded homes in 1983 for $40,000 in Los Angeles and San
| Francisco, now worth $1.1m, to you know, fix them? Then will we
| pay for the even greater rise in rents? I hate lead, pollution
| and my incredibly cheap landlord, but I feel like I have no
| choice in California.
| lkbm wrote:
| That seems like a non-sequitur. He's saying that _new_
| fittings contain lead. Step one is to ban _those_.
|
| This does leave existing homes with old fittings, but
| "stopping the bleeding" doesn't require retrofits. The old
| housing stock will gradually be replaced/updated.
| Accelerating that trend is the logical next step, but it's a
| second, separate step.
| cj wrote:
| > What are we going to do? Pass a law?
|
| Yes!
|
| It wouldn't burden existing homeowners because such laws
| almost always grandfather in existing structures.
|
| When they banned lead paint and asbestos, I don't think
| anyone immediately repainted their walls or replaced their
| asbestos drywall. It slowly phases out over a number of
| decades.
| brianwawok wrote:
| > When they banned lead paint and asbestos, I don't think
| anyone immediately repainted their walls or replaced their
| asbestos drywall. It slowly phases out over a number of
| decades.
|
| Kinda. Or, rich people got it replaced right away. Poor
| people are still living it with it today.
|
| Go test a $500k and a $100k (this is midwest price not SF
| price) house for Lead and Asbestos. I bet you find very
| different results on the average.
| XorNot wrote:
| Inequality isn't an argument against taking the necessary
| regulatory measures, it's an argument to work on the
| inequality (or subsidize the retrofits).
| cj wrote:
| My grandmother's house still has asbestos in it ($400k
| house in New York). Short of tearing her house down and
| building a new one there's no way to fix that, but
| decades later I'm benefitting from the ban by living in
| an asbestos-free house built after the ban. Gotta start
| somewhere even if the benefit isn't felt by everyone at
| the same exact point in time. It would definitely benefit
| the rich first since they tend to be the ones building
| new property.
| deepsun wrote:
| There's zero harm from asbestos as long as you don't mess
| with it. Your grandmother is safe.
|
| Tearing her house down, on the other hand, can actually
| be bad for her, if she's staying near it while they mess
| with her asbestos.
| arcticbull wrote:
| There's not really any issue with asbestos as long as you
| leave it alone and don't mess with it. It doesn't need to
| be torn out unless you're renovating.
|
| > "THE BEST THING TO DO WITH ASBESTOS MATERIAL IN GOOD
| CONDITION IS TO LEAVE IT ALONE!" [1]
|
| [1] https://www.cpsc.gov/safety-education/safety-
| guides/home/asb...
| turtlebits wrote:
| Use a water filter.
| doug_durham wrote:
| You obviously didn't live in the SF Bay area in the 80's.
| Houses were not that cheap even then.
| tshaddox wrote:
| And they're more than $1.1m now.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| I had a stop valve that went bad and I wanted to replace it
| with a ball-valve because I prefer quarter-turn valves for
| shutoff valves. No ball-valves at the hardware store were lead
| free.
| weaksauce wrote:
| just a fair warning that you should close that quarter-turn
| valve very gradually when there is running water if you ever
| find a non-leaded version... water hammer can and will burst
| the weakest of your pipes.
| toast0 wrote:
| If we're warning about valves, be sure that your gate
| valves are fully open (or fully closed), otherwise the gate
| will erode and may erode to the point where it can no
| longer close.
| jhoechtl wrote:
| Is this actually a thing? I know there are videos of watwr
| hammer on youtube (US centric)
|
| There are no regulations afaik in Europe in domestic = no-
| industrial plumbing and sure we have quarter valves which
| you can quickly turn off. I never ever heard of a bursting
| pipe because of water hammmer.
| p3rls wrote:
| I am a plumber and sprinkler tech (nyc) and literally
| have never seen a broken pipe that could reliably be
| traced to water hammer damage.
|
| Really would only be concerned if you are building fire
| safety systems. Now those sudden GPMs need some support.
| rdevsrex wrote:
| When I lived in South Africa and the power went off
| frequently, the water went off because it couldn't be
| pumped. It absolutely was a thing in the water came back
| on. I could totally hear it in the roof.
| kube-system wrote:
| I use quarter turn ball valves everywhere and slam the
| crap out of them. If a pipe bursts from that, it needs to
| be fixed, and I'd rather it happen while I'm there
| slamming valves around than when I'm not home.
|
| But it has never happened.
| ilyt wrote:
| For those that do not know, Practical Engineering has video
| on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoLmVFAFjn4
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Less of an issue for area shutoff valves (e.g. under-sink)
| , since most of the time they are used before doing
| maintenance and there is little flow at the time.
|
| We did have a plumber (!!) damage our pressure regulator by
| turning the whole-house shutoff valve (inches away from the
| regulator) too quickly; that was a bit annoying.
| pixl97 wrote:
| And/or stick a hammer preventer in your piping in multiple
| places.
| jstarfish wrote:
| I had no idea it was unsafe to drink from green garden hoses
| until it was pointed out by an RV salesman trying to sell me a
| white hose for potable water-- in my 20s. I thought he was full
| of shit, but I was proven wrong.
|
| Hot water lines can't be the only loophole causing lead
| ingestion.
| jhallenworld wrote:
| Interesting, I had no idea (I thought only the fittings would
| have lead, but it's the hose material):
|
| https://toxicfreefuture.org/press-room/new-study-rates-
| best-...
| rightbyte wrote:
| Dear mother no why? Why does the Home Depot garden hoose
| have 6.8% led in it ...
|
| All these small environmental dangers add up. And they are
| so hard to keep track of. I would never suspect a water
| hoose to contain led. Let alone 6.8%.
| hinkley wrote:
| When I moved I did a search not only for garden hose without
| lead but also without phthalates and BPA. There are a few
| goodun's out there. Expensive though, but I also have hose
| connections that don't leak because tolerances and decent
| seals.
| georgeg23 wrote:
| In particular I would recommend the ELEY Garden Hose
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| Why is it specially allowed in hot water lines?
| bluGill wrote:
| Hot water heating is where it is allowed. Some houses have
| hot water heating which should never touch tap water and so
| lead won't be a problem (well it might be to plumbers working
| on it).
|
| Lead is an amazing material, too bad it is toxic, because
| from a materials stand point it is very useful to put a
| little into many different metals to useful properties.
| tgv wrote:
| I think that is allowed because we don't drink from the hot
| water tap.
| raincole wrote:
| But when I googled hot water tap the first images it showed
| were... uh...
|
| https://www.sinks-taps.com/articles/2018/9/21/the-
| benefits-o...
| fsckboy wrote:
| hahaha ok, but that product is a hot-water heater built
| into your kitchen tap to do away with your hot water
| kettle. Presumably, that's not plumbed to your teapot
| with a lead boiler and faucet. (weird, "plumbed" means
| "leaded")
| lainga wrote:
| ...We don't...? Who?
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| In the past it was common knowledge not to. It's of much
| more uncertainty as house plumbing has changed.
| crote wrote:
| That's because it is primarily a historical artifact[0].
| Most modern plumbing heats water on-demand, which pretty
| much entirely avoids the risk of storage tank
| contamination or Legionella.
|
| [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfHgUu_8KgA
| mrguyorama wrote:
| >Most modern plumbing heats water on-demand
|
| Where is this the case? These kind of things are
| extremely locational and here in the US it seems like 45
| gallon hot water tanks are still the norm. We had a fad
| with "on demand" hot water heating but everyone gave up
| on it when the "it saves you money" part didn't work so
| well.
| amelius wrote:
| I know people who fill their water boiler with hot tap
| water ...
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Me too and it always felt wrong to me and never did it
| myself. Now I have a solid reason.
|
| Oh and you should not drink directly from the warm tab
| water, as warm water that was standing some time, has way
| more microorganisms .. a point my 2 year old is not yet
| accepting.
| nayuki wrote:
| I fill my water distiller with hot tap water. Guaranteed
| to be safe. Yes, I'm talking about a machine that boils
| the water, collects the steam, and condenses it back to
| water. It removes absolutely everything.
| explaininjs wrote:
| Absolutely everything... that has a boiling point higher
| than water's. It won't do anything to remove alcohol, for
| instance. Or any other contamination that boils off
| before water does.
|
| Ofc you _could_ discard the head and tail of your
| distillation operation...
| jhoechtl wrote:
| You shouldn't drink distilled water for a prolonged time
| as it will desalinate your body and depreve it from rare
| minerals.
| asdff wrote:
| A banana probably has more than enough electrolytes to
| counter this
| thfuran wrote:
| If the water was already hot because I was doing something
| else, I'll make soup or pasta with a pot of hot water. If
| the kitchen were closer to my water heater, I'd do it more
| consistently.
| giantg2 wrote:
| You're never supposed to cook with hot tap water. Even if
| lead is not a concern, there are other possible
| contaminants that can leech from plastic and copper
| pipes, or from the tank itself.
| munificent wrote:
| If you ever find yourself cleaning the inside of a hot
| water heater some day, it will disabuse you of that
| habit.
|
| I'm sure it's mostly harmless, but they accumulate a
| truly horrific amount of mineral deposits and other weird
| gunk in there.
| abraae wrote:
| Looking inside a kettle in London provides the same
| experience (at least when I lived there).
|
| Now we live on rain water and the inside of the kettle is
| pristine, despite bird crap on our roof and flora in the
| guttering.
| asdff wrote:
| For things like an instapot where you add a cup of water
| to it, you are actually supposed to use distilled water.
| I used tap for years with mine and got all sorts of
| mineralization. It took quite a bit of vinegar to get
| that off, and now everything looks pristine since I have
| been using distilled water. You might consider using it
| for your next kettle, although perhaps the minerals in
| tap do something to the taste of the tea.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Do you buy hundreds of liters of distilled water? That
| doesnt sound practical
| thfuran wrote:
| They accumulate gunk that was present in the cold water
| supply.
| asdff wrote:
| If its not quite hot enough you can end up having a nice
| incubator for bacteria
| uoaei wrote:
| Restaurants are sometimes equipped with hot water lines
| from the water district and a filler tap right above or
| near the stove so that boiling water doesn't take so long.
| insanitybit wrote:
| If I'm making tea I do. I can't imagine that lead is
| boiling off...
| dboreham wrote:
| That's a terrible way to make tea, fwiw.
| insanitybit wrote:
| I want to stress that I actually don't give a shit (I am
| not that into tea, I just drink it sometimes, it's not a
| big deal to me), but I am _curious_ as to why.
| bmacho wrote:
| Unrelated to the tea, but cold water is somewhat safer to
| drink than water coming from your boiler, that's why.
| insanitybit wrote:
| IDK, they said "a terrible way to make _tea_ ", I'm
| assuming there's some sorta tea lore that I'm unaware of
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| You should switch to using the cold water tap to fill
| your kettle! Also, when you see what kind of build up can
| happen in a hot water heater, you'll definitely want to
| avoid drinking from the hot water tap.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAzKts6Wp1Q&t=207s
| [deleted]
| mikewarot wrote:
| That's not lead, that's limescale[1]. Dissolved limestone
| is carried through the pipes, and settles out as scale.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limescale
| sokoloff wrote:
| It's not allowed in any water lines used for drinking or
| cooking. I would read that as not allowed on hot water lines
| serving the kitchen for sure (and I suspect most plumbers
| would agree).
|
| The warning on items from my plumbing supply house for lead
| containing items is prominent, pops up on each "add to cart",
| and says "This product does not comply with the "Safe
| Drinking Water Act," which requires that products meet low-
| lead standards in order to be used in systems providing water
| for human consumption (drinking or cooking). This item is for
| non-potable (non-human consumption) water applications only."
|
| It is allowed in hydronic heating, HVAC/R, and irrigation
| fittings (which of course don't have a human consumption
| element to them).
| [deleted]
| teawrecks wrote:
| what I'm hearing is that if I already have 5mg/dL, then I might
| as well get all 20.
| scythe wrote:
| Italics mine:
|
| >The study, described as "a wake-up call", also estimated that
| exposure to the toxic metal causes young children _in developing
| countries_ to lose an average of nearly six IQ points each.
|
| >Their model estimates that 5.5 million adults died from heart
| disease in 2019 because of lead exposure, _90 percent of them in
| low- and middle-income countries_.
|
| >The research also estimated that children under five lost a
| cumulative 765 million IQ points due to lead poisoning globally
| in 2019, with _95 percent of those losses coming in developing
| countries_.
|
| In the article, the 1 IQ point loss level is shown at about 0.25
| ug/dL. I don't think this is likely in the US from brass pipe
| fittings containing 0.5% lead or whatever. I'm not saying that
| tight lead regulations are/would be bad, but this study seems to
| focus on the _far_ higher disease and death burden of lead in
| less developed countries.
|
| Dealing with lead exposure in developing countries would likely
| have large returns for the global economy, and since plenty of
| lead pipes were probably laid by colonial powers, has the ring of
| a moral imperative. But how?
| TheBlight wrote:
| This is why I stopped eating paint chips.
| clumsysmurf wrote:
| Some of my bloodwork revealed subclinical lead poisoning. Part
| of the investigation was to take the dirty A/C filter in for
| lab analysis of the dust. I had lead in that filter, so I moved
| out. No idea where it came from.
|
| EDIT: It was an apartment. FWIW, even new apartments can have
| other issues, like a brand new place my friend was working on
| had rampant mold issues (built & exposed throughout monsoon
| season). So you really have to be careful.
| fyloraspit wrote:
| Perhaps significant enough vaper from plumbing solder made it
| into AC unit or some other building or trade technique which
| involves some lead
| sokoloff wrote:
| Plumbing solder is overwhelmingly lead-free and has been
| for years. Even if leaded solder was used, the vapors from
| soldering are flux residues, not lead.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Who bought the place after disclosing airbourne lead dust in
| the house?
| acuozzo wrote:
| Perhaps OP had a rental with an in-unit AC unit which is
| pretty common here in the US.
| sokoloff wrote:
| If it was a rental, GP would never know who moved in next.
| (I would describe leaving a rental as "moved out" and
| leaving a house I owned as "sold it". Given they used
| "moved out", I'd wager even-money it was a rental.)
| pixl97 wrote:
| Soils in many major US cities can have high amounts of
| lead. If you're not controlling how much dust is tracked in
| that very well could be detected.
| asdff wrote:
| In california if you sign a lease for a building built at
| least 20 years ago you probably get a boilerplate lead
| warning document as well. Its like a prop 65 situation
| where so many things are labelled that the label itself
| loses meaning.
| clumsysmurf wrote:
| It was an apartment with central cooling.
| brianwawok wrote:
| if you are renting (in most / all? of the US), no way the
| next person would know.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "For example, the relationship between lead in blood and heart
| disease is based on a survey"
|
| What, just a survey? What is the mechanism that causes this?
| Heart disease is a major killer, but I assume most of it is due
| to lack of exercise and terrible diet.
| jmount wrote:
| And lead is still allowed in aviation fuel. The planes (only
| piston?) are spraying it all over you every day.
| seventytwo wrote:
| Is this actually true? I think that's changed. Also - how much
| of a problem is it? What kind of lead exposure do I receive
| from a small airplane flying over me one day? What does this
| risk compare to, say, smoking? Or not wearing my seat belt?
|
| Simply stating that a bad thing exists is not enough.
| tjohns wrote:
| It's true, but that's because there was no legally approved
| alternative until about a year ago.
|
| Now that there's an approved unleaded replacement for 100
| Octane avgas (G100UL), I expect leaded fuel will disappear
| quickly. Airports are currently in the process of installing
| the new tanks to dispense it.
|
| Many of the bay area airports already started offering
| unleaded 94 Octane (UL94) at the pump as of earlier this
| year.
|
| (Pilots don't like leaded fuel any more than anyone else.
| It's way too easy to get on your skin during a preflight
| check. We really want it gone.)
| bittercynic wrote:
| According to this, it is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avgas
|
| edit to add: I suspect a small plane flying over you one day
| is no problem at all, but there are many general aviation
| airfields very close to places where people live and work.
| tjohns wrote:
| It's being actively phased out. The replacement for 100LL was
| literally just approved by the FAA a year ago, after decades of
| work.
|
| Many of the bay area airports have already started offering
| 94UL unleaded fuel, and the others across the country are
| likely to follow suit shortly.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-09-21 23:00 UTC)