The study, published in the Lancet Public Health journal and believed to be the first to research the effects of low levels of lead exposure on the general public, also concludes there is no safe level of the toxic metal: people with the lowest detectable amounts were still affected.
Researchers at four North American universities, led by Bruce Lanphear, of Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, studied the fate of 14,289 people whose blood had been tested in an official US survey between 1988 and 1994. Four fifths of them had harboured levels of the toxic metal below what has, hitherto, been thought safe.
The study found that deaths, especially from cardiovascular disease, increased markedly with exposure, even at the lowest levels. It concluded that lead kills 412,000 people a year – accounting for 18% of all US mortality, not much less than the 483,000 who perish as a result of smoking.
(Score: 2) by Weasley on Thursday March 22 2018, @04:31PM (1 child)
1 in 5 deaths is infinitesimal? Did you eat lead paint chips or something?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @04:54PM
All those people were to live forever, otherwise? Or to die anyway, with an itty bit different diagnosis at roughly the same age?
Your brain is MADE from lead, man, if you eat up magic numbers not even thinking of what they mean.