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 Gaaark on Wednesday March 21 2018, @11:12PM
I heard that death toxicity causes autism.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 4, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday March 21 2018, @11:14PM (8 children)
Just one drop in a small, enclosed space that your prospective victim spends a lot of time in, like their car.
Mercury evaporates.
Its vapor is colorless and odorless.
It's no longer the perfect crime - lab tests can detect even very small levels of it in the blood of dead people.
Would you like to spend twenty years slowly - sickeningly - and painfully but completely commit suicide?
Just develop a taste for sushi or, at your option, sashimi.
That's why burning coal should be outlawed.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 21 2018, @11:45PM
What should be outlawed is cocksuckers like you who can't write decent English.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @12:11AM (3 children)
I am smelling BS on that 400k number
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm [cdc.gov]
They are saying 1 in 8 is lead related.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday March 22 2018, @12:22AM (1 child)
Really, they're saying that a large portion, perhaps even most of the 600k deaths in the US each year due to cardiovascular disease, are due to lead poisoning.
Another reason why the EU is a bad place to be. The precautionary principle has no place in a rational society for it would fail its own criteria, if one were to treat it just like another risky choice.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @02:45AM
Happy to hear EU is safe from your presence, otherwise it should have spent something - as a precaution - to prevent you from getting your toxic presence there.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 23 2018, @12:49AM
Keep in mind they are counting all the gun-related deaths.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Thursday March 22 2018, @02:03AM (1 child)
Ho-hum. Fifty years ago, teachers brought mercury into classes for the children to play with. More, many children happened to be present to recover the mercury from broken thermometers, thus acquiring their own personal supplies of shiny play pretty. Mercury isn't the "best" thing to play with - but not all of the children who played with the stuff have dropped dead, either. Ditto with lead.
What about carbon? I'm pretty certain that lab tests can detect carbon in the blood of 100% of all dead people. And, oxygen. And, CO2. And, dihydrous oxide - that shit's deadly!!
Now, you'll excuse me, please, while I go shovel some more coal on the fire. What? Oh, no, it's not cold. I just need to dump some more pollutants into the air in my campaign to ensure your generation doesn't outlive my own.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RamiK on Thursday March 22 2018, @03:39AM
..in Tom Hardy's Bane Welsh accent...
compiling...
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Thursday March 22 2018, @02:46AM
Petrol isn't exactly winning trophies either: http://www.mdpi.com/2076-3298/4/3/66/pdf-vor [mdpi.com]
Though admittedly, I don't trust the data to form an opinion either way.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday March 21 2018, @11:35PM
https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/03/14/0331215 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Touché) by ilPapa on Wednesday March 21 2018, @11:50PM (2 children)
Back on February 14, lead killed 17 people in a high school in Parkland, Florida who were just going about their day like any other when some MAGA hat wearing asshole came in and started spraying lead around.
The water was perfectly safe to drink, though.
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday March 22 2018, @01:55AM
I was wondering if they included everyone who has ever experienced the injection of an ounce of lead at supersonic velocities.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday March 22 2018, @06:53PM
+1 Cringe-sightful!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @12:42AM (5 children)
Seriously, people. A human being in a perfect environment would still die. All money and all effort wasted on researching minor, minuscule, and infinitesimal dangers, is another delay on our road to fixing that one REAL problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @01:21AM
This epic has no end because
No matter how you fight ’em,
Those HENS will show up EVERY TIME
— And so ad infinitum!
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Thursday March 22 2018, @03:50AM (1 child)
Lead does more than send you to your grave early. It also makes a person prone to more violence more often, and it lowers intelligence. Of course those effects could get a person killed at a much younger age than lead enhanced heart disease would. A little road rage, a foolish attempt to use thousands of pounds of steel as a, uh, vehicle for the rage, and there's going to be some hurt!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @09:53PM
It can lower one's IQ. We have no idea if it lowers intelligence because we currently have no provable way to measure it.
(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.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Thursday March 22 2018, @02:22PM
Great. More people throwing out perfectly useful CRTs, and older electronics because of the "all those dangerous toxic chemicals" including lead. Never mind not a molecule leaves the boxes while they are in use.
Yes, lead could be stupidly long term dangerous when it was used in things like pipes, gasoline, or paint. And when your electronics genuinely pass the point of any kind of reuse or resale then make absolutely sure they do not go in to a landfill. You won't get lead based cooties sitting next to a 1980s TV. The danger is at the landfill.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 22 2018, @04:58PM
Let us not forget that bullets are made out of lead. I'm sure they contribute to some deaths too.