Lead poisoning

forgotmyname

Lead pipes were used four thousands of years. Traces of lead in some surprising places. Sweets, soft drinks, organic food and even some products sold for babies health. Google the subject.

Your more likely to have ingested more lead from natural products than the water in your pipes.

Going back to the late 70's lead in petrol was the demon, it seems it was turning us youngsters into brainless zombies.
They removed the lead a long time ago and the opposite seems true.

esuhl

forgotmyname wrote: »

Going back to the late 70's lead in petrol was the demon, it seems it was turning us youngsters into brainless zombies.
They removed the lead a long time ago and the opposite seems true.

You think the opposite seems true?! That putting lead in petrol improved mental cognition in youngsters?! I don't think so...

It's hardly conclusive, but there is evidence to suggest that the use of lead in petrol led to an increase in crime.

When the amount of lead in the environment increased, Nevin showed a corresponding rise in violent crime two decades later. And when the amount of lead in the environment fell, violent crime also tracked down - again about 20 years later.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-27067615

Hintza

We had lead pipes for the first 20 years of my life.

(Text removed by MSE Forum Team)

hollydays

taranjs wrote: »

Sorry, I thought I answered that somewhere but the answer is I really don't know. It's up to the water company to decide what tests they want to do to ensure the water is potable and they did not know it could be lead until they really seriously dug into my problem, after repeated nags and escalation.

Did they ever ask you to confirm prior to the if you had lead pipes? Ie a process of elimination question ?

paddyrg

esuhl wrote: »

.When the amount of lead in the environment increased, Nevin showed a corresponding rise in violent crime two decades later. And when the amount of lead in the environment fell, violent crime also tracked down - again about 20 years later.

Oh dear, sympathetic as I am, correlation is not causation. You may get similar correlating trends with x-rays, non-homogenised milk, sixpences in Christmas puddings, etc. Or not those, but there will be some other factors with similar shaped curves but which bear no relation and skulls not be taken as casual.

Mind you, the Roman Empire was big on its lead pipes, thigh how you track social trends to that level of precision over 2 millennia back is questionable.

suki1964

Jeez, the mains lead pipe here was only changed last year

Spose there is no hope for me then?

esuhl

paddyrg wrote: »

Oh dear, sympathetic as I am, correlation is not causation.

Obviously. Otherwise I wouldn't have said, "It's hardly conclusive, but...".

I thought that the harmful effects of leaded petrol were well known. A quick search brings up these articles, if you're interested:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2000/jul/13/uknews
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead#Toxicity
http://www.unep.org/transport/PCFV/PDF/Algeria/Harmful%20Effects%20of%20Leaded%20Gasoline,%20Jane%20Akumu-%20UNEP.pdf

forgotmyname

Drop in leaded fuel and violent crime also coincided with the way they categorised and recorded violent crime?