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If this article ( http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/01/raw-data-lead-poisoning-kids-flint http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/01/raw-data-lead-.
by glenra 11y ago
If this article ( http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/01/raw-data-lead-poisoning-kids-flint http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/01/raw-data-lead-... ) is correct, the problem specifically of lead in Flint seems to have been worse throughout the 1990s and most of the 2000s. The recent upward spike only made it as bad as it had been in 2010. So should people have been panicked and drinking bottled water there for most of the last 30 years? Or was downplaying the current risk level - in context - kind of reasonable?
- kafkaesq 11y agoHave you looked closely at the analysis in that article? It's a total fudge, basically. But even if it weren't: So should people have been panicked and drinking bottled water there for most of the last 30 years? The problem with what you're asking (and perhaps the biggest problem with the MJ article you cited) is that in past decades, lead poisoning (as measured by children's blood levels) has come from multiple sources (lead-based paint in homes being the most widely cited culprit). So it's an apples-to-oranges comparison to start with. And any numerical "extrapolations" from those numbers to what the comparative risk factors from water sources might have been, going back decades, are equally vacuous.