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> Cities that used iron pipes, in contrast, had higher rates of death from circulatory disease, cancer, and cerebral hemorrhage. We know of no scientific litera

• toomuchtodo 11y ago
  Supposedly you see the same drop in crime after lead was phased out of gasoline: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/02/lead-exposure-gasoline-crime-increase-children-health http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/02/lead-exposure... > That tip took Nevin in a different direction. The biggest source of lead in the postwar era, it turns out, wasn't paint. It was leaded gasoline. And if you chart the rise and fall of atmospheric lead caused by the rise and fall of leaded gasoline consumption, you get a pretty simple upside-down U: Lead emissions from tailpipes rose steadily from the early '40s through the early '70s, nearly quadrupling over that period. Then, as unleaded gasoline began to replace leaded gasoline, emissions plummeted. > Intriguingly, violent crime rates followed the same upside-down U pattern. The only thing different was the time period: Crime rates rose dramatically in the '60s through the '80s, and then began dropping steadily starting in the early '90s. The two curves looked eerily identical, but were offset by about 20 years. > So Nevin dove in further, digging up detailed data on lead emissions and crime rates to see if the similarity of the curves was as good as it seemed. It turned out to be even better: In a 2000 paper (PDF) he concluded that if you add a lag time of 23 years, lead emissions from automobiles explain 90 percent of the variation in violent crime in America. Toddlers who ingested high levels of lead in the '40s and '50s really were more likely to become violent criminals in the '60s, '70s, and '80s. > And with that we have our molecule: tetraethyl lead, the gasoline additive invented by General Motors in the 1920s to prevent knocking and pinging in high-performance engines. As auto sales boomed after World War II, and drivers in powerful new cars increasingly asked service station attendants to "fill 'er up with ethyl," they were unwittingly creating a crime wave two decades later.
  • Shivetya 11y ago
    Well he was certainly after a result he wanted, lead was phased out of house paints starting after 1971 and gone by 1978, meaning anything built before 78 was suspect. This may still be a problem in some older housing especially in cities. Leaded gasoline didn't fully phase out until the 80s and was still for sale in places until 91. Even in Canada leaded gasoline wasn't banned until 1990. So while it definitely had a large influence we have to realize lead was everywhere, it was cheap, it had so many wonderful uses, but it most certainly didn't vanish in the seventies.
    • damienkatz 11y ago
      In 1973 the US mandated all new cars require unleaded gasoline. They had smaller filling ports so leaded pump nozzles couldn't be inserted. So no, leaded fuel wasn't banned then, but it's usage decreased rapidly from that year on.
• padiyar83 11y ago
  Correlation between two variables, does not imply one causes the other.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_cau...
  • Hondor 11y ago
    Do you agree that human's use of fossil fuels caused global warming? We only know that they're correlated, right? It was a singular event without a control that we discovered by analyzing historical data. A lot like this article's subject.
  • Retric 11y ago
    If you know nothing else about A and B it actually does. In terms of pure information theory / probability. Causation between random things is rare and causation is less rare in correlated things.