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New Evidence That Lead Exposure Increases Crime (2017)

329 points by anarazel 8y ago

baxtr 8y ago
A was very skeptical when I saw the headline. Then I read the article. The evidence coming from these 3 studies looks quite compelling I have to say. Next I googled: “Countries That Still Use Leaded Gasoline”, and I got: Rank Location 1 Algeria 2 Iraq 3 Yemen 4 Myanmar 5 North Korea 6 Afghanistan From https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-that-still-use-leaded-gasoline.html https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-that-still-use... Also I found this: https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/12/prediction-terrorism-middle-east-will-decline-half-between-2020-and-2040/ https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/12/prediction-te... Very interesting indeed.
- phakding 8y ago
  > Rank Location 1 Algeria 2 Iraq 3 Yemen 4 Myanmar 5 North Korea 6 Afghanistan I am hoping you are not attributing violence and instability in some of these countries to lead based gasoline. Sure, there may be correlation, but these places are centuries old. There are many factors like culture, religiosity, socio-economic status , history, contemporary culture, so on and so forth.
  - astrodust 8y ago
    Since their use of fossil fuels is significantly lower than European countries it's not a direct comparison, but an interesting situation. Lead affects impulse control and could be a factor in certain civil phenomena. It's easier to whip up a mob when there's a lot of lead poisoning.
    - fjsolwmv 8y ago
      That's a stretch. It's just as easy to say that national instability leads to both civil war and lack of modern technology like unleqded gasoline.
      - smallnamespace 8y ago
        Yeah, which is why the data is backed up by multiple panel analyses that actually make the argument for causation. The US data shows that crime rates rose like clockwork approximately ~20 years after leaded gasoline is used en masse, and drops ~20 years after it was banned. Different states introduced and subsequently banned leaded gasoline on different schedules, so this was a 'natural' experiment, unless you can think of some other causative factor that precisely explains the timing of the rise and fall of crime. I don't understand this content-free 'correlation does not equal causation' argument. Sure, in the absence of other evidence and a mechanism of action, we should have healthy skepticism, but it's known how lead affects brain development, particularly how it screws up development of the frontal cortex, lowering both intelligence and social inhibition.
        baxtr 8y ago
        Re natural experiment: what about the water pipes? Were they exchanged as well? I don’t think you can see this as natural experiment unless other factors are equal
        telchar 8y ago
        TFA discusses a natural experiment with water pipes. Cities near lead production centers tend to have lead pipes, so they compared cities with that characteristic and acidic water (which leaches lead into the water) and such cities without acidic water. The study found a strong effect.
        refurb 8y ago
        Yeah, which is why the data is backed up by multiple panel analyses that actually make the argument for causation. The US data shows that crime rates rose like clockwork approximately ~20 years after leaded gasoline is used en masse, and drops ~20 years after it was banned. Did they also account for changes in how crime rates are reported over time? One would have to account for hundreds of different variables before you could ever conclusively prove a connection between lead and crime.
    - soperj 8y ago
      Ahh yes, lets forget the fact that the US went into what were at the time actually Stable countries, and blame lead.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - syn0byte 8y ago
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2013/01/03/how-lead-caused-americas-violent-crime-epidemic/#2da16bf712c4 https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2013/01/03/how-lead-c... It's been done before by people with more credibility than a message board user.
    - phakding 8y ago
      That's an interesting graph. What happened after 1990? Is the period after 1990 considered an outlier or is there another explanation?
    - pythonslayer 8y ago
      How can we be sure the people doing this study were not message board users?
  - baxtr 8y ago
    No I’m not. I still find it to be an interesting correlation worthwhile for further examination. Would you rule it out entirely? Before there were studies like the ones mentioned in the article people wouldn't believe it for cities like Flint in the states neither. I’m still not 100% convinced that there is causation. But if those studies are no fakes and hold up for repetition then I’d argue that there is some truth behind the theory
    - craftyguy 8y ago
      > Would you rule it out entirely? Yes, unless you have a secret way of ruling out the other much more likely factors (i.e what GP mentioned). You could argue that those countries still use leaded gasoline because the political turmoil/violence within them makes folks prefer the cheaper, easier fuel to produce.
      - dTal 8y ago
        Is it cheaper or easier to produce? The industrial process is difficult and hazardous. An alternative anti-knock agent is ethanol, which you can make at home. Originally, leaded gasoline was pushed by GM because they held the patents.
        craftyguy 8y ago
        Ethanol production competes with citizens for food (how many of those countries using leaded gas have experienced famines recently?). Adding it to gasoline results in a fuel with ~30% less energy per unit, so you'd have to produce more gasoline to get an equivalent amount of energy. https://extension.psu.edu/fuel-ethanol-hero-or-villain https://extension.psu.edu/fuel-ethanol-hero-or-villain
        jabl 8y ago
        I've read a study (can't find the link, sorry) comparing the cost of various ways of boosting the octane rating. Of all the alternatives (TEL, aromatics, alcohols, ethers, MMT, etc.) TEL was the cheapest. I wonder what fraction of TEL consumption worldwide is due to aviation vs. these few remaining countries that use it in motor gasoline?
  - baddox 8y ago
    Not to mention that a society with more violence/unrest (for whatever reason) may be less likely to have a government with a functioning regulatory system, i.e. unrest may cause gasoline to remain leaded rather than the other way around.
  - elipsey 8y ago
    Can things have multi-factor causes? It seems plausible that high environmental lead levels contribute (with at least a small effect size) to violence and crime. If a lead-free environment is already violent and insecure, would you expect adding environmental lead to make it less violent, more violent, or the same?
- fiter 8y ago
  I'd think you'd also need to see the rate of leaded gas burning per area. Fewer people drive cars in some of those countries, and there are fewer cars per square area.
- anarazel 8y ago
  > The evidence coming from these 3 studies looks quite compelling I have to say. I like the trick to select a control group by acidity in the water.
- Micoloth 8y ago
  I don't know how much of a well know fact this is here, but lead pipes influence over brain and behaviour has long been considered a possible factor among the ones that caused the fall of the Roman empire. The effect of lead residuals on brain is pretty well known..
- ekianjo 8y ago
  > Rank Location 1 Algeria 2 Iraq 3 Yemen 4 Myanmar 5 North Korea 6 Afghanistan So your point is?
outworlder 8y ago
Could it be that there are other pollutants that could cause similar issues? Some countries have banned lead even before the US, but crime rates are still growing(Brazil, for instance). Poverty alone does not explain this. There are countries just as poor (or more), with corrupt police forces and that do not have the same issue with violence.
- jandrese 8y ago
  Maybe it has to do with the drug cartels or being in war zones? I don't think the study was trying to say that lead is the only factor in crime.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  There are probably dozens of factors. Some societal, some environmental. It's not like being exposed to lead makes everybody into a criminal either.
- corysama 8y ago
  Recent study showing that air pollution can impact intelligence equivalent to the loss of a year of education. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/27/air-pollution-causes-huge-reduction-in-intelligence-study-reveals https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/27/air-poll...
  - ekianjo 8y ago
    A year of education is a useless metric. Staying one more year in college does not make you smarter. Junk article.
  - londons_explore 8y ago
    It's very hard to separate the effects of airborne lead from other air pollution, since they tend to exist in the same places. I wouldn't be surprised if the lead is the cause of both.
- int_19h 8y ago
  > Some countries have banned lead even before the US, but crime rates are still growing(Brazil, for instance). https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/08/murder-sao-paulo-lead-ethanol/ https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/08/murder-sao-pa...
0x17A 8y ago
"Lead linked to schizophrenia" : https://www.nature.com/news/2004/040217/full/news040216-9.html https://www.nature.com/news/2004/040217/full/news040216-9.ht...
makosdv 8y ago
Makes sense. "Lead exposure in childhood linked to lower IQ, lower status jobs, as adults" https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170328145300.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170328145300.h... Which also correlates with criminality.
Sileni 8y ago
One of the most dangerous forms of lead is Tetraethyllead, because of how fat soluble it is. It's been banned in nearly every country in the world because it moves through the environment at an alarming rate. One company in the world still manufactures it, and they're based in the UK[0]. They're entirely aware that they're killing people and have openly said in management meetings that they won't stop manufacturing the product until government regulation forces them to. Mind you, lead levels don't only increase in the country the chemical is used; it moves through entire ecosystems and across oceans. Lead levels don't fall to below dangerous levels for decades. This isn't just poisoning the people nearby; it's poisoning the entire world in small, insidious ways. And chemical companies are profiting from that. The margin they're selling TEL for would make government contractors cry. And to top it off, they have virtually no quality program surrounding their products because they don't need one; all of their deals are done with backroom handshakes and agreeing to take the blame if an issue arises. Their company is built around the idea that it actually costs less to just say "Yeah, we're terrible people, fine us" than to actually try and comply with government regulation. They've repeatedly been caught in corruption and environmental probes, and have changed their names in the states and in the UK multiple times. They were literally caught trying to bribe their way into selling TEL in Iran. [1] [0]: https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/leaded-petrol-algeria-still-legal-innospec-cheshire-uk-sale-export-tel-tetraethyl-lead-a7907196.html https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/leaded-petrol-alge... [1]: https://www.sfo.gov.uk/2014/08/04/four-sentenced-role-innospec-corruption/ https://www.sfo.gov.uk/2014/08/04/four-sentenced-role-innosp... [1]: https://www.sfo.gov.uk/cases/innospec-ltd/ https://www.sfo.gov.uk/cases/innospec-ltd/
- jxub 8y ago
  This is something truly horrible, thanks for sharing it here.
- jsight 8y ago
  I thought aviation gas was the primary reason that this is still around?
  - oliveshell 8y ago
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
dalore 8y ago
> When lead was removed from gasoline, lead levels in the environment fell, and kids avoided the lead exposure that caused these developmental problems. About 20 years later, when those kids became young adults, crime rates fell. This, proponents say, is what explains the mysterious and persistent decline in crime beginning in the early 1990s. > It’s an intriguing idea — particularly since we don’t have a better explanation for the big changes in crime rates during this period. Did not freakanomics come up with a famous (and to me more convincing) argument that it legalized abortion was the reason for the drop in crime? At they very least it dispels the arguments we don't have a better explanation and doesn't even mention it. http://freakonomics.com/2005/05/15/abortion-and-crime-who-should-you-believe/ http://freakonomics.com/2005/05/15/abortion-and-crime-who-sh...
- opportune 8y ago
  Another possibly large factor is that the crack epidemic (and all of its auxiliary crime - property theft, gang violence) started to die down
  - ebikelaw 8y ago
    per-capita violent crime rate was basically flat in the 20 years leading to 1994, so I don't see how it could have been related to that.
- philwelch 8y ago
  The abortion hypothesis is a different explanation, but it's not necessarily a better one. The proposed mechanism for abortion is that mothers who will give birth to future criminals are more likely to get abortions than mothers who will not give birth to future criminals, which seems vaguely plausible, but it's a more indirect effect than the known effects of lead exposure on brain development. The lead mechanism is also easier to validate. Simply correlating the drop in crime with Roe v. Wade plus 20 years isn't enough--you also have to show some evidence which mothers and families demographically tend to produce more criminal children, and that these same mothers and families disproportionately chose abortion in greater rates after Roe v. Wade.
williesleg 8y ago
Ha ha yeah, Brookings institute.
freeflight 8y ago
Without wanting to sound too snarky, wasn't this already pretty well-established knowledge? [0] Imho one of the more infamous and recent examples of human hubris. Who knows what we are downplaying right now, that might end up really messing us up in another couple of decades? Only time will tell. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead#Controversy_and_phase-out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead#Controversy_and...
- sutterbomb 8y ago
  I thought so, and I wish it were. But look at the threads here, and everyone who feels that they can just say "crack epidemic" and believe it is providing the same insight into the situation as scientific study.
- int_19h 8y ago
  That is poisons people is well-established knowledge. That it affects brain function, as well. It's the correlation with crime specifically that is the interesting part.
Biologist123 8y ago
Half of Mexican children suffer from lead poisoning. http://latinalista.com/columns/globalviews/nearly-half-mexicos-children-suffer-lead-poisoning http://latinalista.com/columns/globalviews/nearly-half-mexic...
- galaxyLogic 8y ago
  And we know there is a lot of violent crime in Mexico
  - ekianjo 8y ago
    Violent crime is Mexico is rather a consequence of cartel activity. Which has nothing to do with lead.
    - nyolfen 8y ago
      why is it so easy for you to rule that out? there are cartels in other countries, but mexico's are exceptionally, brutally violent
      - shawn 8y ago
        Suppose lead were to disappear from the earth tomorrow. It seems unlikely that it would have any effect on the Mexican cartel ecosystem. The ecosystem is driven by demand from the US, and Mexico has the supply. The brutality is a consequence of a power struggle to control those resources.
        smallnamespace 8y ago
        > It seems unlikely that it would have any effect on the Mexican cartel ecosystem. How can you on the one hand so easily dismiss the evidence that lead causes violence, which is backed up by rigorous statistical analysis and medical evidence, and on the other hand assert so surely that you know the answer? If you were consistent, surely you'd apply skepticism to your own explanations as well.
kurthr 8y ago
And of course, it's the gift that keeps on giving! https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/08/lead-in-us-school-water-disturbing-detroit-just-shut-off-all-fountains/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/08/lead-in-us-school-wa...
krrrh 8y ago
This 2016 Mother Jones article is a good treatment of this hypothesis: https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/02/lead-exposure-gasoline-crime-increase-children-health/ https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/02/lead-exposur...
ekianjo 8y ago
"single variable reductions" used to explain complex societal changes are hardly convincing.
rejectedalot 8y ago
In Elizabethan England, didn’t a lot of women wear lead based makeup? I’d be interested in seeing how that affected crime rates or other metrics, if that data were available.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
tarsinge 8y ago
I may have missed something but it looks like Europe is not taken into consideration in these studies. For example in France lead in gasoline was not banned until the 90’s, and the violent crime statistics doesn’t look very correlated.
- scotty79 8y ago
  Crime lags around 20 years behind lead levels. Young people burning cars in Paris suburbs around 2010 may not be technically violent crime but it's pretty weird and special. And also in decline: https://www.google.pl/amp/s/www.thelocal.fr/20180102/is-the-famous-french-tradition-of-torching-cars-dying-out/amp https://www.google.pl/amp/s/www.thelocal.fr/20180102/is-the-...
- chrisbrandow 8y ago
  I don’t know about this particular study, but much of the strongest evidence for the lead hypothesis comes from comparing when different countries phased in/out lead and how their crime rates were affected.
mirimir 8y ago
I was going to ask why the cited studies apparently didn't consider the phaseout of lead-based paint. But then I realized that the first study relies on data preceding the lead-paint problem, in that lead paint wasn't used as much indoors then, and arguably wasn't in bad shape. The third study just considers lead levels and interventions, and so subjects were exposed to multiple sources. The second study[0] finds that distance to roads correlates with lead exposure. They do discuss relative contribution from multiple sources: flaking indoor lead-based paint, lead in soil around foundations (from maintenance of outdoor lead-based paint), and roadside lead. 0) https://sci-hub.tw/https://www.nber.org/papers/w23392 https://sci-hub.tw/https://www.nber.org/papers/w23392
losvedir 8y ago
Does anyone have any resources with concrete numbers about how much lead exposure is too much? I just moved into a new house that has a lead service pipe in from the city, and it concerns me. In addition, the federal action level is 15ppb, and my utility's water report last year had it at 8ppb, which seems kind of close. I know there's no known level of safe lead exposure, but I don't have a good sense from a cost benefit perspective of how much to do to try to lower my exposure.
- scottlocklin 8y ago
  Water filters are cheap and effective and make the water taste better anyway. I think most people's exposure is from eating lead paint and breathing fumes and particulates (also from paint -previously from gasoline engines). None the less, the US is visibly decaying enough I always drink filtered water (google "big berkey").
- chrisbrandow 8y ago
  Kevin drum has written a bunch on city lead piping and how it is much less of a problem because the pipes are typically internally coated.

329 points by anarazel 8y ago

A was very skeptical when I saw the headline. Then I read the article. The evidence coming from these 3 studies looks quite compelling I have to say. Next I googled: “Countries That Still Use Leaded Gasoline”, and I got: Rank Location 1 Algeria 2 Iraq 3 Yemen 4 Myanmar 5 North Korea 6 Afghanistan From https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-that-still-use-leaded-gasoline.html https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-that-still-use... Also I found this: https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/12/prediction-terrorism-middle-east-will-decline-half-between-2020-and-2040/ https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/12/prediction-te... Very interesting indeed.

phakding 8y ago
> Rank Location 1 Algeria 2 Iraq 3 Yemen 4 Myanmar 5 North Korea 6 Afghanistan I am hoping you are not attributing violence and instability in some of these countries to lead based gasoline. Sure, there may be correlation, but these places are centuries old. There are many factors like culture, religiosity, socio-economic status , history, contemporary culture, so on and so forth.
- astrodust 8y ago
  Since their use of fossil fuels is significantly lower than European countries it's not a direct comparison, but an interesting situation. Lead affects impulse control and could be a factor in certain civil phenomena. It's easier to whip up a mob when there's a lot of lead poisoning.
  - fjsolwmv 8y ago
    That's a stretch. It's just as easy to say that national instability leads to both civil war and lack of modern technology like unleqded gasoline.
    - smallnamespace 8y ago
      Yeah, which is why the data is backed up by multiple panel analyses that actually make the argument for causation. The US data shows that crime rates rose like clockwork approximately ~20 years after leaded gasoline is used en masse, and drops ~20 years after it was banned. Different states introduced and subsequently banned leaded gasoline on different schedules, so this was a 'natural' experiment, unless you can think of some other causative factor that precisely explains the timing of the rise and fall of crime. I don't understand this content-free 'correlation does not equal causation' argument. Sure, in the absence of other evidence and a mechanism of action, we should have healthy skepticism, but it's known how lead affects brain development, particularly how it screws up development of the frontal cortex, lowering both intelligence and social inhibition.
      - baxtr 8y ago
        Re natural experiment: what about the water pipes? Were they exchanged as well? I don’t think you can see this as natural experiment unless other factors are equal
        telchar 8y ago
        TFA discusses a natural experiment with water pipes. Cities near lead production centers tend to have lead pipes, so they compared cities with that characteristic and acidic water (which leaches lead into the water) and such cities without acidic water. The study found a strong effect.
      - refurb 8y ago
        Yeah, which is why the data is backed up by multiple panel analyses that actually make the argument for causation. The US data shows that crime rates rose like clockwork approximately ~20 years after leaded gasoline is used en masse, and drops ~20 years after it was banned. Did they also account for changes in how crime rates are reported over time? One would have to account for hundreds of different variables before you could ever conclusively prove a connection between lead and crime.
  - soperj 8y ago
    Ahh yes, lets forget the fact that the US went into what were at the time actually Stable countries, and blame lead.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- syn0byte 8y ago
  https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2013/01/03/how-lead-caused-americas-violent-crime-epidemic/#2da16bf712c4 https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2013/01/03/how-lead-c... It's been done before by people with more credibility than a message board user.
  - phakding 8y ago
    That's an interesting graph. What happened after 1990? Is the period after 1990 considered an outlier or is there another explanation?
  - pythonslayer 8y ago
    How can we be sure the people doing this study were not message board users?
- baxtr 8y ago
  No I’m not. I still find it to be an interesting correlation worthwhile for further examination. Would you rule it out entirely? Before there were studies like the ones mentioned in the article people wouldn't believe it for cities like Flint in the states neither. I’m still not 100% convinced that there is causation. But if those studies are no fakes and hold up for repetition then I’d argue that there is some truth behind the theory
  - craftyguy 8y ago
    > Would you rule it out entirely? Yes, unless you have a secret way of ruling out the other much more likely factors (i.e what GP mentioned). You could argue that those countries still use leaded gasoline because the political turmoil/violence within them makes folks prefer the cheaper, easier fuel to produce.
    - dTal 8y ago
      Is it cheaper or easier to produce? The industrial process is difficult and hazardous. An alternative anti-knock agent is ethanol, which you can make at home. Originally, leaded gasoline was pushed by GM because they held the patents.
      - craftyguy 8y ago
        Ethanol production competes with citizens for food (how many of those countries using leaded gas have experienced famines recently?). Adding it to gasoline results in a fuel with ~30% less energy per unit, so you'd have to produce more gasoline to get an equivalent amount of energy. https://extension.psu.edu/fuel-ethanol-hero-or-villain https://extension.psu.edu/fuel-ethanol-hero-or-villain
      - jabl 8y ago
        I've read a study (can't find the link, sorry) comparing the cost of various ways of boosting the octane rating. Of all the alternatives (TEL, aromatics, alcohols, ethers, MMT, etc.) TEL was the cheapest. I wonder what fraction of TEL consumption worldwide is due to aviation vs. these few remaining countries that use it in motor gasoline?
- baddox 8y ago
  Not to mention that a society with more violence/unrest (for whatever reason) may be less likely to have a government with a functioning regulatory system, i.e. unrest may cause gasoline to remain leaded rather than the other way around.
- elipsey 8y ago
  Can things have multi-factor causes? It seems plausible that high environmental lead levels contribute (with at least a small effect size) to violence and crime. If a lead-free environment is already violent and insecure, would you expect adding environmental lead to make it less violent, more violent, or the same?
fiter 8y ago
I'd think you'd also need to see the rate of leaded gas burning per area. Fewer people drive cars in some of those countries, and there are fewer cars per square area.
anarazel 8y ago
> The evidence coming from these 3 studies looks quite compelling I have to say. I like the trick to select a control group by acidity in the water.
Micoloth 8y ago
I don't know how much of a well know fact this is here, but lead pipes influence over brain and behaviour has long been considered a possible factor among the ones that caused the fall of the Roman empire. The effect of lead residuals on brain is pretty well known..
ekianjo 8y ago
> Rank Location 1 Algeria 2 Iraq 3 Yemen 4 Myanmar 5 North Korea 6 Afghanistan So your point is?

outworlder 8y ago

Could it be that there are other pollutants that could cause similar issues? Some countries have banned lead even before the US, but crime rates are still growing(Brazil, for instance). Poverty alone does not explain this. There are countries just as poor (or more), with corrupt police forces and that do not have the same issue with violence.

jandrese 8y ago
Maybe it has to do with the drug cartels or being in war zones? I don't think the study was trying to say that lead is the only factor in crime.
maxxxxx 8y ago
There are probably dozens of factors. Some societal, some environmental. It's not like being exposed to lead makes everybody into a criminal either.
corysama 8y ago
Recent study showing that air pollution can impact intelligence equivalent to the loss of a year of education. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/27/air-pollution-causes-huge-reduction-in-intelligence-study-reveals https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/27/air-poll...
- ekianjo 8y ago
  A year of education is a useless metric. Staying one more year in college does not make you smarter. Junk article.
- londons_explore 8y ago
  It's very hard to separate the effects of airborne lead from other air pollution, since they tend to exist in the same places. I wouldn't be surprised if the lead is the cause of both.
int_19h 8y ago
> Some countries have banned lead even before the US, but crime rates are still growing(Brazil, for instance). https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/08/murder-sao-paulo-lead-ethanol/ https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/08/murder-sao-pa...

0x17A 8y ago

"Lead linked to schizophrenia" : https://www.nature.com/news/2004/040217/full/news040216-9.html https://www.nature.com/news/2004/040217/full/news040216-9.ht...

makosdv 8y ago

Makes sense. "Lead exposure in childhood linked to lower IQ, lower status jobs, as adults" https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170328145300.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170328145300.h... Which also correlates with criminality.

Sileni 8y ago

One of the most dangerous forms of lead is Tetraethyllead, because of how fat soluble it is. It's been banned in nearly every country in the world because it moves through the environment at an alarming rate. One company in the world still manufactures it, and they're based in the UK[0]. They're entirely aware that they're killing people and have openly said in management meetings that they won't stop manufacturing the product until government regulation forces them to. Mind you, lead levels don't only increase in the country the chemical is used; it moves through entire ecosystems and across oceans. Lead levels don't fall to below dangerous levels for decades. This isn't just poisoning the people nearby; it's poisoning the entire world in small, insidious ways. And chemical companies are profiting from that. The margin they're selling TEL for would make government contractors cry. And to top it off, they have virtually no quality program surrounding their products because they don't need one; all of their deals are done with backroom handshakes and agreeing to take the blame if an issue arises. Their company is built around the idea that it actually costs less to just say "Yeah, we're terrible people, fine us" than to actually try and comply with government regulation. They've repeatedly been caught in corruption and environmental probes, and have changed their names in the states and in the UK multiple times. They were literally caught trying to bribe their way into selling TEL in Iran. [1] [0]: https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/leaded-petrol-algeria-still-legal-innospec-cheshire-uk-sale-export-tel-tetraethyl-lead-a7907196.html https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/leaded-petrol-alge... [1]: https://www.sfo.gov.uk/2014/08/04/four-sentenced-role-innospec-corruption/ https://www.sfo.gov.uk/2014/08/04/four-sentenced-role-innosp... [1]: https://www.sfo.gov.uk/cases/innospec-ltd/ https://www.sfo.gov.uk/cases/innospec-ltd/

jxub 8y ago
This is something truly horrible, thanks for sharing it here.
jsight 8y ago
I thought aviation gas was the primary reason that this is still around?
- oliveshell 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

dalore 8y ago

> When lead was removed from gasoline, lead levels in the environment fell, and kids avoided the lead exposure that caused these developmental problems. About 20 years later, when those kids became young adults, crime rates fell. This, proponents say, is what explains the mysterious and persistent decline in crime beginning in the early 1990s. > It’s an intriguing idea — particularly since we don’t have a better explanation for the big changes in crime rates during this period. Did not freakanomics come up with a famous (and to me more convincing) argument that it legalized abortion was the reason for the drop in crime? At they very least it dispels the arguments we don't have a better explanation and doesn't even mention it. http://freakonomics.com/2005/05/15/abortion-and-crime-who-should-you-believe/ http://freakonomics.com/2005/05/15/abortion-and-crime-who-sh...

opportune 8y ago
Another possibly large factor is that the crack epidemic (and all of its auxiliary crime - property theft, gang violence) started to die down
- ebikelaw 8y ago
  per-capita violent crime rate was basically flat in the 20 years leading to 1994, so I don't see how it could have been related to that.
philwelch 8y ago
The abortion hypothesis is a different explanation, but it's not necessarily a better one. The proposed mechanism for abortion is that mothers who will give birth to future criminals are more likely to get abortions than mothers who will not give birth to future criminals, which seems vaguely plausible, but it's a more indirect effect than the known effects of lead exposure on brain development. The lead mechanism is also easier to validate. Simply correlating the drop in crime with Roe v. Wade plus 20 years isn't enough--you also have to show some evidence which mothers and families demographically tend to produce more criminal children, and that these same mothers and families disproportionately chose abortion in greater rates after Roe v. Wade.

williesleg 8y ago

Ha ha yeah, Brookings institute.

freeflight 8y ago

Without wanting to sound too snarky, wasn't this already pretty well-established knowledge? [0] Imho one of the more infamous and recent examples of human hubris. Who knows what we are downplaying right now, that might end up really messing us up in another couple of decades? Only time will tell. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead#Controversy_and_phase-out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead#Controversy_and...

sutterbomb 8y ago
I thought so, and I wish it were. But look at the threads here, and everyone who feels that they can just say "crack epidemic" and believe it is providing the same insight into the situation as scientific study.
int_19h 8y ago
That is poisons people is well-established knowledge. That it affects brain function, as well. It's the correlation with crime specifically that is the interesting part.

Biologist123 8y ago

Half of Mexican children suffer from lead poisoning. http://latinalista.com/columns/globalviews/nearly-half-mexicos-children-suffer-lead-poisoning http://latinalista.com/columns/globalviews/nearly-half-mexic...

galaxyLogic 8y ago
And we know there is a lot of violent crime in Mexico
- ekianjo 8y ago
  Violent crime is Mexico is rather a consequence of cartel activity. Which has nothing to do with lead.
  - nyolfen 8y ago
    why is it so easy for you to rule that out? there are cartels in other countries, but mexico's are exceptionally, brutally violent
    - shawn 8y ago
      Suppose lead were to disappear from the earth tomorrow. It seems unlikely that it would have any effect on the Mexican cartel ecosystem. The ecosystem is driven by demand from the US, and Mexico has the supply. The brutality is a consequence of a power struggle to control those resources.
      - smallnamespace 8y ago
        > It seems unlikely that it would have any effect on the Mexican cartel ecosystem. How can you on the one hand so easily dismiss the evidence that lead causes violence, which is backed up by rigorous statistical analysis and medical evidence, and on the other hand assert so surely that you know the answer? If you were consistent, surely you'd apply skepticism to your own explanations as well.

kurthr 8y ago

And of course, it's the gift that keeps on giving! https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/08/lead-in-us-school-water-disturbing-detroit-just-shut-off-all-fountains/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/08/lead-in-us-school-wa...

krrrh 8y ago

This 2016 Mother Jones article is a good treatment of this hypothesis: https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/02/lead-exposure-gasoline-crime-increase-children-health/ https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/02/lead-exposur...

ekianjo 8y ago

"single variable reductions" used to explain complex societal changes are hardly convincing.

rejectedalot 8y ago

In Elizabethan England, didn’t a lot of women wear lead based makeup? I’d be interested in seeing how that affected crime rates or other metrics, if that data were available.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

tarsinge 8y ago

I may have missed something but it looks like Europe is not taken into consideration in these studies. For example in France lead in gasoline was not banned until the 90’s, and the violent crime statistics doesn’t look very correlated.

scotty79 8y ago
Crime lags around 20 years behind lead levels. Young people burning cars in Paris suburbs around 2010 may not be technically violent crime but it's pretty weird and special. And also in decline: https://www.google.pl/amp/s/www.thelocal.fr/20180102/is-the-famous-french-tradition-of-torching-cars-dying-out/amp https://www.google.pl/amp/s/www.thelocal.fr/20180102/is-the-...
chrisbrandow 8y ago
I don’t know about this particular study, but much of the strongest evidence for the lead hypothesis comes from comparing when different countries phased in/out lead and how their crime rates were affected.

mirimir 8y ago

I was going to ask why the cited studies apparently didn't consider the phaseout of lead-based paint. But then I realized that the first study relies on data preceding the lead-paint problem, in that lead paint wasn't used as much indoors then, and arguably wasn't in bad shape. The third study just considers lead levels and interventions, and so subjects were exposed to multiple sources. The second study[0] finds that distance to roads correlates with lead exposure. They do discuss relative contribution from multiple sources: flaking indoor lead-based paint, lead in soil around foundations (from maintenance of outdoor lead-based paint), and roadside lead. 0) https://sci-hub.tw/https://www.nber.org/papers/w23392 https://sci-hub.tw/https://www.nber.org/papers/w23392

losvedir 8y ago

Does anyone have any resources with concrete numbers about how much lead exposure is too much? I just moved into a new house that has a lead service pipe in from the city, and it concerns me. In addition, the federal action level is 15ppb, and my utility's water report last year had it at 8ppb, which seems kind of close. I know there's no known level of safe lead exposure, but I don't have a good sense from a cost benefit perspective of how much to do to try to lower my exposure.

scottlocklin 8y ago
Water filters are cheap and effective and make the water taste better anyway. I think most people's exposure is from eating lead paint and breathing fumes and particulates (also from paint -previously from gasoline engines). None the less, the US is visibly decaying enough I always drink filtered water (google "big berkey").
chrisbrandow 8y ago
Kevin drum has written a bunch on city lead piping and how it is much less of a problem because the pipes are typically internally coated.