3 ms·

The point is that "detectable" says more about the instrument than anything else. If there's no science that says "one atom of lead anywhere in your body is ba

The point is that "detectable" says more about the instrument than anything else. If there's no science that says "one atom of lead anywhere in your body is bad", then saying "detectable" is meaningless. I mean, if you said "we found a detectable number of bullets in half of children", now that would be bad.

kenjackson 5y ago
I think the real point is that detectable levels with modern instruments that are used for such measurements (≥1.0 μg/dL)* is considered bad. *Another poster noted this level.
marcosdumay 5y ago
> If there's no science that says "one atom of lead anywhere in your body is bad", then saying "detectable" is meaningless. It would be meaningless on that case too. Also meaningless is saying that 2% of the kids have a high level of lead, without saying what "high" means.
- dllthomas 5y ago
  > Also meaningless is saying that 2% of the kids have a high level of lead, without saying what "high" means. Oh, that's simple - it's defined as above the 98th percentile. (I kid, I hope...)
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - jmalicki 5y ago
    Actually, the CDC defines the 5ug/DL as high based on being the 97.5%ile [1] in children... so you're not kidding... But if only 2% of children have lead levels that were originally defined based on the worst 2.5%, that's a 20% reduction, so great news!? [1] https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead/prevention/blood-lead-levels.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead/prevention/blood-lead-levels.h...
    - marcosdumay 5y ago
      Still, I'm not sure the article uses the CDC definition. Going on with the complaint, the article is meaningless. Did they find a problem? An improvement? Nothing? Nobody can tell by reading it alone.
    - dllthomas 5y ago
      Amazing.