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In a knowledge economy, lead poisoning is basically a death sentence. Those IQ points are lost permanently. So you're put in permanent disadvantage at every lev

In a knowledge economy, lead poisoning is basically a death sentence. Those IQ points are lost permanently. So you're put in permanent disadvantage at every level of education, workforce, healthcare (IQ correlates with earnings, and money is needed for good healthcare), judicial system (lower IQ correlates with criminal behavior), etc. People tainting our food supply with lead should be put behind bars for life.

ekidd 3y ago
"Death sentence" is an exaggeration, but accute and chronic lead poisoning are no joke: https://today.duke.edu/2022/03/lead-exposure-last-century-shrunk-iq-scores-half-americans https://today.duke.edu/2022/03/lead-exposure-last-century-sh... It causes long-term loss of IQ, and it is the main suspect for elevated crime levels in the lead-crime hypothesis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93crime_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93crime_hypothesis
- Anotheroneagain 3y ago
  And for some reason we thrived poisoned and are failing lead free....
  - hgomersall 3y ago
    Arguably we're now seeing the political system controlled by geriatrics that grew up in the leaded fuel era.
    - Anotheroneagain 3y ago
      No, we see the consequences that it causes in young people: The loss of sense of priority, the loss of capacity for independent discovery and the judment of reasonableness, the disruption of normal thinking (leading to making things up, to outright paranoia and psychosis).
      - constantly 3y ago
        [flagged]
    - throwawaymaths 3y ago
      In the pre leaded gas era, there were cane beatings on the floor of Congress!
- menacingly 3y ago
  It's not an exaggeration, OP meant in the context of a knowledge economy. the IQ and crime issues you mention strongly support this statement.
- siftrics 3y ago
  Without commenting on how likely it is the hypothesis is true, the lead-crime hypothesis has always been academic handwaving to make a different, political point.
lm28469 3y ago
Air pollution has a greater impact, both in IQ loss and people impacted, nobody cares really
- meindnoch 3y ago
  Air pollution affects almost everyone equally. It's horrible, but it doesn't put particular individuals at greater disadvantage compared to the rest of the population. E.g. it degrades everyone's SAT scores. Whereas lead poisoning is only affecting those that consumed that particular tainted product.
  - lm28469 3y ago
    > Air pollution affects almost everyone equally. Not at all, living next to a major road is massively different from living even a few blocks away. Same for highways etc. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)32399-6/fulltext#:~:text=A%20few%20studies%20found%20an,a%20lesser%20degree%2C%20Parkinson%27s%20disease https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6.... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3498530/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3498530/
__MatrixMan__ 3y ago
It sort of depends on the nature of the contamination. If it ends up being negligence, if they ever hid anything about it, absolutely. Jail for the executives, fines for the major shareholders. And if it's not negligence then maybe we need to raise the bar for testing such that any contamination indeed counts as negligence. But lead is a pretty common metal. If it turns out that there's an undiscovered recessive gene for lead hyperaccumulation in the cinnamon tee and that tragedies like this are how it gets discovered, then we need to focus on raising the testing bar and not on punishment. Otherwise we create a situation where people are incentivized to hide data that could ultimately help prevent things like this in the future.
- nameless912 3y ago
  > If it turns out that there's an undiscovered recessive gene for lead hyperaccumulation in the cinnamon tee and that tragedies like this are how it gets discovered That's not what happens though, lead poisoning in spices is ~always shady actors adding pigment that's lead-heavy to make the spice (for example, cinnamon, turmeric, ground ginger, paprika) appear more vibrant in color. The Indian government did a whole bunch of work to fight against this a few years back; ultimately it's suppliers trying to adulterate their product to save money and make it look better than it is. This should absolutely be a serious crime, on the level of intentionally shipping any other dangerous product: jail time for executives, huge financial penalties for companies.
  - __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
    I see. If it's not fentanyl it's lead. Why are markets trying to kill us?
    - nameless912 3y ago
      Because capitalism doesn't provide enough of a punishment mechanism to discourage this type of behavior? Especially the protectionist crony capitalism that exists in most of the "free world".
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ekidd 3y ago

"Death sentence" is an exaggeration, but accute and chronic lead poisoning are no joke: https://today.duke.edu/2022/03/lead-exposure-last-century-shrunk-iq-scores-half-americans https://today.duke.edu/2022/03/lead-exposure-last-century-sh... It causes long-term loss of IQ, and it is the main suspect for elevated crime levels in the lead-crime hypothesis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93crime_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93crime_hypothesis

Anotheroneagain 3y ago
And for some reason we thrived poisoned and are failing lead free....
- hgomersall 3y ago
  Arguably we're now seeing the political system controlled by geriatrics that grew up in the leaded fuel era.
  - Anotheroneagain 3y ago
    No, we see the consequences that it causes in young people: The loss of sense of priority, the loss of capacity for independent discovery and the judment of reasonableness, the disruption of normal thinking (leading to making things up, to outright paranoia and psychosis).
    - constantly 3y ago
      [flagged]
  - throwawaymaths 3y ago
    In the pre leaded gas era, there were cane beatings on the floor of Congress!
menacingly 3y ago
It's not an exaggeration, OP meant in the context of a knowledge economy. the IQ and crime issues you mention strongly support this statement.
siftrics 3y ago
Without commenting on how likely it is the hypothesis is true, the lead-crime hypothesis has always been academic handwaving to make a different, political point.

lm28469 3y ago

Air pollution has a greater impact, both in IQ loss and people impacted, nobody cares really

meindnoch 3y ago
Air pollution affects almost everyone equally. It's horrible, but it doesn't put particular individuals at greater disadvantage compared to the rest of the population. E.g. it degrades everyone's SAT scores. Whereas lead poisoning is only affecting those that consumed that particular tainted product.
- lm28469 3y ago
  > Air pollution affects almost everyone equally. Not at all, living next to a major road is massively different from living even a few blocks away. Same for highways etc. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)32399-6/fulltext#:~:text=A%20few%20studies%20found%20an,a%20lesser%20degree%2C%20Parkinson%27s%20disease https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6.... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3498530/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3498530/

__MatrixMan__ 3y ago

It sort of depends on the nature of the contamination. If it ends up being negligence, if they ever hid anything about it, absolutely. Jail for the executives, fines for the major shareholders. And if it's not negligence then maybe we need to raise the bar for testing such that any contamination indeed counts as negligence. But lead is a pretty common metal. If it turns out that there's an undiscovered recessive gene for lead hyperaccumulation in the cinnamon tee and that tragedies like this are how it gets discovered, then we need to focus on raising the testing bar and not on punishment. Otherwise we create a situation where people are incentivized to hide data that could ultimately help prevent things like this in the future.

nameless912 3y ago
> If it turns out that there's an undiscovered recessive gene for lead hyperaccumulation in the cinnamon tee and that tragedies like this are how it gets discovered That's not what happens though, lead poisoning in spices is ~always shady actors adding pigment that's lead-heavy to make the spice (for example, cinnamon, turmeric, ground ginger, paprika) appear more vibrant in color. The Indian government did a whole bunch of work to fight against this a few years back; ultimately it's suppliers trying to adulterate their product to save money and make it look better than it is. This should absolutely be a serious crime, on the level of intentionally shipping any other dangerous product: jail time for executives, huge financial penalties for companies.
- __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
  I see. If it's not fentanyl it's lead. Why are markets trying to kill us?
  - nameless912 3y ago
    Because capitalism doesn't provide enough of a punishment mechanism to discourage this type of behavior? Especially the protectionist crony capitalism that exists in most of the "free world".

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