13 ms·

Lead is so obviously bad for that we have known it for thousands of years.

• FugeDaws 1y ago
  yet as late as the 19th century lead was in make up
  • moooo99 1y ago
    The time it takes us from finding out something is dangerous to finally doing something about it is astonishingly long. Lead, Asbestos, CFCs, PFAS, etc
    • simplify 1y ago
      Yes. Humans in general are very bad at dealing with delayed consequences.
      • LargeWu 1y ago
        Typically because there are entrenched financial interests incentivized not to change.
        • bell-cot 1y ago
          And because our brains evolved in very different environments - where serious hidden delayed consequences were very rare, and life was short & cheap.
    • EasyMark 1y ago
      And we have a President currently trying to bring back clean, beautiful asbestos (it's still used in a few places actually). A wonder material, good for protecting against hot stuff.
    • tessierashpool 1y ago
      The EPA is currently reviewing its ban on asbestos.
  • deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  • cjrp 1y ago
    It's not uncommon for the pipe supplying mains water to (older) houses in the UK to still be lead.
    • graemep 1y ago
      Its not really common either. much as been replaced. In areas where it is common the pipes are often old enough that the lead is covered with limescale sealing it off from the water (lead pipes would now be many decades old), and I have read that water supplies in some areas have additives to seal off lead too. You can also have your supply tested (free AFAIK).
    • bamboozled 1y ago
      Does lead leach into the water like plastic pipes do ?
      • WillAdams 1y ago
        Yes, depending on alkalinity and so forth --- see Flint, Michigan in the news a while back, or on-going efforts to remove solder containing lead from the plumbing aisle.
        • skeezyboy 1y ago
          [dead]
      • dtech 1y ago
        Yes, the only reason we are ok with some old lead pipes left is because they're coated in scale build up. As long as that's not disturbed it's not dangerous anymore.
      • peanutz454 1y ago
        Old lead pipes had hard untreated water flowing through them. The lead pipes would internally (normally) be coated with salts, and the lead did not (normally) leach into water. But soft water does not have calcium or magnesium in high enough quantities. Also, even with hard water, pressure changes could loosen the scale deposits. Microplastic risk is not anywhere close to lead, we should not even be discussing these two things in the same paragraph. Lead is bad because it mimics calcium and iron in our body, binding to proteins, sneaking into bones, causes anemia, disrupts brain function... Plastic is inert, it is made of long chains of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. These long chains do not break down easily. Microplastic, while it does not pass through the body, and can accumulate in organs, its impact is still under study. We aren't ingesting high doses. BUT, bad pipes may leach other stuff. Some additives in certain plastics seem to mimic hormones and potentially disrupt them. Some additives are carcinogenic. (but only in high doses I guess). Certified modern pipes are safer.
• uncircle 1y ago
  > Lead is so obviously bad Yeah, though I’m much more concerned about those that are not so obviously bad, that we still don’t know how terrible they are. You know, the unknown unknows.
• nativeit 1y ago
  …and yet we actively used it in water pipes, painted our walls with it, and poisoned the air by putting it in gasoline—all in the 20th-century.
  • __alexs 1y ago
    It's almost like the net benefit of lead was actually quite high or something.
• swayvil 1y ago
  How does this obvious badness manifest, exactly? I can drink water from a lead pipe all day and suffer not even a headache. EDIT I'm serious. What is the obvious manifestation? Because the manifestations I've heard of aren't so obvious.
  • __alexs 1y ago
    If you do it for decades (or have low pH water?), you will slowly get dumber and probably get dementia or something.
    • swayvil 1y ago
      Yes. But that isn't obvious. I asked for obvious. Obvious is "every time I do it I get a headache".
• westward 1y ago
  And it wasn't until the 1970s that the US banned lead paint in houses. 200 years after Ben Franklin wrote that it was bad. Like, clearly plastics are bad. And yet, humans like the convenience, the utility.
  • qqtt 1y ago
    Also, as a reminder, leaded gas (avgas) is still used all over the United States pumping lead into the environment. If you live near an airport you are especially at increased risk of lead exposure in the environment.
    • Plasmoid 1y ago
      The FAA finally approved 100UL gas for small airplanes. I'm not sure how widely it's available now.
    • ToucanLoucan 1y ago
      Also also, shit tons of poor folk all over the country live in homes full of lead pipes and paint that their landlords are too cheap to fix. Asbestos too, though that's less threatening as long as it's not being actively fucked with.
      • zdragnar 1y ago
        Generally speaking, it's better to cover up asbestos than it is to remove it. Remediation attempts can easily go wrong, moving the asbestos from "hidden and staying put under tiles" to "free floating dust in the air and your lungs". One of my parents' friends got mesothelioma from doing just that.
    • sevensor 1y ago
      This is just for general aviation though. Jet fuel has no lead in it. Not that this means it’s healthy, just that jet exhaust pollution does not include appreciable amounts of lead.
  • neves 1y ago
• nikbackm 1y ago
  Clean, beautiful lead.
  • mlinhares 1y ago
    I can hear him saying it, shit.
    • tylerflick 1y ago
      I’ve been joking he’s going to try and bring back leaded gas.