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> The total cost of lead in the environment by far outweighs the economic benefits Evidence?

• oakwhiz 13y ago
  Putting extra lead in the environment increases the risk of people coming into contact with larger amounts of lead. Lead has been shown to cause health problems and birth defects.
• shrikant 13y ago
  Literally 3 seconds on Google for "lead cost benefit analysis" yields this 1985 study by the EPA: http://yosemite.epa.gov/ee/epa/eerm.nsf/vwAN/EE-0034-1.pdf/$file/EE-0034-1.pdf http://yosemite.epa.gov/ee/epa/eerm.nsf/vwAN/EE-0034-1.pdf/$...
  • tzs 13y ago
    It's even worse than that, I think. I may have missed it since I just skimmed that document, but I don't think it covered violent crime. It has been shown rather conclusively that overexposure to lead in childhood leads to an increase in violent crime in adulthood. Banning leaded gasoline was the single most significant cause of the large decrease in violent crime in the US in the latter part of the 20th century. Here's one story on this [1]. Cites to peer reviewed journals are available from Wikipedia [2]. [1] http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/ban-on-leaded-petrol-has-cut-crime-rates-around-the-world-398151.html http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/ban-on... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead#Toxicity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead#Toxicity