A recent study found that approximately 170 million American adults were exposed to high levels of lead in their childhood years, particularly via leaded gasoline. This exposure negatively affected cognitive abilities in the adult population, resulting in an average IQ loss of 2.6 points per individual.
The study was performed by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) using blood-lead level, census data, and leaded gasoline consumption data to draw a conclusion regarding how widespread lead exposure was between 1940 and 2015.
The study revealed that 90 percent of children born in the U.S. between 1950 and 1981 had alarmingly high levels of lead present in their bloodstream, exceeding the threshold set by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). If blood-lead concentration is found to be in excess of 3.5 micrograms per deciliter, the CDC considers this cause for clinical concern.
“We found over 4.5 million Americans had levels over 30,” said Aaron Ruben, co-author of the PNAS study and Ph.D. candidate at Duke University. “[That’s] 10 times what’s considered alarming.”
In particular, people born in the 1960s and 1970s displayed the highest IQ point loss, with six to seven points lost per individual. Inhalation of exhaust fumes from cars running leaded gasoline is largely responsible for the staggering amounts of exposure.
Lead was first introduced as a gasoline additive in 1921, when engineers at GM discovered that it helped to improve engine lifespan and performance by reducing engine knock and pinging. At this time, researchers stated that leaded gasoline exposure presented a minimal risk to the general populace. However, more and more studies were published that detailed its harmful effects, prompting the Environmental Protection Agency to begin phasing it out in 1973. It was banned outright over two decades later in 1996. Just last year, the final stockpiles of leaded gasoline were depleted in Algeria.
Researchers estimate that lead exposure is responsible for a cumulative total of 824 million IQ points lost in American adults.
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Comments
That explains a lot when I look around as to what I see.
Some of these folks must have been sucking on tail pipes with the way they think.
That’s hilarious bahaha. C8.R, I’ve actually come to respect your viewpoints a lot on this forum tbh.
You wanna blow the man don’t you?
No but I sure do
I took a screenshot of the racist comments you made on that other post I’m sending them to Mr.Luft you have no place on here saying things like that.
Make sure you forward the transphobic stuff I said too.
That’s already covered don’t you worry about that. Hopefully he bans whatever email address you are using.
Oh gosh I sure hope racists and transphobes don’t start getting banned from the comments! I’d just hate that! Please don’t throw me in the brier patch, Br’er Fox!
They did Poison the Population
Apparently C8.R was the head tail pipe sucking instructor.
And that’s how we ended up with Trump voters.
There is a correlation between urban residents having the highest exposure to lead emissions and urban areas dominated by democrats.
LMAO… Your boy Joe has this country upside down and has inflected every problem with our economy and gas prices, etc., etc… He blames everyone else for these problems. You must be what they call – a plantation resident. And Trump scares the liberals because he wants people to be individuals and to think for themselves and the plantation owners can’t keep control over the liberals’ residents. That’s the fear.
Why is this even a topic… How about lowering gas prices! Spend those funding dollars on that instead of leaded gas. There was a reason we stopped using leaded gas 70 years ago…
Today, $5.00 a gal in a 26-gallon tank is ridiculous – why isn’t that a topic on this forum? If history repeats itself, these trucks and Tahoe’s and Surburban types are going to be left in the driveway.
Got sideways…lol
A few weeks ago, I took a coctail of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine to purge the stupid from my brain. Not shure if it is wurking.
Well you need to take something for the derogatory comments you made yesterday against women. But what more can we expect from a bigot.
Covid is over mask mandates are over cases are down restrictions are lifted so get over it. Your troll comment is a year late.
Stupid never goes out of style in my America. See you in 2024.
Covid is over get over it troll. At this point you are beating a dead horse nothing else. Everyone has moved on with their lives I suggest you do the same.
No wonder Donald *I love the poorly educated* Trump appealed to that demographic.
Spoiler alert. Any chronic lead exposure will do this.
“…may also have underpredicted high-lead exposures owing to leaded paints and pipes, which tend to aggregate within particular communities”
-literaly from the study
This is a sad excuse for a research paper.
What, specifically, is wrong with the study?
Lead was omnipresent before the 1980’s, it was found in toys, house products, building materials, food serving wares, the actual food, and the DRINKING WATER. It just seems a little like they are trying to paint a certain narrative with such a limited study, at least imho. It’s worth noting that NAS has had a history of broad political biases and silencing scientific dissent.
“trying to paint a certain narrative”
What’s the narrtive? I’m missing what you’re alluding to, this looks like a bog-standard piece of public health research to me.
“It’s worth noting that NAS has had a history of broad political biases and silencing scientific dissent.”
Never heard that either. What are some examples?
NAS has faced several controversies in recent years. In January 2021, NAS praised President Joe Biden’s appointment of Eric Lander to the Cabinet-level position of Top Science Adviser, despite Lander’s history of failing to report conflicts of interest and downplaying the role of women in scientific discoveries.
2006 study of 320 committee members evaluated, 18 percent had direct conflicts of interest involved in their studies. These included an Institute of Medicine panelist whose research was funded by the National Food Processers Association and the United States Tuna Foundation tasked with evaluating the risk of mercury in fish. In another case, 10 of the 11 total panelists on a committee studying carbon emissions had direct ties to oil, energy, and chemical industries, most of which were not disclosed.
The CSPI report also found that nearly half of all panels featured in the study included scientists with easily identifiable biases that were not offset by scientists of opposing viewpoints and urged the academy to strengthen its policies on bias and conflict and interests.
Oh yeah, there’s a decade of Geoffrey Marcy sexual misconduct mixed in there as well
All you have to do is search google. It just doesn’t seem like the most trustworthy journal.
What’s the narrative though? Is lead secretly good for us?
You don’t see how haphazard research linking fossils fuels to negative health outcomes, from decades ago, could be interpreted as a smear campaign?
“Study Shows Leaded Gasoline Exposure Lowered U.S. Adults’ IQs” seems pretty biased against a certain industry.
No I don’t but I also read the study for myself so that’s probably why.
Lead has been around forever in one way or the other. It’s been only recently that we’ve gotten good at eliminating it from our materials. To me this seems like it was done by up and coming environmentalist with ego complex’s who are determined to find a way that they’re “cognitively superior” to their wiser experienced parents.
They totally missed that’s its known people from the 60’s-70’s suffered extensive brain damage. Anyone hear of the hippies? Bueller? Not allowed to talk about the drugs and “peace” revolution that tore the fabric of our society almost to the brink? Is Facebook going to bane me now?
Just reading some of these post confirms my observation.
So many things today are over regulated to where the ones that really will hurt you in small amounts are hidden in plain sight of the many that would take unrealistic amounts to cause harm.
I just got a dishwasher part marked it will cause cancer in California. Yes it you smoke 2,500 eat 10,000 of the piece of plastic it is made of.
They cry wolf so much it is hard to tell the truth from the lies anymore.
The real question is what doesn’t have the prop-65 warning on it.
Put lead back in gasoline! Make America Energy Independent Again!
The Romans were the first users of lead pipes for carrying water from their aqueducts to the fountains and wealthy homes. The chemical symbol Pb and the name of plumbing are from the Latin word for lead. History proves that theRomans were crazy and did terrible thing in the past due to so much lead poisoning.
Later we used lead solder to seal iron pipes. And there is lead in electronics solder.
The Romans were the first users of lead pipes for carrying water from their aqueducts to the fountains and wealthy homes. The chemical symbol Pb and the name of plumbing are from the Latin word for lead. History proves that the Romans were crazy and did terrible things in the past due to so much lead poisoning.
Later we used lead solder to seal iron pipes. And there is lead in electronics solder.
Seems all the snowflake lefties woke up & started their usual rants & whining.
Of course this so called study is a 100% fact….or is it? Let’s ask Sleepy Joe, he knows everything about nothing!
Yup…everyone was huffing Sunoco 26o back in the 60’s. LOL\
Ethanol is the bad stuff….look around you at all the lazy, stupid, mind numb idiots on parade.
Millennials down to Gen Z, mostly brain dead!
That ol evil corn….BAD!!
So what excuse do the kids have born in the eighties and nineties have. I never lived in my parents basement and let my girlfriend drive me around because I didn’t want to work. I bet most people would love to have Trump gas prices right now with or without lead.
The people with the low IQ disorder are Democrats.
Although plenty of geniuses existed in that era, like for instance, we wen to the MOON, and have not gone since.
And the only nation on earth to land a human on the MOON was America. All of us. Together.
Then we put on Bell Bottom Pants, and platform shoes, and danced to the Bee Gees, now that part seems like lead poisoning.
Have you ever considered what food preservatives and sugared and diet soft drinks do to the brain? Lastly the plastic polymers and chemicals in bottled water containers along with the trillions of these plastic bottles damaging the environment?