Here's the latest on the lead front:
We estimate that by 2015, the US population had gained 602-million General Psychopathology factor points because of exposure arising from leaded gasoline, reflecting a 0.13-standard-deviation increase in overall liability to mental illness in the population and an estimated 151 million excess mental disorders attributable to lead exposure.
As near as I can tell from just the abstract, this is a bit of a toy study. The authors just run a regression of nationwide lead levels vs. nationwide mental disorders and find an association. That really doesn't tell you much.
But it at least suggests a path for future studies to see if this is for real. I certainly wouldn't be surprised if it is.
"Lead-associated mental health and personality differences were most pronounced for cohorts born from 1966 through 1986 (Generation X)."
What age cohort did polling this year (per AP VoteCast) show most strongly supported Trump over Harris (52% to 46%)? Age 45-65; i.e., Generation X.
https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2024-11-06/how-5-key-demographic-groups-helped-trump-win-the-2024-election
People have always been nuts. Teasing out one or more factors which add or subtract from that baseline is a symptom of obsessive compulsive disorder.
What explains the prevalence of criminal and organizational violence today? Human nature. Deprivation. Poverty. Empty religious belief. Take your pick.
This is a dumb post because the whole point is parsing out statistical levels of shitty human nature above and beyond the baseline.
So most of us were given "mental disorders" by lead from "ethyl" exposure?
The lead additive in gasoline was tetraethyl lead.
The ads of the time all referred to "ethyl." A nice, homey monicker, kind of like Aunt Ethyl or Dear Olde Mom. The "lead" part might have been scary!
But we all know what it was short for now.
> A nice, homey monicker, kind of like Aunt Ethyl or Dear Olde Mom.
Or Ethel Mertz.
I don’t undrstand why the media that seems to obsess about health stories have ignored the research on lead and crime. I would bet this report won’t get much attention either.
602 million of these points out of how many total?
I've been watching TERROR, currently on Netflix. Not to give much away, but lead plays a significant part in the characters' demise.