Tuesday, March 08, 2022

Generation Lead

Really just explains so much.
The scientists from Florida State University and Duke University also found that 90% of children born in the U.S. between 1950 and 1981 had blood-lead levels higher than the CDC threshold. And the researchers found significant impact on cognitive development: on average, early childhood exposure to lead resulted in a 2.6-point drop in IQ.

The researchers only examined lead exposure caused by leaded gasoline, the dominant form of exposure from the 1940s to the late 1980s, according to data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Leaded gasoline for on-road vehicles was phased out starting in the 1970s, then finally banned in 1996.

Just as an example, I don't think younger people realize just how much "the bar fight" was a thing, and not just in movies. Or in England, soccer hooliganism. And they no longer are.

Not saying such things never happen now, of course, but getting boozed up and getting enraged and beating the shit out of people (or getting the shit beaten out of you) was just "normal." Sure that's booze, too, but I don't think it's standard to expect a fight to break out near you at some point any time you're out at a bar long enough. It really was in my 20s.

The demographic has aged out of bars, but the road ragers we still have with us.