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America's Real Criminal Element: Lead
New research finds Pb is the hidden villain behind violent crime, lower IQs, and even the ADHD epidemic. And fixing the problem is a lot cheaper than doing nothing.
WHEN RUDY GIULIANI RAN FOR MAYOR of New York City in 1993, he campaigned on a platform of bringing down crime and making the city safe again. It was a comfortable position for a former federal prosecutor with a tough-guy image, but it was more than mere posturing. Since 1960, rape rates had nearly quadrupled, murder had quintupled, and robbery had grown fourteenfold. New Yorkers felt like they lived in a city under siege.
Is There Lead In Your House?
Throughout the campaign, Giuliani embraced a theory of crime fighting called "broken windows," popularized a decade earlier by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling in an influential article in The Atlantic. "If a window in a building is broken and is left unrepaired," they observed, "all the rest of the windows will soon be broken." So too, tolerance of small crimes would create a vicious cycle ending with entire neighborhoods turning into war zones. But if you cracked down on small crimes, bigger crimes would drop as well.
Giuliani won the election, and he made good on his crime-fighting promises by selecting Boston police chief Bill Bratton as the NYPD's new commissioner. Bratton had made his reputation as head of the New York City Transit Police, where he aggressively applied broken-windows policing to turnstile jumpers and vagrants in subway stations. With Giuliani's eager support, he began applying the same lessons to the entire city, going after panhandlers, drunks, drug pushers, and the city's hated squeegee men. And more: He decentralized police operations and gave precinct commanders more control, keeping them accountable with a pioneering system called CompStat that tracked crime hot spots in real time.
The results were dramatic. In 1996, the New York Times reported that crime had plunged for the third straight year, the sharpest drop since the end of Prohibition. Since 1993, rape rates had dropped 17 percent, assault 27 percent, robbery 42 percent, and murder an astonishing 49 percent. Giuliani was on his way to becoming America's Mayor and Bratton was on the cover of Time. It was a remarkable public policy victory.
But even more remarkable is what happened next. Shortly after Bratton's star turn, political scientist John DiIulio warned that the echo of the baby boom would soon produce a demographic bulge of millions of young males that he famously dubbed "juvenile super-predators." Other criminologists nodded along. But even though the demographic bulge came right on schedule, crime continued to drop. And drop. And drop. By 2010, violent crime rates in New York City had plunged 75 percent from their peak in the early '90s.
All in all, it seemed to be a story with a happy ending, a triumph for Wilson and Kelling's theory and Giuliani and Bratton's practice. And yet, doubts remained. For one thing, violent crime actually peaked in New York City in 1990, four years before the Giuliani-Bratton era. By the time they took office, it had already dropped 12 percent.
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline
WHEN RUDY GIULIANI RAN FOR MAYOR of New York City in 1993, he campaigned on a platform of bringing down crime and making the city safe again. It was a comfortable position for a former federal prosecutor with a tough-guy image, but it was more than mere posturing. Since 1960, rape rates had nearly quadrupled, murder had quintupled, and robbery had grown fourteenfold. New Yorkers felt like they lived in a city under siege.
Is There Lead In Your House?
Throughout the campaign, Giuliani embraced a theory of crime fighting called "broken windows," popularized a decade earlier by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling in an influential article in The Atlantic. "If a window in a building is broken and is left unrepaired," they observed, "all the rest of the windows will soon be broken." So too, tolerance of small crimes would create a vicious cycle ending with entire neighborhoods turning into war zones. But if you cracked down on small crimes, bigger crimes would drop as well.
Giuliani won the election, and he made good on his crime-fighting promises by selecting Boston police chief Bill Bratton as the NYPD's new commissioner. Bratton had made his reputation as head of the New York City Transit Police, where he aggressively applied broken-windows policing to turnstile jumpers and vagrants in subway stations. With Giuliani's eager support, he began applying the same lessons to the entire city, going after panhandlers, drunks, drug pushers, and the city's hated squeegee men. And more: He decentralized police operations and gave precinct commanders more control, keeping them accountable with a pioneering system called CompStat that tracked crime hot spots in real time.
The results were dramatic. In 1996, the New York Times reported that crime had plunged for the third straight year, the sharpest drop since the end of Prohibition. Since 1993, rape rates had dropped 17 percent, assault 27 percent, robbery 42 percent, and murder an astonishing 49 percent. Giuliani was on his way to becoming America's Mayor and Bratton was on the cover of Time. It was a remarkable public policy victory.
But even more remarkable is what happened next. Shortly after Bratton's star turn, political scientist John DiIulio warned that the echo of the baby boom would soon produce a demographic bulge of millions of young males that he famously dubbed "juvenile super-predators." Other criminologists nodded along. But even though the demographic bulge came right on schedule, crime continued to drop. And drop. And drop. By 2010, violent crime rates in New York City had plunged 75 percent from their peak in the early '90s.
All in all, it seemed to be a story with a happy ending, a triumph for Wilson and Kelling's theory and Giuliani and Bratton's practice. And yet, doubts remained. For one thing, violent crime actually peaked in New York City in 1990, four years before the Giuliani-Bratton era. By the time they took office, it had already dropped 12 percent.
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline
That is terrible. So filtered water really is the way to go then. Geez, hate to think my dogs are drinking ribavirin and who knows what else... I usually don't drink tap water.
Does it help to boil it?
Does it help to boil it?
Having worked in water treatment for 20 years, I readily admit that lead is an issue that needs to be taken seriously, but one that I think can be easily dramatized.
Yes, when renovations are done, caution needs to be taken, because the lead particles may linger in the air. There are certain rules pertaining to asbestos removal that should also be applied to removal of lead based paint.
The biggest issue I have with the article is the amount of lead in soil. Yes, there will be some and yes, walking on the ground, stirring up the dirt could cause people to ingest some lead....... however, lead, like many other contaminants will be taken down through the soil each time it rains, so over time, there will be less and less at the surface.
I was really disappointed that the article didn't take the lead testing down into the water supplies. Almost any contaminant released to the air, dumped on the ground or flushed into a sewer or septic system will eventually end up in aquifers that provide drinking water.
EPA enacted the Safe Drinking Water Act in 1974; the Lead and Copper Act in 1991and since then, all public water systems have had to test for lead and copper in drinking water on a regular basis....
Another problem I have with it, is the number of us who were exposed to both lead in gasoline, lead based paint AND lead in our water supplies, that have not ended up in prison or with ADHD, autism, etc; nor did we end up in prison....... I'm not saying there's "no" link; I'm only saying that there are other things that may need to be taken into consideration, as well.
Adgal -- check the water pipes in that bungalow...... they probably all need to be replaced, unless they are galvanized (could also present a problem) ....... If they are copper, you probably want to get rid of them, because they would most likely have lead based solder. You might want to hire a company to come in and get rid of the lead based paint.
Next thing to plague us? Drugs in the water supply....... yep, as I mentioned everything that gets dumped or flushed can eventually end up in the aquifers. We're seeing it here. We were always told to flush old meds, so we did........ not to mention that we take these meds, then use the toilet.... yeah, a percentage of it goes down the drain.......and ultimately into the water supply.
Yesterday, lead; today, drugs - who knows what tomorrow will bring?
Yes, when renovations are done, caution needs to be taken, because the lead particles may linger in the air. There are certain rules pertaining to asbestos removal that should also be applied to removal of lead based paint.
The biggest issue I have with the article is the amount of lead in soil. Yes, there will be some and yes, walking on the ground, stirring up the dirt could cause people to ingest some lead....... however, lead, like many other contaminants will be taken down through the soil each time it rains, so over time, there will be less and less at the surface.
I was really disappointed that the article didn't take the lead testing down into the water supplies. Almost any contaminant released to the air, dumped on the ground or flushed into a sewer or septic system will eventually end up in aquifers that provide drinking water.
EPA enacted the Safe Drinking Water Act in 1974; the Lead and Copper Act in 1991and since then, all public water systems have had to test for lead and copper in drinking water on a regular basis....
Another problem I have with it, is the number of us who were exposed to both lead in gasoline, lead based paint AND lead in our water supplies, that have not ended up in prison or with ADHD, autism, etc; nor did we end up in prison....... I'm not saying there's "no" link; I'm only saying that there are other things that may need to be taken into consideration, as well.
Adgal -- check the water pipes in that bungalow...... they probably all need to be replaced, unless they are galvanized (could also present a problem) ....... If they are copper, you probably want to get rid of them, because they would most likely have lead based solder. You might want to hire a company to come in and get rid of the lead based paint.
Next thing to plague us? Drugs in the water supply....... yep, as I mentioned everything that gets dumped or flushed can eventually end up in the aquifers. We're seeing it here. We were always told to flush old meds, so we did........ not to mention that we take these meds, then use the toilet.... yeah, a percentage of it goes down the drain.......and ultimately into the water supply.
Yesterday, lead; today, drugs - who knows what tomorrow will bring?
In April of 2010 we bought a 1959 bungalow. We are slowly renovating, and I can tell you, this is a huge concern. Thanks for the reminder Teko, we need to have some testing done. Even our water is potentially a concern given the old pipes - we have neglected this.
From what Im getting is there is a correlation between lead, adhd, and crime. It makes you wonder if this may be the origin of autism as well. I mean it just makes you wonder since they have no clue of its origin. I dont see it as a stretch if they are linking things like adhd, why not autism?
It may be better to read the original article from the link. lol I may have buggered it up in copying and pasting the darn thing!
It may be better to read the original article from the link. lol I may have buggered it up in copying and pasting the darn thing!
I am confused by this post.
Is it about led in the home or crime in NYC? It doesn't seem to explain the connection.
My friends were aghast that I liked Giuliani, but I did and still do.
I remember being in NYC in the seventies and not feeling safe at all and returning with two of my children (ages 10 and 12) in the nineties. We had a lot of fun. We stayed at a youth hostel in Harlem and went by subway to Times Square after midnight. Lots of people on the street, cops patrolling, I felt very safe.
Of course those were just my brief experiences.
Is it about led in the home or crime in NYC? It doesn't seem to explain the connection.
My friends were aghast that I liked Giuliani, but I did and still do.
I remember being in NYC in the seventies and not feeling safe at all and returning with two of my children (ages 10 and 12) in the nineties. We had a lot of fun. We stayed at a youth hostel in Harlem and went by subway to Times Square after midnight. Lots of people on the street, cops patrolling, I felt very safe.
Of course those were just my brief experiences.
We know that the cost of all this lead is staggering, not just in lower IQs, delayed development, and other health problems, but in increased rates of violent crime as well. So why has it been so hard to get it taken seriously?
There are several reasons. One of them was put bluntly by Herbert Needleman, one of the pioneers of research into the effect of lead on behavior. A few years ago, a reporter from the Baltimore City Paper asked him why so little progress had been made recently on combating the lead-poisoning problem. "Number one," he said without hesitation, "it's a black problem." But it turns out that this is an outdated idea. Although it's true that lead poisoning affects low-income neighborhoods disproportionately, it affects plenty of middle-class and rich neighborhoods as well. "It's not just a poor-inner-city-kid problem anymore," Nevin says. "I know people who have moved into gentrified neighborhoods and immediately renovate everything. And they create huge hazards for their kids."
Tamara Rubin, who lives in a middle-class neighborhood in Portland, Oregon, learned this the hard way when two of her children developed lead poisoning after some routine home improvement in 2005. A few years later, Rubin started the Lead Safe America Foundation, which advocates for lead abatement and lead testing. Her message: If you live in an old neighborhood or an old house, get tested. And if you renovate, do it safely.
Another reason that lead doesn't get the attention it deserves is that too many people think the problem was solved years ago. They don't realize how much lead is still hanging around, and they don't understand just how much it costs us.
It's difficult to put firm numbers to the costs and benefits of lead abatement. But for a rough idea, let's start with the two biggest costs. Nevin estimates that there are perhaps 16 million pre-1960 houses with lead-painted windows, and replacing them all would cost something like $10 billion per year over 20 years. Soil cleanup in the hardest-hit urban neighborhoods is tougher to get a handle on, with estimates ranging from $2 to $36 per square foot. A rough extrapolation from Mielke's estimate to clean up New Orleans suggests that a nationwide program might cost another $10 billion per year.
We can either get rid of the remaining lead, or we can wait 20 years and then lock up all the kids who've turned into criminals.
So in round numbers that's about $20 billion per year for two decades. But the benefits would be huge. Let's just take a look at the two biggest ones. By Mielke and Zahran's estimates, if we adopted the soil standard of a country like Norway (roughly 100 ppm or less), it would bring about $30 billion in annual returns from the cognitive benefits alone (higher IQs, and the resulting higher lifetime earnings). Cleaning up old windows might double this. And violent crime reduction would be an even bigger benefit. Estimates here are even more difficult, but Mark Kleiman suggests that a 10 percent drop in crime—a goal that seems reasonable if we get serious about cleaning up the last of our lead problem—could produce benefits as high as $150 billion per year.
Put this all together and the benefits of lead cleanup could be in the neighborhood of $200 billion per year. In other words, an annual investment of $20 billion for 20 years could produce returns of 10-to-1 every single year for decades to come. Those are returns that Wall Street hedge funds can only dream of.
Wow, If I had known it was gonna be this long I would have just posted the link?
There are several reasons. One of them was put bluntly by Herbert Needleman, one of the pioneers of research into the effect of lead on behavior. A few years ago, a reporter from the Baltimore City Paper asked him why so little progress had been made recently on combating the lead-poisoning problem. "Number one," he said without hesitation, "it's a black problem." But it turns out that this is an outdated idea. Although it's true that lead poisoning affects low-income neighborhoods disproportionately, it affects plenty of middle-class and rich neighborhoods as well. "It's not just a poor-inner-city-kid problem anymore," Nevin says. "I know people who have moved into gentrified neighborhoods and immediately renovate everything. And they create huge hazards for their kids."
Tamara Rubin, who lives in a middle-class neighborhood in Portland, Oregon, learned this the hard way when two of her children developed lead poisoning after some routine home improvement in 2005. A few years later, Rubin started the Lead Safe America Foundation, which advocates for lead abatement and lead testing. Her message: If you live in an old neighborhood or an old house, get tested. And if you renovate, do it safely.
Another reason that lead doesn't get the attention it deserves is that too many people think the problem was solved years ago. They don't realize how much lead is still hanging around, and they don't understand just how much it costs us.
It's difficult to put firm numbers to the costs and benefits of lead abatement. But for a rough idea, let's start with the two biggest costs. Nevin estimates that there are perhaps 16 million pre-1960 houses with lead-painted windows, and replacing them all would cost something like $10 billion per year over 20 years. Soil cleanup in the hardest-hit urban neighborhoods is tougher to get a handle on, with estimates ranging from $2 to $36 per square foot. A rough extrapolation from Mielke's estimate to clean up New Orleans suggests that a nationwide program might cost another $10 billion per year.
We can either get rid of the remaining lead, or we can wait 20 years and then lock up all the kids who've turned into criminals.
So in round numbers that's about $20 billion per year for two decades. But the benefits would be huge. Let's just take a look at the two biggest ones. By Mielke and Zahran's estimates, if we adopted the soil standard of a country like Norway (roughly 100 ppm or less), it would bring about $30 billion in annual returns from the cognitive benefits alone (higher IQs, and the resulting higher lifetime earnings). Cleaning up old windows might double this. And violent crime reduction would be an even bigger benefit. Estimates here are even more difficult, but Mark Kleiman suggests that a 10 percent drop in crime—a goal that seems reasonable if we get serious about cleaning up the last of our lead problem—could produce benefits as high as $150 billion per year.
Put this all together and the benefits of lead cleanup could be in the neighborhood of $200 billion per year. In other words, an annual investment of $20 billion for 20 years could produce returns of 10-to-1 every single year for decades to come. Those are returns that Wall Street hedge funds can only dream of.
Wow, If I had known it was gonna be this long I would have just posted the link?
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