
The Brains of Flint’s Children, Imperiled by Lead, Could Still Escape Damage - ern
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-brains-of-flint-s-children-imperiled-by-lead-could-still-escape-damage/
======
ern
I find this to be a fascinating article because simplistic emotional arguments
disseminated in the press, presumably by researchers and regulators themselves
and scientifically illiterate journalists ("lead is unsafe at any level and
children with a Blood Lead Level of 5 are poisoned"), are then tempered when
real people are involved:

 _This does not mean that children at this level are poisoned,” Dietrich says.
“There are very few studies of low-level lead exposure, but there is nothing
in the data that suggests that children will have negative impacts of short-
term low-level exposure” over their lives. In fact, he notes, the 5 μg /dL
figure was set because 97.5 percent of young children fall below it, not
because blood lead levels at that threshold result in permanent harm_

