
Lead: America's Real Criminal Element (2013) - pmoriarty
https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/02/lead-exposure-gasoline-crime-increase-children-health/
======
tonyg
The author of this piece just recently published an update, also in Mother
Jones:

"An Updated Lead-Crime Roundup for 2018", Kevin Drum, Mother Jones, 1 Feb
2018.

[https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/02/an-updated-
le...](https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/02/an-updated-lead-crime-
roundup-for-2018/)

~~~
sokoloff
From that article: "Unfortunately, the number of murders is relatively small
compared to the universe of violent crime, which makes it statistically
challenging to analyze."

I don't find that especially unfortunate.

------
joe_the_user
Blaming lead for the increase in crime certainly has an appeal. Any claim like
that is going to be controversial - pinning causes and effect this closely is
a bit like large-scale anecdotal evidence - you're never going to repeat the
multitude of causes and effects to went into the twenty years from 1980 to
2000.

A different approach I find compelling involves those who look at different
time scales. Especially, violent crime has been declining since colonial times
in the US and around the globe - with specific exceptions. While the overall
downward trend needs explanation, any moment where crime is declining is
normal and the moments of upturn seem to be what needs explanation. And the
explanation here is often the aftermath of war, soldiers who've learned to
kill coming home.

Of course this isn't to claim lead pollution is in any way acceptable but
whether it lead to violent crime is a fuzzy question.

[http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2010/06/16/a-crime-puzzle-
violent-...](http://blogs.berkeley.edu/2010/06/16/a-crime-puzzle-violent-
crime-declines-in-america/)

~~~
mc32
>And the explanation here is often the aftermath of war, soldiers who've
learned to kill coming home.

I don't think the stats bear that out. Veterans may suffer PTSD and other
ailments, but I don't think they contribute disproportionally to US crime
statistics.

Brazil hasn't been at war recently, but they have high crime rate.

~~~
girvo
> Brazil hasn't been at war recently

I wonder if drug trafficking and the global drug war counts? I mean it's in
some ways even more violent, but I guess then I'm mixing up cause and
effect... interesting to think about.

~~~
kimdotcom
Violence begets violence?

------
perpetualcrayon
For all of those who are so amazed at the current state of technology in the
world, it's articles like these that help bring us back to Earth.

It was less than 100 years ago that we thought it was a good idea to (1) put
lead in paint, (2) put asbestos in building materials, (3) put x-ray machines
in shoe stores so people could casually look at their feet (learned this from
a relative).

We are only a few generations away from some literal dark age shit.

~~~
scarecrowbob
Well, the fun thing is to look at what we do know and wonder what horrible
stuff people will see that should have been more obvious to us in the present
day.

~~~
deelowe
I think coal burning power plants are the next big one. There's been some
studies that have come out lately which link coal plants to tons of modern
ailments.

~~~
jaggederest
Diesel engines also. Black carbon smoke in all its forms is toxic to life, in
general.

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
Modern Diesel engines don’t smoke. And black Diesel is mostly just muck and
not pollution in the way you think it is, clear diesel exhaust has the NOX in
it.

Sorry, but it seems you don’t actually know anything about diesels.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
If we have data, let's go with the data. If all we have is opinions, let's go
with mine.

 _Diesel exhaust is a Group 1 carcinogen, which causes lung cancer and has a
positive association with bladder cancer.[2][3][4][5][6] It contains several
substances that are also listed individually as human carcinogens by the
IARC._

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_exhaust](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_exhaust)

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
That's great! Except that your post was about black smoke which is just
unburnt fuel, the actual diesel exhaust is invisible.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
I’m going to disagree here, the black smoke that comes out of diesel engines
isn’t _just unburnt diesel_.

And if it comes out of the exhaust ports on a dieeel engine is _actual diesel
exhaust_.

All that aside, airosoled diesel still wouldn’t be something you’d want to
inhale much of.

------
Herodotus38
Another source of lead pollution that I wasn't aware about until buying a
house on former orchard land is that lead arsenate was used as an insecticide
against the coddling moth for several decades. It is a large issue in Eastern
Washington State where a lot of former orchard land has become schools,
housing and parks.

~~~
mrfusion
I’ve been trying tonfigure our if fruit and vegetables grown in lead polluted
soil pick up lead or not. I haven’t been able to track down a good answer

~~~
Herodotus38
From the research I've done it seems that most plants pick up very little. In
fact it's almost a problem because you can't "leach" it out through planting.
On the other hand, fruits and such aren't affected. The problem is that it's
in the soil, so you have to be really careful about washing produce if it's
dusty. I would be very hesitant to eat any beets, carrots, potatoes, etc...
unless the soil had been amended. That usually means several feet get manually
removed and dumped somewhere else and you bring in fresh topsoil. This is what
WA state has had to do with a lot of the parks and public schools where
they've tested and found high Pb levels.

~~~
maxerickson
That's removal and replacement.

Amendment is adding something to improve the soil. Manure or peat or whatever.

~~~
Herodotus38
Thanks, you are correct

------
jdavis703
This is a really ancedotal story with sample size N=1 so YMMV. I lived in a
poorly maintained building constructed in the 1920s. I'm sure there was old
lead paint that was just painted over. Also a couple of times per month the
pipes would spew out brown water. During that time I was dealing with a lot of
anger outbursts and anxiety attacks. Since I've moved (same city, same job,
slightly higher rent), these things really haven't been a problem. Again it's
hard to know what the exact reason is, but I do wonder if I was experiencing
some version of heavy metal poisoning.

~~~
vidanay
I don't think heavy metal poisoning goes away with a simple change of
environment.

You were probably just pissed off that you lived in a shitty apartment
building.

~~~
maxxxxx
As far as I know it slowly goes down so the story may make sense.

~~~
wallace_f
>"The most recent evidence from epidemiological and toxicological studies
suggests that low levels of exposure can, over time, damage the heart,
kidneys, and brain."

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1797860/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1797860/)

~~~
maxxxxx
The question is what happens when the exposure stops. Do things get better?

~~~
kbos87
From what I’ve seen and heard the answer with lead is an unequivocal no - once
lead exposure has occurred, the damage is done. It’s compounding and
irreversible.

------
dang
Discussed at the time:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5006368](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5006368).

------
DoreenMichele
Similar sort of idea wrt "A sound mind in a sound body" being the best
antidote to crime:

 _Vitamins for convicts could save taxpayers ' money_

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16140867](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16140867)

------
maxxxxx
It's really hard to understand that the country is not setting up a nationwide
program to get rid of lead paint and fixing the water supply. The payoff would
be enormous.

~~~
Analemma_
Enormous, but diffuse. Governments, and especially democracies, and
_especially_ especially the United States have consistently failed miserably
at tackling problems with diffuse benefits bit highly visible costs, even when
the costs are much lower.

~~~
wwweston
The theory is too narrow here -- not only does this apply to governments, it
applies to businesses. Or technical debt and sufficiently large software
projects. Or individuals and lifestyle choices.

Our reward structures aren't always lined up with optimal responses to current
conditions.

~~~
wool_gather
Good point. And people with similar mindsets/POVs tend to be at the top of
such large organizations. I think there's just a certain way of being in the
world that makes some people inclined to a) want to be in charge, and b)
downplay these kinds of diffuse, semi-intangibly-expensive problems. We need
better ways of explaining problems to them.

------
c4mden
Related article from a few years back that I've found myself referencing in
many discussions since:

[https://www.damninteresting.com/the-ethyl-poisoned-
earth/](https://www.damninteresting.com/the-ethyl-poisoned-earth/)

------
iguy
Does anyone know any good studies looking at this in different countries?

For example, lots of communist countries had ridiculous levels of lead
pollution. Does this show up in their crime & IQ stats, as articles like this
suggest it should? They also (sometimes) took great effort to mix up the
population, putting all social classes in the same building... which would
help avoid one complaint here, that obviously people who could afford to do so
chose not to live in the most polluted bits of American cities.

~~~
mozumder
I think this would be a good variable to analyze. A lot of third-world
countries didn't have a large automobile infrastructure, and so they had lower
lead levels, leading to smarter people with less crime.

This could be the source of "smart Asian" stereotype.

But, I don't know if atmospheric lead pollution is uniform globally or
localized.

~~~
Nasrudith
It is very localized - areas by old highways have issues with higher lead
concentration in soil. Which seems intuitive but CFCs are heavier than air yet
can still wind up high enough to cause ozone layer issues via air currents

------
yasp
Thought this was an interesting theory when initially proposed. How has it
held up since then?

~~~
jseliger
An interesting question; here is one negative datum:
[https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/06/no...](https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/06/no-
lead-homicide-connection-eastern-europe.html)

I find it interesting that lead use also seems to follow the trajectory of
drug usage / permissiveness in the '70s:
[https://jakeseliger.com/2018/06/15/grass-roots-the-rise-
and-...](https://jakeseliger.com/2018/06/15/grass-roots-the-rise-and-fall-and-
rise-of-marijuana-in-america-emily-dufton)

------
lifeisstillgood
The aqueducts feeding water to Ancient Rome were lined with lead, which
apparently had a poisoning effect. Was the famous Roman Mob affected by this
same thing?

~~~
NegativeLatency
The water was pretty hard (lots of dissolved minerals) and it formed a
protective non reactive layer over the lead.

The same thing happened in Flynt, but the city cheaped out on the pH control
chemicals, the protective layer was dissolved, and eventually the pipes with
lead in them started leaching.

~~~
Gibbon1
Three things I've read. Romans complained in writings about the use of lead
acetate in wine.

They also used lead cook pots to reduce grape juice to Defrutum.

And the Romans used to smelt lead in Italy and banned the practice eventually.
I've never seen a description of a Roman lead smelting operation but I can
imagine.

On the other hand I haven't seen anyone trying look for lead poisoning in
Roman era bones. Just looked found this.

[http://www.poweredbyosteons.org/2012/01/lead-poisoning-in-
ro...](http://www.poweredbyosteons.org/2012/01/lead-poisoning-in-rome-
skeletal.html)

~~~
lifeisstillgood
Great link (I resubmitted just now for wider audience).

------
pkaye
Was lead used in other countries around the world? Did they see a similar drop
in crime when it was banned?

~~~
OscarCunningham
Iraq stopped using leaded petrol in 2011. The lead/crime hypothesis postulates
a 22 year time-lag. So if Iraq becomes a lot more peaceful in 2033 you'll know
what's up.

Incidentally, the list of countries where leaded petrol is still used, or was
banned most recently, is basically a list of countries where bad things
happen: "Algeria, Iraq, Yemen, Myanmar, North Korea, and Afghanistan". But the
causality probably goes the other way; leaded petrol is cheaper.

------
kolpa
(2016)

~~~
dang
The article is from 2013:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20130112132922/http://www.mother...](https://web.archive.org/web/20130112132922/http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-
crime-link-gasoline). Not sure why they're playing games with its date like
that.

------
nickpeterson
Well, seems lead in drinking water goes hand and hand with empires falling.

~~~
merpnderp
Since evidence of lead water piping goes back at least to 200BCE, it looks
more like lead water goes hand and hand with empires growing.

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4843640/Roman...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4843640/Romans-
using-poisonous-lead-pipes-200-years-earlier.html)

~~~
megaman22
It's pretty nuts some of the toxic chemicals the Romans used. I seem to recall
arsenic as a major component of beauty products, and lead compounds as
artificial sweeteners.

~~~
Gibbon1
They used to use arsenic in wallpaper. If it got damp enough some types of
mold would convert inorganic arsenic into volatile organic arsenic compounds
and poison people.

Just remembered an ex gf worked in a museum. She said they used to dust
taxidermist specimens with arsenic powder to prevent pests and decay. So a lot
of display items are problematic. Toxic, irreplaceable, and you can't just
throw them out either.

~~~
jonhendry18
There's a 19th century book of poisonous wallpapers. Not many copies exist and
they have to be stored carefully.

~~~
Gibbon1
I saw a picture of some old Victorian era wallpaper. All the colors had
completely faded except the black ink and the rich purple arsenic pigmented
flowers.

------
axaxs
I feel this is just a case of correlation != causation. I remember once
someone, perhaps here, posted something that would randomly link things
together based on loose trends, oftentime to ridiculous results. There are a
-lot- of societal changes in those years. If lead were the sole culprit, crime
would have dropped off a cliff.

~~~
refurb
Agreed. Not sure why this is the favorite pet theory on HN. It’s interesting,
but very little data to actually support the connection.

~~~
DFHippie
It's popular largely because of the convincing data. Read the article, or any
of the many other articles by Kevin Drum on the subject.

~~~
refurb
It's largely popular because because people gravitate towards simply
explanations. It makes them feel good.

Is there directional data to suggest a connection? Sure. But there have been
plenty of theories like this that have turned out to be complete bunk.

