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What Makes Lead So Poisonous? · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: This episode is brought to you by squares Space. Start
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Speaker 1: percent off Squarespace. Set your website apart. Welcome to you
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Speaker 1: Stuff you should know from house Stuffworks dot com. Hey,
0:24
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W.
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Speaker 1: Chub Bryant and Jerry's to my right. So this stuff
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Speaker 1: you should have. It's right recording in a new pop
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Speaker 1: up restaurant called Jerry's Burrito Check. Yeah, Jerry's eating a
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Speaker 1: burrito right now, A frozen one. I guess right. You
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Speaker 1: didn't make that from scratch fresh Jerry frozen burrito is
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Speaker 1: fine with me, though, yes, some of them. Nothing wrong
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Speaker 1: with any frozen burrito ever created. Yeah, I mean there's this.
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Speaker 1: They're very specific, you know. I mean, it's not like
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Speaker 1: a fresh burrito, but it's its own thing that's still good.
0:58
Speaker 1: This you call it like a re tet or something
1:01
Speaker 1: weird like that. It's something that differentiate it, you know.
1:03
Speaker 1: I agree with you, man. Yeah, but man, sometimes when
1:06
Speaker 1: that reef read bean pops out and burns your mouth,
1:10
Speaker 1: that's just the best you have a hole in your
1:12
Speaker 1: in your on your gums for a couple of days. Yeah,
1:14
Speaker 1: alfa a little cheese on top too, to cool it
1:17
Speaker 1: in the oven. No, to melt on top o. That's
1:19
Speaker 1: an antilada then, Uh not really, I think the antilada
1:25
Speaker 1: makes the it's the sauce, right, Yeah, okay, that's what
1:29
Speaker 1: I'll say, swimming and saucel, right, antilata sauce. This may
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Speaker 1: be your best intro yet, Chuck. We're talking about lead today,
1:40
Speaker 1: that's right. Do you know much about UM the Flint,
1:44
Speaker 1: Michigan lead poisoning scandal that happened, would say blemish. Yeah.
1:50
Speaker 1: I posted about it on our Facebook call UH a
1:53
Speaker 1: couple of months ago and sort of was a part
1:55
Speaker 1: of a lively discussion there. But UM only from that
1:58
Speaker 1: and in this research same here. I mean I was
2:01
Speaker 1: aware of it, kind of. I didn't understand the details.
2:04
Speaker 1: But for those of you who don't UM, who don't
2:06
Speaker 1: know about the Flint, Michigan water poisoning. But Flint, Michigan
2:10
Speaker 1: UM has faced a lot of problems since the auto
2:12
Speaker 1: industry went away, UM, but one of them wasn't poor
2:16
Speaker 1: water quality. They actually the people of Flint actually paid
2:20
Speaker 1: I think the highest radar, among the highest rates in
2:22
Speaker 1: the country. To get their water, their water was pumped
2:26
Speaker 1: from Lake Huron through Detroit, and Flint brought their water
2:29
Speaker 1: from Detroit. Get that good, clean Detroit water, right, You
2:33
Speaker 1: know you're in a pickle when you're buying water from
2:34
Speaker 1: Detroit and that's the healthy water. So um, they're building
2:38
Speaker 1: a new pipeline from Lake Huron that goes around Detroit,
2:42
Speaker 1: and Flint said, we're going to get in on that action.
2:44
Speaker 1: And Detroit said, oh yeah, well, we're canceling our contract
2:47
Speaker 1: rather than pay for a short term contract with Detroit.
2:51
Speaker 1: The emergency manager, the basically the the emergency mayor appointed
2:56
Speaker 1: by the governor himself, UM said, we're just and tap
3:00
Speaker 1: into the Flint River. Not not a good idea, as
3:03
Speaker 1: it turned out. No, it's not because in Flat Michigan,
3:05
Speaker 1: there were, among other places, something called Buick City. Buick
3:08
Speaker 1: City was a four plus acre um car manufacturing plant
3:14
Speaker 1: that made buicks, and um it really heavily polluted the river,
3:19
Speaker 1: so much so that people in Flint, after just a
3:23
Speaker 1: few months of drinking this water from the tap, started
3:26
Speaker 1: losing their hair. Um. Well, right away they said this
3:30
Speaker 1: looks and taste awful, right, it's taste of chlorine. And
3:33
Speaker 1: the reason it tasted of chlorine is because there were
3:34
Speaker 1: e coal I break outbreaks that they had to like
3:37
Speaker 1: treat the water with chlorine. And then it also to
3:41
Speaker 1: some people, um, it smelled like sulfury as well. It
3:45
Speaker 1: looked terrible. But people started losing hair, started getting rashes. Um.
3:50
Speaker 1: There's there was one kid who had an autoimmune disease already.
3:53
Speaker 1: He just stopped growing. Um, and it was it was
3:57
Speaker 1: bad news. But the people of Flint, the Flint government,
3:59
Speaker 1: and the the Michigan Environmental Protection Division basically said no,
4:04
Speaker 1: we're following all the laws. Um, everything's fine with the water.
4:10
Speaker 1: Just go back to sleep. Flint and Flint did something different.
4:13
Speaker 1: A bunch of them taught themselves the science of like
4:16
Speaker 1: water and sanitation and um, the drinking water laws. They
4:21
Speaker 1: became basically citizen scientists, and they took it back to
4:24
Speaker 1: the Flint government and the state government and said, you
4:26
Speaker 1: guys are wrong. This is toxic water and we're being
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Speaker 1: poison and you have to do something about it. And
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Speaker 1: they finally did well. And I think the issue was
4:34
Speaker 1: don't play dumb. We know you know why, why are
4:38
Speaker 1: you making us tell you exactly, and they kept the
4:41
Speaker 1: apparently the company line was no that here's the science,
4:44
Speaker 1: here the here the results of the tests. But the
4:46
Speaker 1: tests were terrible. And if you want to know all
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Speaker 1: about it, there's a really really great um article on
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Speaker 1: five dot com called what went Wrong in Flint and
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Speaker 1: um it just really chronicles everything very well. But the
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Speaker 1: big problem with Flint isn't that there was chlorine in
5:02
Speaker 1: the water. It was that there was a bunch of
5:05
Speaker 1: lead in the water. And the reason why there's a
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Speaker 1: bunch of lead in the waters because there's lead pipes
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Speaker 1: going to a lot of houses in Flint and the
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Speaker 1: water that was being pumped through those pipes was so
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Speaker 1: corrosive that it was bringing a bunch of lead with
5:17
Speaker 1: it and poisoning the city of Flints for months. Yeah.
5:20
Speaker 1: And the reason people use lead in pipes is because
5:23
Speaker 1: it's not corrossive. Corrosive, that's how corrosive the water. Yeah, exactly.
5:27
Speaker 1: That really says something. It really does. Uh. And I
5:30
Speaker 1: guess we'll look back later and talk about the lawsuits
5:32
Speaker 1: and all that stuff. That sound good. Yeah, I think
5:35
Speaker 1: that's a great idea, kind of bookend it. But let's
5:37
Speaker 1: talk about lead itself, like what's the problem with lead?
5:40
Speaker 1: Where did it come from? And that that whole idea
5:42
Speaker 1: of um using lead pipes is nothing new either. It's
5:46
Speaker 1: actually pretty old, to tell you the truth. Yeah, lead um. Well,
5:50
Speaker 1: the Romans, of course were the the first to do
5:53
Speaker 1: almost everything, either Asians or Romans. Um. Well, I don't
5:58
Speaker 1: know Africa. Oh that's true. So basically everybody excepts he said,
6:04
Speaker 1: Europe as the migration expanded exactly. And don't forget all
6:08
Speaker 1: of the innovations going on in Mesoamerica as well. Shout
6:12
Speaker 1: out to anyone who came before us. But it's been
6:17
Speaker 1: going on since ancient times. Romans using lead as lead
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Speaker 1: piping for sewage draining and carrying water, even stored water
6:24
Speaker 1: and containers lined with lead. Uh. And in fact, this
6:27
Speaker 1: is pretty interesting. I think the English word for plumbing
6:30
Speaker 1: and the chemical symbol pb that is lead, comes from
6:33
Speaker 1: the Latin word plum bumb. Now a plumb bumb is
6:37
Speaker 1: is that plumbers crack? Oh? Nice? If it wasn't it
6:41
Speaker 1: is officially now. You know. My friend Eddie he his
6:44
Speaker 1: young daughter, asked him what plumber's crack? What's the other day?
6:47
Speaker 1: And he said, said what did you tell her? And
6:49
Speaker 1: he said, well, you know, I told her what it was.
6:51
Speaker 1: He said, sometimes plumbers they've bent over a lot because
6:54
Speaker 1: pipes are below you, and sometimes their pants sag a little.
6:58
Speaker 1: Then you see their butt crack. And she went, oh,
7:01
Speaker 1: the only thing I take issue with is the use
7:03
Speaker 1: of the words sometimes right all the times. Other than
7:07
Speaker 1: that's a great explanation. So the Latin plum bumb, which
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Speaker 1: means lead. Yeah, which that that has been mysterious to
7:15
Speaker 1: me for many decades. P B doesn't make any sense,
7:18
Speaker 1: Like why would they call it p B because peanut
7:20
Speaker 1: but head right, and p B is uh. You'll find
7:23
Speaker 1: it on the periodic table. And the reason you'll find
7:25
Speaker 1: it on the periodic table is because lead is an element,
7:27
Speaker 1: a heavy metal um, and it has all sorts of
7:30
Speaker 1: properties that make it very desirable, Yeah, really unique to
7:34
Speaker 1: although super super toxic, as we'll find. Yeah, it's not
7:38
Speaker 1: often you can find something that is super malleable and
7:42
Speaker 1: soft but also strong in dense exactly um, which makes
7:47
Speaker 1: lead perfect for water pipes because it's also it also
7:52
Speaker 1: resists corrosion, like you said, so you can run water
7:55
Speaker 1: through it and as long as the water is not
7:56
Speaker 1: super bad. Uh. The the lead won't rust. It will
8:01
Speaker 1: leach lead into the water, but it still won't rust,
8:04
Speaker 1: right right. So um it's also uh, not very good
8:08
Speaker 1: at conducting electricity, which makes lead very useful for other
8:12
Speaker 1: things like um soldering electrical connections. The electrical connection will
8:17
Speaker 1: remain the thing that transmits the current, the lead won't.
8:21
Speaker 1: It's pretty awesome. Did you say soldier solder? Solder? Yeah,
8:26
Speaker 1: I never heard of pronounce How do you say, solder solder?
8:30
Speaker 1: You gotta say that l. I think the silent unless
8:33
Speaker 1: it's regional, regional, regional. To my brain, I think solder.
8:38
Speaker 1: You said that because you're from Toedo, right. So the
8:42
Speaker 1: use of the use of leg goes back even before
8:46
Speaker 1: the Romans. Actually, but it first appeared mostly in art
8:49
Speaker 1: like lead paint. Yeah, it wasn't like um they described
8:54
Speaker 1: in the articles and novelty. Uh. And it was apparently
8:57
Speaker 1: it makes colors more vibrant and it's less erosive, which
9:00
Speaker 1: is why you still, even in the United States, see
9:03
Speaker 1: lead paint on street signs because it's less corrosive. Yeah,
9:09
Speaker 1: that's what they say. It's still used on signs supposedly
9:13
Speaker 1: up until as recently as the nineties, and it may
9:16
Speaker 1: still be going on depending on the country that it's produced.
9:18
Speaker 1: In The ink on the outside of a plastic bread
9:23
Speaker 1: bag frequently has lead in it, or it used to,
9:27
Speaker 1: and it wasn't a problem unless the somebody kept the
9:31
Speaker 1: bread bag and turned it inside out to store food in.
9:34
Speaker 1: Then that food leached the lead out of the ink.
9:37
Speaker 1: It was actually like a big problem for a while. Well,
9:40
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that it is anymore. I couldn't find
9:42
Speaker 1: anything in recent the most recent thing I saw saying that, yeah,
9:46
Speaker 1: it still happens, right, Well, it's less expensive as a paint,
9:49
Speaker 1: which is another reason, uh in the in the colors
9:52
Speaker 1: and more vivid apparently. But um, this hasn't been a
9:55
Speaker 1: problem in the US for a while, but in China
9:58
Speaker 1: they still use a lot of lead head um in paint.
10:02
Speaker 1: And in two thousand seven there were massive recalls for
10:05
Speaker 1: everything from Dora the Explorer toys to Sesame Street toys
10:09
Speaker 1: due to the fact that they had lead pain on them.
10:12
Speaker 1: And little kids put everything in their mouths, including their toys,
10:16
Speaker 1: because they're big dummies, and they end up eating lead,
10:20
Speaker 1: which is a big problem. So there was a massive
10:22
Speaker 1: recall of Chinese products in because of this. Now it
10:27
Speaker 1: was two thousand seven. What I say seven, Yeah, you're
10:31
Speaker 1: harkening back and to the Urban Dance Squad day. Did
10:34
Speaker 1: you look them up? Man, you're missing out. I don't
10:38
Speaker 1: think that's true. Really, Yeah, why just because I like
10:42
Speaker 1: them remember them vaguely? Oh yeah, it wasn't like I've
10:46
Speaker 1: never heard of the Urban Dance Squad. No, you have
10:49
Speaker 1: a good taste of music. Mental philosph for the Globe, great,
10:52
Speaker 1: like a legitimately great album that I'll look it up.
10:55
Speaker 1: I'll look it up. It's just weird that you say
10:58
Speaker 1: you think you're not missing out. It's for no know,
11:00
Speaker 1: because I mean, again, I remember Urban Nant Squad for
11:02
Speaker 1: some reason. I put them in line with like Spin
11:05
Speaker 1: Doctors in three eleven. No, no, well, you know what
11:08
Speaker 1: I mean. Three eleven could be slightly compared because they
11:10
Speaker 1: were kind of a rock rap group, but they were Dutch.
11:14
Speaker 1: Urban Dance Squad was okay, so that that makes them
11:17
Speaker 1: cool in here right automatically? Yeah. Uh, but if you
11:23
Speaker 1: just picked this up as like, what are they talking
11:25
Speaker 1: about Enchilada's Urban Dance Squad, um so lead paint in
11:30
Speaker 1: the United States is uh, well, it's still an issue.
11:34
Speaker 1: In some ways because older houses still have it. But
11:36
Speaker 1: as of UM nineteen seventy eight they said no more,
11:40
Speaker 1: get the light out. That's right, and they define it
11:43
Speaker 1: as any paint or surface coating that contains lead equal
11:48
Speaker 1: or exceeding one milligram for a square centimeter. Yeah. So
11:51
Speaker 1: basically um In said, if you're going to manufacture something
11:56
Speaker 1: for somebody's home that people are generally going to come
11:59
Speaker 1: in contact with, most people don't come in contact with
12:01
Speaker 1: street signs, UM, right, then you can't have lead in it.
12:06
Speaker 1: But again, any house built pre there's plenty of them
12:09
Speaker 1: out there, very likely has lead paint in it. It
12:14
Speaker 1: also probably has lead pipes. Um. And there's a lot
12:17
Speaker 1: of lead around us all over the place in places
12:20
Speaker 1: you wouldn't even think, like there's lead. And uh, leaded
12:23
Speaker 1: glass like really like a glass you like you might
12:28
Speaker 1: be using you conceivably could be drinking lead out of it. Oh,
12:33
Speaker 1: but you don't drink out of leaded glass. Sure. Yeah,
12:36
Speaker 1: they use it to make regular plain old dumb glass
12:40
Speaker 1: into more like crystal. It gives it like a ping
12:43
Speaker 1: when you when you tap it. It makes it, uh,
12:45
Speaker 1: the the reflection a lot sharper. It also UM lowers
12:50
Speaker 1: the melting point. So you know, if you put it
12:52
Speaker 1: in the oven, it doesn't like, but it's conceivably bad
12:57
Speaker 1: for you. You know, who was on it long but
13:00
Speaker 1: for the United States government. Federal government was the city
13:03
Speaker 1: of Baltimore. In one they banned lead pigment for interior paint,
13:09
Speaker 1: very smart for their housing. And since the fifties had
13:13
Speaker 1: kind of been phased out in different parts of the country.
13:16
Speaker 1: And then ine, we finally got the Federal Lead Poisoning
13:19
Speaker 1: Prevention Act, and then it took seven years after that
13:24
Speaker 1: to fully ban the paint the paint lead paint. Right.
13:28
Speaker 1: There's another big source of lead that was all over
13:32
Speaker 1: the place in the twentieth century. Uh, and that was
13:35
Speaker 1: in gasoline in cars. There was an additive in gasoline
13:40
Speaker 1: that was added to gaso link called tetra ethyl lead, right, yeah,
13:43
Speaker 1: you remember that, like, uh, you know, fill it up
13:45
Speaker 1: with unleaded or or or fully leaded. And the reason
13:50
Speaker 1: that they added lead to gas was because there was
13:53
Speaker 1: a problem called knocking right where um, the in a
13:57
Speaker 1: high performance engine, when the gas entered the ignition chamber,
14:03
Speaker 1: the combustion chamber, it it may just get so amped
14:07
Speaker 1: up that it would combust it would ignite before it
14:10
Speaker 1: was supposed to, and this would basically disrupt the movement
14:15
Speaker 1: of the pistons. Right, they knocked the pain that did
14:18
Speaker 1: all sorts of bad stuff. The lead kept the gas
14:22
Speaker 1: from combusting or igniting before it was meant to, so
14:26
Speaker 1: it was a pretty great additive. The thing is, we
14:28
Speaker 1: already knew that lead was not good for you at
14:32
Speaker 1: the time, but we added it to gas anyway, and
14:35
Speaker 1: it was finally phased out in the seventies. Starting in
14:38
Speaker 1: the seventies, I should say, um, because we started adding
14:42
Speaker 1: catalytic converters to our cars. Yeah, that helped that, and um,
14:46
Speaker 1: just are are the process of the chemical process of
14:50
Speaker 1: refining petroleum just advanced, so we no longer needed it. Right,
14:54
Speaker 1: So it wasn't just crumby gas. It was pretty good gas.
14:57
Speaker 1: It didn't need lead. If you run leading gas through
15:00
Speaker 1: catalytic converter, it totally messes it up. And the catalytic
15:03
Speaker 1: converters there to prevent emission, so you take lead out
15:06
Speaker 1: of gas. The problem we found is that during these
15:10
Speaker 1: few decades from like the twenties till actually was the
15:14
Speaker 1: last year you could have lead in your gas in
15:17
Speaker 1: the United states, Um that during this period, basically all
15:23
Speaker 1: the cars on the road were spewing lead, lead vapors
15:26
Speaker 1: into the atmosphere that would just go into the air
15:29
Speaker 1: and then come back into the ground and settle in
15:31
Speaker 1: the soil and water and your face. Yeah, I had.
15:34
Speaker 1: I used lead of gas in my Um. I had
15:37
Speaker 1: to put it in. My early VW Beatles that I
15:40
Speaker 1: drove had a couple of old you know, vented well vintage.
15:43
Speaker 1: They bought theom new Oh yeah, yeah, my mom she
15:47
Speaker 1: bought a sixty eight Beetle brand New. Wow, that's when
15:49
Speaker 1: I drove. When I turned sixteen, I think it was
15:52
Speaker 1: still around. Huh yeah, yeah, you know those things they
15:55
Speaker 1: never die if you take care of them. Did you
15:57
Speaker 1: like ever use duct tape or anything like that on? No,
16:00
Speaker 1: but I did. Uh. Funny you mentioned I had a hole,
16:04
Speaker 1: sizable hole in the rear floorboard. Um that we my
16:09
Speaker 1: friends call it the Flintstones car because you could, like
16:11
Speaker 1: you put your feet down and run. So I did
16:14
Speaker 1: have a board, a running board. Um no, just a
16:18
Speaker 1: board over the whole. But I mean you can remove
16:20
Speaker 1: the board and run while you're sitting in the backseat.
16:23
Speaker 1: That's right. Great car. Yeah, lead has been added to
16:28
Speaker 1: cosmetics over the years. Uh, jewelry, jewelry, Uh, pottery, and
16:33
Speaker 1: then uh today because everyone knows let is so uh
16:38
Speaker 1: such a jerk. One of the only places you're gonna
16:40
Speaker 1: find it in the u S at least as in
16:42
Speaker 1: your car battery your car, Yeah, your car battery or
16:45
Speaker 1: your laptop actually, yeah, which is why it's really important
16:48
Speaker 1: to recycle that car battery, don't or that laptop. Don't
16:51
Speaker 1: throw it in the woods. Yeah, responsibly recycle your electronics
16:54
Speaker 1: and batteries. Yeah. If there's one thing that we've learned
16:56
Speaker 1: since the twentieth centuries that lead has some serious staying
17:00
Speaker 1: power and it has a very pesky tendency to get
17:03
Speaker 1: out of wherever we put it, right, And yeah, if
17:06
Speaker 1: you put it in just a regular landfill that's not
17:09
Speaker 1: designed to accept things like lead, um, it will just
17:12
Speaker 1: leach into the groundwater and um. Same thing with your
17:15
Speaker 1: e waste, your your laptops, and the reason that they're
17:18
Speaker 1: used in laptops, um is because the lead actually protects
17:24
Speaker 1: you from the radiation that would shoot out of your
17:27
Speaker 1: laptop screen into your face if it weren't for the
17:30
Speaker 1: toxic lead in there. That's right. Glass cathode ray tubes
17:34
Speaker 1: like you find in your computer laptop screen. Yeah. Well
17:37
Speaker 1: I don't know about your laptop, but your computer, yeah,
17:39
Speaker 1: your monitor. But there's but you should let in there.
17:42
Speaker 1: You should responsibly recycle your laptop too, for sure, for
17:45
Speaker 1: a number of reasons. I know you did a what
17:48
Speaker 1: was it called electronics recycling? Yeah? What was it? Like?
17:51
Speaker 1: Just a thought or I have no idea what you're
17:54
Speaker 1: talking about. You did a video series where you like, no, sure,
17:59
Speaker 1: deep thought. No, I can't even remember I created the series. Yeah,
18:03
Speaker 1: but you do one on e recycling. Yeah, but nobody
18:06
Speaker 1: cared or watch. So the world was not saved. Everyone said, Chuck,
18:10
Speaker 1: quit doing it. All right, Well, let's take a break.
18:14
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go cry tire for man. What was the
18:17
Speaker 1: name of that series? I don't know. We'll go get
18:19
Speaker 1: forties and pour them out on the curb Forum. All right,
18:22
Speaker 1: we'll be back in a second. All right, Josh, we've
18:40
Speaker 1: talked a lot about lead so far and enchiladas in
18:44
Speaker 1: Dutch rock rack rap rock bands. It comes from the earth, though,
18:49
Speaker 1: let's let's take it underground. Yeah it's not actually, I mean,
18:53
Speaker 1: it is naturally occurring, but it doesn't naturally occur in
18:55
Speaker 1: its pure form. Yeah, you don't just like dig down.
18:58
Speaker 1: You're like, hey, there's a big hunk of lead, let
19:00
Speaker 1: me pull it out. Instead, lead atoms have um I
19:04
Speaker 1: think four unpaired uh electrons maybe, and it's outer shell um.
19:11
Speaker 1: So it likes to form connections with other things. So
19:13
Speaker 1: when you find lead in the earth, you're gonna find
19:16
Speaker 1: it in the form of a ox side or a
19:19
Speaker 1: sulfide or something like that. Frequently it's combined with silver,
19:23
Speaker 1: and so that means it has to be separated. And
19:26
Speaker 1: even the Romans back in the day, which by the way,
19:28
Speaker 1: these Roman um lead pipes that they used for baths
19:32
Speaker 1: and for sanitation and stuff still intact today. You can
19:36
Speaker 1: still dig those up and beat people with them. You could.
19:39
Speaker 1: That's the other place you'll find a lead pipe is
19:42
Speaker 1: in the hand of some dude coming after you, or
19:44
Speaker 1: a game of clue. Oh yeah, that's right. That was bent.
19:47
Speaker 1: Even the guy was hit so hard with it, Colonel Mustard,
19:51
Speaker 1: he was not to be trusted, he was not. But yes,
19:54
Speaker 1: the Romans they had a pretty us man. They were
19:56
Speaker 1: so smart. They had a pretty ingenious process called coppellation. Uh.
20:02
Speaker 1: The extent of that is basically the idea is that
20:05
Speaker 1: some precious metals, I'm sorry, precious metals. All precious metals
20:09
Speaker 1: won't oxidize, but dumb metals will. So if you heat
20:13
Speaker 1: that junk up, it's going to separate, right. And then
20:16
Speaker 1: they used it mostly to separate from silver. But these
20:19
Speaker 1: days we get most of our lead from something called galena,
20:22
Speaker 1: where a lead sulfide is found, right. Yeah, And our
20:26
Speaker 1: process is sort of similar. It is very like using
20:28
Speaker 1: heat to separate things. And this this actually it very
20:31
Speaker 1: much resembles Do you remember our waste gasification episode. Yeah,
20:36
Speaker 1: I couldn't remember which one this it was that one,
20:39
Speaker 1: because the process is very similar. So you take some
20:42
Speaker 1: lead sulfide and you heat it up, uh in the air,
20:46
Speaker 1: so there's the presence of oxygen and it converts into um,
20:51
Speaker 1: lead oxide and sulfur dioxide, right, So you separate them
20:54
Speaker 1: out a little bit. Then you take that lead oxide
20:58
Speaker 1: and you egg carbon co and you again mix it
21:01
Speaker 1: with some air and as that happens, the air combines
21:05
Speaker 1: with the oxide into car you know, the carbon combines
21:09
Speaker 1: with the air and becomes carbon dioxide. Takes all of
21:12
Speaker 1: the um oxygen molecules from the lead atoms. So the lead,
21:16
Speaker 1: basically what amounts of pure lead, becomes molten and goes
21:20
Speaker 1: down to the bottom of the furnace and carbon dioxide
21:23
Speaker 1: goes out into the atmosphere. It sounds like a very
21:26
Speaker 1: safe process. Basically you're creating molten lead and carbon dioxide. Yeah,
21:31
Speaker 1: that's called roasting and smelting. And uh. Once that lead
21:35
Speaker 1: sinks cools down, it's gonna it's called a pig It's
21:38
Speaker 1: just a big mess of lead basically. Yeah, like pig iron. Yeah,
21:43
Speaker 1: it's it's delicious. Uh. And then you have slag, which
21:47
Speaker 1: is the non metallic byproduct of the smelting process, and
21:52
Speaker 1: you siphon and cool that down and it's waste waste product. Yes. Uh.
21:56
Speaker 1: And like I said, recycling your car battery is important
21:59
Speaker 1: because there's also a process called secondary extraction where they
22:02
Speaker 1: get that lead out of your battery. You can keep
22:05
Speaker 1: using it exactly. That's the other good thing about lead.
22:07
Speaker 1: It is extremely reusable because again, it has a lot
22:12
Speaker 1: of staying power, so you're not gonna use lead up,
22:15
Speaker 1: you know, which means you want to reuse it. Yes,
22:18
Speaker 1: we should get to the point where we don't need
22:20
Speaker 1: to mind any more lead or process anymore lead. Just
22:23
Speaker 1: reuse the lead we've got, or maybe find some great
22:27
Speaker 1: substitute that isn't so toxic. You know, you melt down
22:29
Speaker 1: those tiny civil war figurines. Oh yeah, those guys are
22:33
Speaker 1: lead Okay I thought they were. Yeah, So handling and
22:37
Speaker 1: painting those with lead paint, it's dangerous, right, yes, yes,
22:42
Speaker 1: yes it is. Is that where we're losing so many
22:44
Speaker 1: Civil war figurine buffs? I think so at an alarming rate.
22:47
Speaker 1: That's why they all have like spittle and drool around
22:51
Speaker 1: the corners of their mouths and like zone out while
22:53
Speaker 1: they're painting. Well, there's other reasons for that, but sure contributes.
22:58
Speaker 1: So uh okay, chuck um, you mentioned or we mentioned
23:03
Speaker 1: lead refining and processing, smelting, roasting, that kind of stuff, right, Um,
23:09
Speaker 1: that does create emissions of not just carbon dioxide but
23:13
Speaker 1: also um lead vapor, which is not good stuff, and
23:17
Speaker 1: you want to control that kind of stuff. But it
23:19
Speaker 1: is emitted and it uh it used to be. Well,
23:22
Speaker 1: these days, lead emissions um from refining and processing are
23:26
Speaker 1: actually the number one source of lead vapor emissions in
23:30
Speaker 1: the environment. Right, but um forty yeah, about forty years ago,
23:36
Speaker 1: forty five years ago that was not the case. The
23:38
Speaker 1: case was all those cars driving around on the streets
23:41
Speaker 1: emitting lead vapor. Yeah, used to account for about seventy
23:45
Speaker 1: if it came from your automobile. And uh, since the
23:48
Speaker 1: phasing out and reversal, we know coming from the processing
23:55
Speaker 1: and what is it down to, uh road sources, it's
24:00
Speaker 1: a fuel combustion. Yeah, not bad, No, not bad. Still again,
24:07
Speaker 1: you basically wanted like zero as we're finding, like the
24:10
Speaker 1: um as, we'll see that that lead exposure in any
24:14
Speaker 1: amount is not good and it gets it goes from
24:16
Speaker 1: not good to really bad very quickly apparently. Yeah. And
24:20
Speaker 1: you know, let us know good. We mentioned kids chewing
24:23
Speaker 1: on something with lead pain is not good. If you're
24:25
Speaker 1: redoing your house, uh and it's pre nineteen seventy eight,
24:29
Speaker 1: you want to get a piece tested. You can't just
24:32
Speaker 1: be like, let me sand off, no the paint on
24:35
Speaker 1: this molding now, because again, even if you think you've
24:38
Speaker 1: cleaned it up, there's still there's lead right there, buddy,
24:41
Speaker 1: um that you're not going to get rid of it. Apparently. Also,
24:44
Speaker 1: opening and closing your windows in a pre nineteen house
24:49
Speaker 1: can create lead dust if you're lucky enough to be
24:51
Speaker 1: able to open your windows. Sure, that's a that's a
24:54
Speaker 1: point minor sealed shut yeah, or nailed chatter, what have you. Yeah,
24:58
Speaker 1: just from years of painting basically with probably lead paint guaranteed. No,
25:02
Speaker 1: it's not. Actually we we had it tested, Oh did you? Yeah?
25:05
Speaker 1: I mean it wasn't lead paint, but you had it
25:09
Speaker 1: tested like all the way through, Like yeah, yeah, yeah,
25:12
Speaker 1: But what I'm saying is pre nineteen seventy eight, it's
25:14
Speaker 1: not the only paint that was used. I know you're
25:16
Speaker 1: saying that's why you get it tested, right, But did
25:19
Speaker 1: you get like all the layers underneath tested well for
25:22
Speaker 1: any Yeah? Okay, that was my all the layers sound
25:26
Speaker 1: effect like we hired a lead person. I got too. Good.
25:29
Speaker 1: Good good. That makes me feel better. Yeah. And if
25:31
Speaker 1: you want to if there is lead and you want
25:33
Speaker 1: to get the lead out, you're gonna have to hire
25:35
Speaker 1: someone that knows what they're doing and they'll come in
25:38
Speaker 1: with their has mat suits on to do so. Right. Um,
25:42
Speaker 1: So you can also get it from plumbing, although apparently,
25:46
Speaker 1: um with lead plumbing it's not quite as much of
25:49
Speaker 1: a thread as you would think. You know, didn't that
25:51
Speaker 1: make you just want to like never drink water again,
25:53
Speaker 1: knowing that you have lead pipes in your house, you
25:55
Speaker 1: shouldn't necessarily be worried because um, over the years, water
26:01
Speaker 1: sanitation experts have figured out that if you have good
26:05
Speaker 1: water that's non corrosive, it actually is not only non corrosive,
26:11
Speaker 1: the water will leave behind a protective coating that coats
26:15
Speaker 1: the inside of the pipes that it runs through. The lead, Yes,
26:21
Speaker 1: over whatever it is, but yeah, it's gonna leave a
26:23
Speaker 1: protective coat of other substances that aren't toxic that it's
26:26
Speaker 1: gonna form a barrier for later water and the pipes. UM.
26:31
Speaker 1: And uh so you you shouldn't necessarily be freaked out
26:35
Speaker 1: if you have lead pipes coming to your house. Although
26:38
Speaker 1: I mean you've got the money, that's there's definitely worse
26:42
Speaker 1: things you could spend your money on than replacing those pipes.
26:45
Speaker 1: You know copper, Well, copper can be a problem as well.
26:49
Speaker 1: There's actually a copper lead rule that UM that dictates
26:54
Speaker 1: how non corrosive cities water has to be to follow
26:58
Speaker 1: this rule, and it's detecting not just against led, but copper.
27:01
Speaker 1: You don't really want copper either, although it's not nearly
27:03
Speaker 1: as bad for you as lead interesting. So if you
27:06
Speaker 1: have lead in your system, I mean it goes, it
27:09
Speaker 1: goes into your bloodstream. Uh, it doesn't matter how it
27:12
Speaker 1: gets in there. If you inhale it, it'll be absorbed
27:15
Speaker 1: to the capillaries and the lungs into the blood or
27:18
Speaker 1: if you uh, if you if you touch it, if
27:22
Speaker 1: you lick it, it's gonna find this way into your blood. Uh,
27:25
Speaker 1: and you can. I mean, it's really easy to find
27:27
Speaker 1: out if you have lead in your blood. You just
27:28
Speaker 1: get a blood test. UM. I don't know why they
27:31
Speaker 1: would do this other test. I don't either, and not
27:33
Speaker 1: just a blood test unless it's like prohibitably expensive or
27:37
Speaker 1: something so that. Yeah, the other test is called the
27:40
Speaker 1: zinc proto porphyrin um test, and that's a byproduct of
27:46
Speaker 1: red blood cells as they break down in the presence
27:48
Speaker 1: of lead. So rather than directly testing, and it's you're
27:53
Speaker 1: like going around to see, excuse me, lead, I want
27:57
Speaker 1: to see if your shadow is detectable. I don't get
27:59
Speaker 1: it makes zero sense because you gotta take your blood
28:01
Speaker 1: for that too, write and it's not exaccurate. Yeah, it
28:05
Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense. But the lead blood test is
28:09
Speaker 1: so easy that UM companies like three M and plenty
28:12
Speaker 1: of others sell home lead blood tests. It's yeah, it
28:17
Speaker 1: is nice unless you're the parent who is freaked out
28:19
Speaker 1: giving one to your kid. Well, that's true. You know,
28:23
Speaker 1: anything over equal to or greater than um five micrograms
28:28
Speaker 1: per DESSI leader is bad if you're a kid. If
28:31
Speaker 1: you're an adult, you can tolerate a little bit more,
28:33
Speaker 1: but it's still distressing, right, And that's how it's expressed. So,
28:36
Speaker 1: um a microgram to a DESI leader, which is a
28:40
Speaker 1: tenth of a leader, right, Um, And so five is
28:43
Speaker 1: not good. Ten micrograms in a desk a leader is
28:47
Speaker 1: where demonstrable UM like behavioral and cognitive problems start to develop. Yeah,
28:54
Speaker 1: that's serious trouble. But the e p A has said,
28:57
Speaker 1: um that there's quote no demons traded safe concentration of
29:01
Speaker 1: lead in blood, like you shouldn't have any in The
29:05
Speaker 1: problem is nothing but toxic to humans. There is no benefit. Yeah,
29:09
Speaker 1: and um, we'll talk about it in just a second.
29:11
Speaker 1: But the problem with lead is that we're figuring out
29:15
Speaker 1: that we shouldn't be exposed to it at all, while
29:17
Speaker 1: we're also simultaneously figuring out that we have a washed
29:21
Speaker 1: our planet in it from the last like a couple
29:25
Speaker 1: of hundred years. Basically, you wanna take a break. Yeah,
29:29
Speaker 1: all right, we'll come back and we'll talk about all
29:31
Speaker 1: kinds of fun stuff, all right. So before I left,
29:50
Speaker 1: I t s that there is no function for lead
29:53
Speaker 1: in the body. It is nothing but toxic, uh in it.
29:58
Speaker 1: The way it behaves in your body in a negative
30:00
Speaker 1: way is really interesting. UM your body, and this happens
30:04
Speaker 1: a lot. I feel like we covered the body mistaking
30:07
Speaker 1: something for something else quite a bit. Is there there
30:10
Speaker 1: should be a word for that, uh, the case of
30:13
Speaker 1: mistaken identity. I guess that's it. But the body treats
30:17
Speaker 1: lead like calcium. UM. So it's gonna go where calcium
30:20
Speaker 1: goes in the body, including your bones, which is super scary. Yeah.
30:24
Speaker 1: Lead settles in very comfortably into calcium receptors, and it's
30:28
Speaker 1: not just bones, Like that's what I always think of
30:29
Speaker 1: when I think of calcium, Like what you need calcium
30:32
Speaker 1: because your bones will break or you get rickets if
30:34
Speaker 1: you don't have it or whatever. Um, But calcium comes
30:37
Speaker 1: in handy throughout your whole body. And one of the
30:40
Speaker 1: big places that shows up is in calcium ions in UM.
30:44
Speaker 1: Your neuronal activity. Right. So when your neurons fire, one
30:48
Speaker 1: of the ways that they fire, uh, is because the
30:50
Speaker 1: neurons or the calcium ions get them all excited and
30:53
Speaker 1: then poo, your your neurons is fired. If lead is
30:57
Speaker 1: in that calcium ion channel instead of calcium, that kaboo
31:01
Speaker 1: doesn't happen, and all of a sudden, your neurons aren't
31:04
Speaker 1: firing as much as they would if the lead wasn't present.
31:06
Speaker 1: And now we have a big problem. Yeah, and it's
31:09
Speaker 1: especially big problem with children because children's little brains are uh,
31:14
Speaker 1: you know, we talked about plasticity before. They're constantly forming
31:17
Speaker 1: these new neural connections and any kind of lead in
31:21
Speaker 1: the mistaken for calcium is going to disrupt those connections.
31:25
Speaker 1: And so your child is literally their brain isn't going
31:30
Speaker 1: to advance like it should, right exactly. Intellectually, Um, the
31:35
Speaker 1: apparently emotional centers like the amygdala can suffer UM that
31:39
Speaker 1: it's been found to produce hyperactivity, anti social behavior, UM,
31:45
Speaker 1: attention deficit disorder, all sorts of problems from the presence
31:49
Speaker 1: of lead, right. Um. And like you said, it's worse
31:53
Speaker 1: for kids because their brains are still developing and forming
31:56
Speaker 1: it's bad for anybody, but it's definitely worse for kids.
32:00
Speaker 1: And the other way that it affects kids is that
32:02
Speaker 1: so the regions of their brains aren't developing correctly. But
32:05
Speaker 1: then simultaneously, calcium is also important in the formation of myelin,
32:09
Speaker 1: which is that protective sheath around the synapses between neurons.
32:14
Speaker 1: So that's kind of like flimsy, which means that the
32:16
Speaker 1: neurons aren't firing efficiently. So not only do you have
32:20
Speaker 1: brain regions affected, but the communication between brain regions are
32:23
Speaker 1: affected too in little kids. And the upshot is is
32:26
Speaker 1: that it promotes all sorts of problems with cognitive and
32:30
Speaker 1: emotional and behavioral development and children. Yeah, and like literally
32:35
Speaker 1: lower i Q scores. And we should say that that's
32:38
Speaker 1: just like the most prominent horrifying effect of lead. There's
32:41
Speaker 1: a whole laundry list of other things that can happen to,
32:43
Speaker 1: like um kidney failure, pain in your bones and joints
32:47
Speaker 1: from all that lead settling into where the calcium is
32:50
Speaker 1: supposed to go. Yeah, how about decreased sex drive and
32:53
Speaker 1: sterility and infertility for both men and women. Uh, what else? Diarrhea,
32:58
Speaker 1: lack of appetite, constipation. I think diarrhea is the least
33:01
Speaker 1: of your worries. If you have a lad blood, high
33:03
Speaker 1: blood pressure, enlarged heart. Uh, it's it's It affects virtually
33:08
Speaker 1: every system in your body basically. And the reason why
33:10
Speaker 1: again is because it mimics or it takes the place
33:14
Speaker 1: of calcium, and calcium is incredibly vital. It's an extremely
33:18
Speaker 1: important mineral that you need found throughout your body. And
33:22
Speaker 1: if a leg goes in, it's like, um, I'm here instead. Yeah,
33:25
Speaker 1: it's not going to do the stuff that the calcium
33:27
Speaker 1: supposed to do, leading to all this cascade of horrific problems. Yeah.
33:31
Speaker 1: And one of the other scary things is that they
33:33
Speaker 1: unless you have acute lead poisoning, you may not know.
33:36
Speaker 1: In fact, you probably won't know that you're being slowly poisoned.
33:40
Speaker 1: And you might just think, oh, I have diarrhea and
33:43
Speaker 1: I don't feel like having sex much anymore, and you
33:45
Speaker 1: might be slowly getting lead poisoning, and you you just
33:49
Speaker 1: blame that on too many buffalo wings. But boom, it's
33:52
Speaker 1: lead poison takes care of both. Uh. You remember being
33:56
Speaker 1: a kid and like lead pencils, like it was a
33:58
Speaker 1: big scare, Like you know you lead poisoning if you
34:00
Speaker 1: got poked with a pencil. Yeah, I remember that, But
34:02
Speaker 1: then I also remember learning that there's actually graphite used
34:05
Speaker 1: in pencils. We should have a buy our age. You
34:08
Speaker 1: should have David Reeson. Oh yeah, how to sharpen a
34:11
Speaker 1: pencil and he can school you on some pencils. He
34:13
Speaker 1: wrote a whole book on it, literally wrote the book
34:15
Speaker 1: on pencil sharpening. Yeah. I still have let or I guess,
34:18
Speaker 1: graphite somewhere in my hand from when I was jabbed
34:23
Speaker 1: very deep with a pencil that broke off and it
34:26
Speaker 1: never left and there still just looks like a little
34:28
Speaker 1: black freckle. It's like you're in prison and got shanked.
34:31
Speaker 1: I know, I can't find where it is. No, that's
34:35
Speaker 1: a scratch. So we've talked about all the cognitive problems
34:41
Speaker 1: that can come about and behavioral and emotional disorders that
34:45
Speaker 1: can develop from lead. And this is like study after
34:48
Speaker 1: study after study has found this. It's one of the
34:50
Speaker 1: big reasons why there have been so many restrictions placed
34:52
Speaker 1: on lead exposure. Um And recently some people have some
34:59
Speaker 1: research chers, including a couple of well an economist I believe,
35:04
Speaker 1: and an epidemiologist have UM kind of taken that idea
35:08
Speaker 1: that lead can create all of these behavioral problems and
35:12
Speaker 1: any social behavioral problems UM and extrapolated to this idea
35:17
Speaker 1: that there is a big rise in the crime rate
35:21
Speaker 1: in the United States and actually around the world. That
35:24
Speaker 1: followed about twenty years UM the same trajectory of the
35:29
Speaker 1: use of lead and gasoline. Super interesting article, very controversial,
35:36
Speaker 1: like when it came well it still is, UM, but yeah,
35:40
Speaker 1: it's very interesting. Yeah, it's called lead America's Real Criminal Element.
35:44
Speaker 1: It was in Mother Jones. Was written by Kevin Drum,
35:46
Speaker 1: who was one of the all time greats working today.
35:49
Speaker 1: And UM, I think I've mentioned it before, but I
35:52
Speaker 1: strongly encourage anybody it doesn't even matter if lads the
35:56
Speaker 1: most boring thing in the world to you go read
35:58
Speaker 1: this article. You will be riveted by it. And Kevin
36:02
Speaker 1: Drum does a lot of He does a very good
36:05
Speaker 1: job of keeping his extrapolations down as low as possible,
36:10
Speaker 1: although anybody can see by the evidence that he lays
36:14
Speaker 1: out that this is it's pretty clear that lead is
36:17
Speaker 1: some sort of culprit in this UM and it's been
36:20
Speaker 1: shot down and that there's this idea that the science
36:24
Speaker 1: isn't settled. I suspect that it's the same mechanisms that
36:28
Speaker 1: force with climate denial. Like unsettled science doesn't prove anything.
36:35
Speaker 1: If you look at all the studies associated with this,
36:38
Speaker 1: the correlation between lead use in gasoline and therefore lad
36:41
Speaker 1: emissions in UM cars and criminal activity and its decline again,
36:47
Speaker 1: it just follows it like twenty years after. And the
36:50
Speaker 1: whole idea is that when we started emitting lead into
36:54
Speaker 1: the atmosphere, UM, kids started suffering these cognitive and in
36:59
Speaker 1: associal but avirs. And then about twenty years after these
37:02
Speaker 1: kids were born, they started actually carrying out criminal activity,
37:05
Speaker 1: and we saw a tremendous rise and everything from like
37:08
Speaker 1: murder to rape, to mugging's to everything. UM. And it's
37:12
Speaker 1: the articles too long to to really go into detail. Again,
37:15
Speaker 1: just strongly urge anybody to go read it. Yeah. The
37:19
Speaker 1: the um the backlash that I've seen on the article
37:22
Speaker 1: wasn't to me like it was all from scientists mainly. Yeah,
37:26
Speaker 1: I read a few of them. They weren't poopooing the notion.
37:29
Speaker 1: They said this what this means is it bears a
37:31
Speaker 1: lot more investigation. UM. But as much as you want
37:35
Speaker 1: if you can't replicate it. It's still possible confirmation bias
37:39
Speaker 1: or just sure correlation and not causation, like could be
37:43
Speaker 1: a host of other issues that went into that. It
37:44
Speaker 1: could be And and Kevin Joon makes the same point.
37:46
Speaker 1: He's like, there's also a rise in the use of
37:49
Speaker 1: vinyl albums that followed roughly the same trajectory as well.
37:53
Speaker 1: But um, you know, of course it needs more study
37:57
Speaker 1: for sure. Well this this one scientist said, what you
37:59
Speaker 1: really need to do is follow what he calls a
38:02
Speaker 1: cohort study, when you actually follow individuals along a long timeline. Um,
38:09
Speaker 1: it's just a tough study. It's it bears a lot
38:13
Speaker 1: of uh to prove something like this just takes a
38:18
Speaker 1: lot more data than they have, right, And I think
38:22
Speaker 1: the guy you're referencing is Scott Firestone, who is, um, yeah,
38:26
Speaker 1: that was a good who wrote on the Discover magazine
38:29
Speaker 1: blog and um, you know he gives kudos to Drum
38:32
Speaker 1: who definitely deserves it for basically saying every time he says,
38:37
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's it's so obvious you have to
38:41
Speaker 1: be just you know, have your head in the stand
38:43
Speaker 1: to deny this. He does say that, yes, speaking scientifically
38:48
Speaker 1: that does require more study. Super interesting though, because the
38:51
Speaker 1: crime and drum followed it all over the world. He
38:54
Speaker 1: didn't just go to the United States and he saw
38:56
Speaker 1: the same thing and Canada and Australia, in Great Britain.
38:59
Speaker 1: And the good news is if if that is the case,
39:02
Speaker 1: then we should see crime dropping. Yeah. But the problem
39:08
Speaker 1: is is that it also should get us to do
39:12
Speaker 1: basically mitigate the lead that isn't around, like in the
39:15
Speaker 1: soil and in the water and everywhere and people's houses. Um.
39:19
Speaker 1: And the dollar amounts that he estimates it would cost
39:24
Speaker 1: are pretty prohibitive at least as far as like the
39:27
Speaker 1: public will goes from right now. But who knows. I mean,
39:29
Speaker 1: if enough science is done on it, and you get
39:33
Speaker 1: the scientific community vocally speaking about this, then maybe the
39:36
Speaker 1: public will will change. Uh. If you do have lead poisoning,
39:40
Speaker 1: you can't get on meds. Uh. There's a prescription called
39:44
Speaker 1: sustamer as U S C I M E R. That
39:47
Speaker 1: was beautiful. Uh you see that or sucker over I
39:50
Speaker 1: like how you said, Um, it can reduce blood lead. Um.
39:54
Speaker 1: There of course always side effects with every medication. UM.
39:57
Speaker 1: And if you work, if you've like there's been a
40:00
Speaker 1: disaster and you get toxic lead in your body very quickly. UM,
40:06
Speaker 1: they can use something called kellation collation collection therapy. UH.
40:12
Speaker 1: And that's when they use a collating agent. I'm not
40:15
Speaker 1: even gonna try that. I'm gonna try it. Okay, Ethyl
40:20
Speaker 1: lenna diamina tetracetic acid. Hey, not bad if you like
40:28
Speaker 1: super quick. I missed the last A. That's just a
40:32
Speaker 1: few letters off from super califragilistic xbomy. It looks like
40:36
Speaker 1: the alphabet when it's on paper, but we'll call it
40:39
Speaker 1: E E T A. And that's when it's infused into
40:41
Speaker 1: the bloodstream and actually binds. It basically says lead you're
40:45
Speaker 1: coming with me through your kidney, out of your body, right. UM.
40:48
Speaker 1: But they use that when it's just an acute toxic dose. UM,
40:53
Speaker 1: that that a person has been exposed to. UM. If
40:56
Speaker 1: a kid's been found to be poisoned with lead, actually,
41:00
Speaker 1: from what I read, one of the best treatments that UM,
41:04
Speaker 1: they'll they'll carry out. They'll they'll be other stuff too,
41:06
Speaker 1: depending on how bad it is. But a really good
41:08
Speaker 1: nutritious diet. UM, getting the kid foods that are high
41:12
Speaker 1: and things like calcium and high in things like vitamin
41:15
Speaker 1: C that help the body absorb calcium so that they
41:18
Speaker 1: can go displace lead in the body. Because if you've
41:22
Speaker 1: got lead and you've got calcium fighting for the for
41:25
Speaker 1: the same place, if you can get the calcium in there,
41:27
Speaker 1: it's going to displace the lead and then hopefully leave
41:29
Speaker 1: the body. It's like, I'm going home. That's gotta be
41:32
Speaker 1: hard on the kidney. So I don't know. I yeah,
41:36
Speaker 1: I think if you have an acute lead poisoning or
41:38
Speaker 1: a serious lead poisoning, it's not good. But yeah, of
41:41
Speaker 1: course it'd be hard on the kidneys because one of
41:43
Speaker 1: the things is kidney failure in anemia. Uh it. Lead
41:48
Speaker 1: is um Lead is definitely invariably in the ground and
41:51
Speaker 1: the groundwater and then the soil um around us. And
41:55
Speaker 1: that's a problem because it's sort of works this way
41:58
Speaker 1: up the food chain and a weird way because what
42:01
Speaker 1: you have are these tiny organisms um it gets in
42:05
Speaker 1: their body, like plankton and microscopic plants, and they die
42:10
Speaker 1: and then other things eat that their waste, and then
42:14
Speaker 1: it just sort of like bigger animals come along and
42:17
Speaker 1: keep eating these things. Yeah, it's not just humans that
42:19
Speaker 1: suffer from lead toxicity. Other animals too, even the small ones.
42:25
Speaker 1: So should we talk about these Flint lawsuits a little? Yeah,
42:28
Speaker 1: and then antilotis and that hopefully toxic. I guess it
42:33
Speaker 1: depends on who manufactured. So I did some reading on
42:36
Speaker 1: the lawsuits. Right now, there's more than a dozen and
42:39
Speaker 1: probably growing. A few of them are class action suits
42:42
Speaker 1: on behalf of tens of thousands of Flint residents. And
42:46
Speaker 1: you know, attorneys always look their chops when they hear
42:48
Speaker 1: stuff like this. UM. But there's some concerns. One is
42:52
Speaker 1: that the state of Michigan is, like the city is broke,
42:56
Speaker 1: so don't even bother the state of Michigan. Maybe an
43:00
Speaker 1: out to go if you want to get a lot
43:01
Speaker 1: of money, but then they say that will just get
43:03
Speaker 1: packs pass along to the taxpayer. UM. And a lot
43:07
Speaker 1: of experts in the legal world say that compensation is
43:11
Speaker 1: unlikely to begin with as far as money goes, because
43:15
Speaker 1: of something a couple of things. One thing called sovereign immunity,
43:18
Speaker 1: which basically means the government can say, you know, giving
43:21
Speaker 1: water to the citizens is a core government function, so
43:24
Speaker 1: we're shielded legally from liability for doing that, uh improperly,
43:29
Speaker 1: So like you can't sue us we're trying to give
43:31
Speaker 1: you water. And the other thing is specific causation has
43:34
Speaker 1: to be proved. So not only do you have to
43:37
Speaker 1: prove that the lead came from that water and not
43:40
Speaker 1: like the lead pipes in your house or other like
43:43
Speaker 1: the lead paint in your walls maybe has to come
43:46
Speaker 1: specifically from that Flint River water. Uh, And you also
43:50
Speaker 1: have to prove that that directly lead to the problem
43:53
Speaker 1: that your kid is having, and not you know other things. Well,
43:56
Speaker 1: one of the things I read was that it's very
43:59
Speaker 1: possible that the lead came from the pipes in those
44:03
Speaker 1: people's houses, but that it's still on the provider of
44:06
Speaker 1: the water because they were supposed to be following corrosion
44:11
Speaker 1: protection techniques that they lied about following. They weren't following them,
44:15
Speaker 1: so it got rid of that protective coating that had
44:18
Speaker 1: been on the lead pipes before and was bringing all
44:21
Speaker 1: that lead into people's homes directly. So it may have
44:23
Speaker 1: been lead from the people's homes, but it was the
44:26
Speaker 1: corrosive nature of the terrible drinking water that was being
44:29
Speaker 1: pumped through those that caused that lead to be brought
44:31
Speaker 1: into the people's homes. And then again on top of it.
44:34
Speaker 1: The government was lying about using the techniques that they
44:38
Speaker 1: were supposed to be using to prevent that from happening.
44:41
Speaker 1: So that now that they've switched back over to Detroit water,
44:45
Speaker 1: it's going to take a while for that protective film
44:47
Speaker 1: to develop on the pipes again. So even now that
44:50
Speaker 1: the different waters coming through, it's still lousy with lead.
44:53
Speaker 1: And the sad thing is that some people in Flint
44:55
Speaker 1: are too um poor to do anything about it, and
44:59
Speaker 1: they's still need water, so they're still drinking leaded water
45:02
Speaker 1: even though they know that it's going to hurt them
45:04
Speaker 1: down the line. Well, and it's sad that it sounds
45:07
Speaker 1: like getting real compensation is maybe unlikely. Yeah, because a
45:12
Speaker 1: lot of these people who have kids, like if their
45:15
Speaker 1: kids suffer severe cognitive development problems, they're gonna need help
45:21
Speaker 1: like the rest of their lives. Yeah. This one guy, uh,
45:25
Speaker 1: he's a law professor specializing in environmental law named Noah Hall.
45:29
Speaker 1: He says, what the probably the smart thing to do
45:31
Speaker 1: if you really want to help these people is set
45:33
Speaker 1: up do what they did with the Deepwater Horizon spill
45:36
Speaker 1: and set up a victim's compensation fund um instead of
45:40
Speaker 1: doing it via lawsuit like legislator legislated, Um, maybe that
45:47
Speaker 1: would help. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know that.
45:49
Speaker 1: He basically said what the states shouldn't do his fight this,
45:52
Speaker 1: He's like, that would be big trouble. Uh. He said
45:55
Speaker 1: they should set up some sort of fund so then
45:57
Speaker 1: they look like the good guys still. But then I
45:59
Speaker 1: think you don't get all the dirty details dragged out
46:01
Speaker 1: in public like you would with a lass. Well, apparently
46:03
Speaker 1: they're already coming out anyway, like tropes of emails have
46:06
Speaker 1: been released. Um. The the governor set up a task
46:10
Speaker 1: force to find out who is to blame. And they
46:12
Speaker 1: turned around and they were like you um, and he said,
46:16
Speaker 1: fired the task for right exactly, You're all fired. Um. Yeah,
46:20
Speaker 1: I don't know what's gonna happen, but it's it's very
46:22
Speaker 1: scary public health scare Flint, Uh, I know, talk about
46:25
Speaker 1: a city it's been roughed up over the years. I know. Well,
46:29
Speaker 1: we're there with you, Flint, hanging there. If you want
46:32
Speaker 1: to learn more about lead or Flint or criminal activity,
46:37
Speaker 1: you can check out all these different articles on the
46:40
Speaker 1: Internet and you can type lead into the search bar
46:43
Speaker 1: house to works dot com and it'll bring up a
46:44
Speaker 1: pretty great article. Since I said pretty great articles, time
46:47
Speaker 1: for a listener, I'm gonna call this Finland rules. Remember
46:54
Speaker 1: we did the Dark Money podcast and I was like,
46:56
Speaker 1: what's a good place. It's not corrupt. I remember we
46:59
Speaker 1: heard from a lot of people. Um in Scandinavia. Hi,
47:03
Speaker 1: I'm an American living in Helsinki for the last few
47:05
Speaker 1: years with my finished husband. Um, Chuck, you were right
47:07
Speaker 1: on the money when he said there's very little political
47:09
Speaker 1: corruption here. Of course there are some, but because there
47:13
Speaker 1: are humans after all, But the level compared to the
47:15
Speaker 1: States is laughable. When I asked my husband about it,
47:17
Speaker 1: he thought for a second and asked about corruption scandals.
47:20
Speaker 1: He said, a few years back, Uh, there was something
47:22
Speaker 1: about a prime minister who accepted lumber from a company
47:25
Speaker 1: to build his house. That was it. It seems comical
47:29
Speaker 1: to me considering the States in an election year. Also,
47:31
Speaker 1: the campaign season is much shorter here, and it's done
47:33
Speaker 1: a little different. Party runs there at least five major parties.
47:37
Speaker 1: That's crazy in and of itself, like crazy, good party
47:41
Speaker 1: runs and whichever gets a majority elects from its ranks
47:44
Speaker 1: the prime minister and makes a cabinet out of a
47:46
Speaker 1: coalition of the other parties which received high numbers of votes.
47:50
Speaker 1: How about that, Like you came in second, you're on
47:54
Speaker 1: board too, Come on and here's your participant. Ribbon campaigns
47:59
Speaker 1: are paid for by disclosed donations and public funds. Uh.
48:03
Speaker 1: You also made a comment about the high taxes here.
48:05
Speaker 1: Many people, usually Americans, say that with this taste, that
48:09
Speaker 1: the taxes are so high here. But I've come to
48:11
Speaker 1: think very highly of it. I've discovered that I don't
48:13
Speaker 1: really need another pair of jeans or a new jacket,
48:16
Speaker 1: but I need there's an educated society around me, in
48:19
Speaker 1: access to quality healthcare, and a truly equal society where
48:22
Speaker 1: everyone is safe and has her basic needs met. Uh.
48:26
Speaker 1: That it's from Gabrielle. Wow, a lot of people hate
48:30
Speaker 1: your guts for saying that. Gabrielle, that was so brave
48:33
Speaker 1: of you. Thanks Gabrielle for writing in. Um, I don't
48:38
Speaker 1: know how they say audios in Finland. No, she's American.
48:42
Speaker 1: Well goodbye, Okay, thank you for writing in. If you
48:46
Speaker 1: want to get in touch with us, you can tweak
48:48
Speaker 1: to us at s Y s K podcast. You can
48:50
Speaker 1: join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff you should
48:52
Speaker 1: know if you can send us an email to stuff
48:54
Speaker 1: podcast that how stuff Works dot Com and has always
48:57
Speaker 1: join us on the web. It's stuff You You Know
49:00
Speaker 1: dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
49:08
Speaker 1: visit how stuff Works dot com. M