If you follow the news, chances are you’ve come across the story about how the lead that was added to the gasoline that powered our automobiles in the 20th Century has now been implicated and identified as being responsible for more than 150 million diagnosed cases of mental illness in the U.S.
According to researchers at Duke and Florida State (universities), exposure to exhaust from cars that ran on leaded gas made generations of Americans more depressed, anxious, inattentive and hyperactive than they would have been had lead never been added to the gas. (I’m guessing the same could be said of many other technological “advancements,” including cell phones, microwave ovens, food additives, pesticides, digital technology and social media, to name but a few.)
Not only did exposure to the car exhaust prove to have an emotional impact on us, but an intellectual one too; scientists estimate that leaded gasoline reduced Americans IQs by 824 million points over the past century (which, for me, brings to mind the Michael On Fire song, “Intelligence Ain’t What It Used to Be”).
Thing is, it’s not like this is an entirely new revelation; people have known about the toxic effects of lead for centuries. Ancient Greeks reported on diseases that resulted from lead poisoning. The Romans knew that it could lead to madness and even death. Physicians in the Middle Ages blamed lead for the outbreak of gout and colic. In 17th Century Germany, a decree was issued to prohibit lead-based additives to food and wine, and one of the first public health laws in Colonial America was to ban the use of lead coils in the production of alcoholic beverages.
Certainly, in the early 1920s, when engineers working for General Motors first added it to gasoline to stop the “knocking” and improve the performance of their high-powered engines, it was known that burning lead could have dire consequences, but it wasn’t until 1969 that the first clinical studies came out showing lead to be a neurotoxin that can destroy brain cells and alter brain function once it enters the body. From there, steps were taken, almost immediately, to start reducing the amount of lead in gas.
In 1986, Japan became the first country to ban lead from gasoline. Another 10 years passed before the U.S. finally “got the lead out,” and by 2017, every nation on Earth had banned leaded gas.
Exposure to lead is dangerous — at any age, but it is especially harmful to children.
A 2015 study published in the Journal of Childhood Psychology and Psychiatry revealed that more than half the U.S. population (at that time) showed “clinically concerning” levels of lead in their blood, when they were children. There is ample evidence to suggest that exposure in childhood may put a person at greater risk for other long-term health issues, such as heart disease and diabetes.
Which makes me wonder, if breathing exhaust from 20th Century cars posed that much of a health problem for generations of Americans, then what about those poor souls in Flint, Chicago, Cleveland and Atlanta — who’ve gone years bathing in, cooking with, and drinking tainted water that flowed through deteriorating pipes made of lead? What about their well-being, their IQs, and their long-term health?
And what about all the airplanes and race cars and farm equipment and boat engines that still use leaded gas, and that account for the remaining lead emissions?
Are there not alternatives?
There were, in 1923, when leaded gas first hit the market, the most compelling of which was ethanol, but GM and DuPont and Standard Oil opposed it because they couldn’t patent it, and therefore couldn’t control or fully profit from it. And I’m guessing there are today too. It comes down to our priorities and whether we value health as much as wealth.
*P.S. In September, California became the first state to pass a ban on the sale of leaded aviation fuel, and a month later, the EPA set a 10-year deadline for cities across the country to replace their lead pipes and provide safe drinking water.