I had to wait a week to post as the Dkos bot filter tried to determine if I was, indeed, made of flesh and blood. Thanks to a kindly Dkos elf, I'm finally recognized as "suitably human", so here I am.
My first topic for discussion is elemental LEAD! For those who might have missed it, the Kargo podcast that provided the impetus for my comment can be found here:
KITM 24 October 2014
You'll want to go to the second hour (around the 1 hour 14 min mark) for a well done story about the consequences of lead exposure. This deserves your full attention and I'll explain why after the fold.
Let's talk about LEAD.
Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that LEAD is dangerous to human health. Ingesting it can make you terribly ill, and if it is ingested in large enough quantity, it can kill you! That should make it clear enough that we should stay away from ingesting the stuff, BUT, it appears that we need a bit more than "may cause death" to persuade us that this element is "not fit for human consumption".
We (humans) have a long and storied history with Pb (82 on the periodic table) due to its low melting point, ductility and malleability, and high density. These characteristics were highly desired in ancient times when civilization was still learning how to work metals and hadn't yet developed furnaces capable of producing the kind of heat necessary to melt other ores. As a result, ancient civilizations used lead to cast pipes that carried water to distant reaches (plumbing) and as a primary component for glazing pottery.
Wait! PLUMBING!?
Yes indeed! Plumbing. It gets better! Homes built as recently as 1986 were still using lead pipes in abundance and it wasn't until 2011 that Congress (finally) enacted a law to preclude its use.
Congress enacted the Reduction of Lead in Drinking Water Act on January 4, 2011, to amend Section 1417 of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) regarding the use and introduction into commerce of lead pipes, plumbing fittings or fixtures, solder and flux. The Act established a prospective effective date of January 4, 2014, which provided a three year timeframe for affected parties to transition to the new requirements.
Source:
EPA
2014?
So what?
Well, this is where the good stuff is. If you listened to the podcast above (I certainly hope you did), you might remember that lead is a neurotoxin. That means it KILLS neurons (those cells that make up 50% of your brain), but wait, recent research has also implicated lead in the destruction of glial cells (the other half of your brain). What happens when you start killing brain cells? Loss of memory; loss of impulse control; loss of motor function; loss of intellect; you vote REPUBLICAN. . . need I go on?
And it just keeps getting better:
It's not JUST lead. There's a whole host of other neurotoxins that we've allowed ourselves to be exposed to (think Mercury and the mad-hatters of England), and don't even get me started on what we do to ourselves in the name of competitive sports. With all the things we do to our brains it's a wonder we can even "walk and talk" at the same time.
This is a serious problem, and the more you look into it, the more disturbing the reality becomes.
Here's the Bottom Line kids:
We are ALL brain-damaged. It's not (really) our fault, it's just a fact of being born in a world where our ancestors made bad decisions because they lacked the knowledge that we have today. We can't really "fix" it, we can't repair our damaged noggins, but we can try to stop future generations from suffering our fate.
We owe them a chance to realize their full potential.
Mon Nov 24, 2014 at 1:57 PM PT: This was sent to me by my Partner after the diary was published. I thought about writing a new one to present this, but it fit so well I figured I'd just update.
This video focuses on the impact of environmental toxins on children, but it is important to note that many of these toxins are persistent and present in our bodies for the majority of our lives.