Summary

Childhood lead exposure from leaded gasoline caused 151 million additional psychiatric illnesses in the U.S. between 1940 and 2015, according to new research.

Peak exposure occurred for Generation X (1966–1986 births) due to widespread use of leaded gasoline before its 1996 ban.

The study links lead exposure to higher rates of depression, anxiety, ADHD, and altered personality traits, including increased neuroticism and reduced conscientiousness.

Lead pollution also caused a collective loss of 824 million IQ points in Americans.

  • PopShark@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    Aviation fuel still contains lead. Not jet fuel but the avgas small private planes use. Pisses me off

    • SirEDCaLot@lemmy.today
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      7 days ago

      Pilot here. I fly those little airplanes. We all want to get rid of the lead very much. We don’t like the environmental damage, we don’t like the lead exposure, and it’s also expensive- the machine that mixes the lead into the gasoline costs millions and the resulting fuel can’t be transported by pipeline as it would contaminate the pipeline. Result is that aviation gas is always expensive.

      Problem is, some of the airplane engines actually need the leaded fuel. So avgas available everywhere is 100LL, meaning 100 octane low lead.

      There is a lot of effort underway to fix that situation. Probably the most currently advanced is an outfit called GAMI who made a fuel called G100UL, it is made by combining normal high octane gasoline with a series of additives that make it run in any airplane engine (including the ones that need lead). Unfortunately due to some weird legalities regarding it, to legally use it you need to pay GAMI a couple hundred bucks for a sticker. It’s also not widely available yet.

    • captain_oni@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      7 days ago

      So the “chemtrails” crowd was not far off then? They just got angry about the wrong type of planes and the wrong type of poison

    • comrade19@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      Yeah ive gotta fill my plane at work every day with that poison and and then when I test the fuel it gets all over my hand and my skin turns white once it dries (so I wash my hand) but YUCK. Most of the engines can totally run on mogas anyway they just don’t want to because a small percentage cannot and there’s only one fuel bowser.

      • CubbyTustard@reddthat.com
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        7 days ago

        my city runs a racetrack in a city park and allows leaded gas in 30% of the races. The wind blows directly into a low income community and we can’t get anyone to give a fuck.

    • bluewing@lemm.ee
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      7 days ago

      That’s a small amount of old airplanes. It’s not like there are 250 million 1947 Piper Cubs flying a 100,000+ Km a year.