Lead was added to organic gasoline compounds to increase the fuel’s resistance to pre-ignition from the 1920s through its banning in 1996. Lead exposure reached its peak in the 1960s. Scientists always knew that heavy lead was a seriously bad thing for humans to be near, breathe in, or work around. In the 1970s the scientific community came together to confirm that even trace exposure to children with developing brains could be detrimental to their development. It still took over two decades to get the additive banned from highway gasoline.
A team of researchers has concluded that around half of all Americans alive in 2015 were likely to have been exposed to damaging levels of lead in childhood, and their newest study points to lead being the direct cause for around 151 million cases of psychiatric disorder, including anxiety, depression, and ADHD. Lead exposure may also be a significant contributing risk factor in a variety of other psychiatric conditions, including schizophrenia. Moreover, the researchers concluded that lead exposure has collectively lowered the IQ of Americans by 824 million points.
“Childhood lead exposure has likely made a significant, underappreciated contribution to psychiatric disease in the United States over the past century,” the researchers claimed, published Wednesday in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. “ Lead-associated mental health and personality differences were most pronounced for cohorts born from 1966 through 1986.”
“A significant burden of mental illness symptomatology and disadvantageous personality differences can be attributed to US children’s exposure to lead over the past 75 years. Lead’s potential contribution to psychiatry, medicine, and children’s health may be larger than previously assumed.”
Lead has previously been linked to trends in criminality among Americans as well. As lead was removed from gasoline and exposure trend lines continued downward, general crime in this country trended downward right alongside it. Lead exposure may foster impulsiveness and aggression in humans, potentially leading them to commit violent crimes.
It was probably a good idea to get rid of lead in gasoline and paint, but we probably should have done it a long time ago. Some countries did not fully remove lead from gas until 2020, and the effects on future generations have not yet begun to show themselves fully. It’s nice, however, to finally know why Gen X is the way they are.
