Geek Confessional Thread 2024 [NOW 2026!]

[Thomas Shey]

There needs to be much more candid public conversation about how leaded gasoline has impacted Boomers and older GenXers.

There are reasons its a fraught topic.

 

[Reynard]

There are reasons its a fraught topic.

But not good reasons. It is never good to bury science, especially when peoples' well being (physical and otherwise) is impacted.

 

[Koloth]

And I also can't stress enough that, at least here in the US, GenX is the generation probably most affected by environmental lead exposure due to leaded gasoline, particularly the older half of the cohort. So there's that as well.

Don't see that as all previous generations also got the full dose of lead in fuel and paint. The so called Millennials are where lead is pretty much starting to vanish. Backed up by the fairly steady decline in US violent crime rates that are a close match the decline of lead. Leaded gas started the phase out in 1975. Paint was 1978. It took a couple of decades for leaded gas to vanish from auto fuel. Aviation piston fuel still has lead. Existing stocks of paint were allowed to be sold and used so very possible houses built or repainted years after 1978 might have a top coat of lead paint. In older houses, lead paint is still very much possible where there are many layers. The cost of lead mitigation often causes home owners to just slap on another layer of modern paint instead of doing a proper cleanup.

 

[Reynard]

Don't see that as all previous generations also got the full dose of lead in fuel and paint. The so called Millennials are where lead is pretty much starting to vanish. Backed up by the fairly steady decline in US violent crime rates that are a close match the decline of lead. Leaded gas started the phase out in 1975. Paint was 1978. It took a couple of decades for leaded gas to vanish from auto fuel. Aviation piston fuel still has lead. Existing stocks of paint were allowed to be sold and used so very possible houses built or repainted years after 1978 might have a top coat of lead paint. In older houses, lead paint is still very much possible where there are many layers. The cost of lead mitigation often causes home owners to just slap on another layer of modern paint instead of doing a proper cleanup.

TIL that leaded gas was not outright banned until 1996.

 

[trappedslider]

just a reminder that sometimes while correlation does imply causation,it's not always the case.

 

[billd91]

TIL that leaded gas was not outright banned until 1996.

And that ban isn't even absolute. It's just for regular public use. Racetracks, for example, still often use leaded gasoline with measurable effects on child development in neighborhoods near those facilities. NASCAR, to their credit, transitioned off leaded gas starting in 2007.

 

[Reynard]

just a reminder that sometimes while correlation does imply causation,it's not always the case.

Are you suggesting leaded gas is not an environmental hazard?

 

[trappedslider]

Are you suggesting leaded gas is not an environmental hazard?

that's not what i'm implying at least i hope it isn't. Looking back we connect lead paint to serial killers, and then in a matter of decades are people going to be connecting microplastics to mass shootings?

Occam's razor and all that.

I've seen talk about maybe the spike in serial killers was due to them being raised by Vets of WWII/Korea etc who didn't get treatment for PTSD and the like.

That's not to say that leaded gas is innocent or lead paint is,it's saying that there's many contributing factors.

 

[billd91]

Don't see that as all previous generations also got the full dose of lead in fuel and paint. The so called Millennials are where lead is pretty much starting to vanish. Backed up by the fairly steady decline in US violent crime rates that are a close match the decline of lead. Leaded gas started the phase out in 1975. Paint was 1978. It took a couple of decades for leaded gas to vanish from auto fuel. Aviation piston fuel still has lead. Existing stocks of paint were allowed to be sold and used so very possible houses built or repainted years after 1978 might have a top coat of lead paint. In older houses, lead paint is still very much possible where there are many layers. The cost of lead mitigation often causes home owners to just slap on another layer of modern paint instead of doing a proper cleanup.

It's true that lead has been in gasoline (and paint) a long time, but one reason GenX is so heavily affected is because of trends in use. The growth of car culture after the war led to steep increases in the use of leaded gas that persisted all the way until the US started to phase out leaded gas in the mid-1970s. So while the Boomers saw increasing exposure throughout their generation, it was the early GenXers who experienced the most lead-polluted environment while they were still 6 and under and most vulnerable.

Between the late Boomers and early GenXers, we experienced rising crime rates as these cohorts were hitting their early 20s - the age when people are most likely to commit impulsive violent crime. The term superpredator started entering public discourse. Those crime rate trends reversed when the late GenXers starting hitting that same age. They were also the group whose brains developed as lead exposure was coming down. Coincidence? Pretty much no. Studies are showing a pretty notable link, well beyond just correlation, even if other factors also have an impact.