The Disproportionate Effects Of Lead Poisoning

So lead poisoning has come way down, thank God, but we're learning that even low levels of lead can have an impact. So we just think the level was 40 was safe, then it was 20, then it was 10, and now studies show that even down to one or less, there's impairment of IQ and cognitive function. And so we've had this sort of staggering effects to our population, but it's still happening in communities of color in disproportionate ways that harms millions of people, that affects their intellectual development, that provides, you know, these horrible deadly environments that are robbing communities of color of the ability to succeed in life, of their full intellectual capacity, and really affecting America as a whole. So can you tell us the connection between these environmental toxins and our intelligence and IQ and how that actually works?

Well, of course you're right, and the CDC has stipulated that there is no threshold for lead exposure. that any amount of lead exposure is dangerous.

Yeah, people say, what's the normal blood.

Level of lead or mercury? I'm like, zero. Yeah, well, that's what it should be. That should be the normal one. However, to say that lead has gone down is not actually true. It's gone down over the nation as a whole. Right. But if you look at places where pockets of children of color, it is not. That's what I mean. Yeah, that's where people are exposed. Yeah, I knew that's exactly what you wanted to convey. So that's the problem. We now have it limited to pockets of children who live in these areas, once again, as I said, people who are trapped in the area, either by economics or by race or by both. Race actually tends to be the larger factor here, but economics is a factor as well.