Title: Mcgowanjm Wire 2013 Source:
[None] URL Source:[None] Published:Jan 1, 2013 Author:Mcgowinjm Wire Service Post Date:2013-01-01 17:18:57 by A K A Stone Keywords:None Views:136373 Comments:236
Jul 2, 2012 ... As the sun rose Sunday, New York City hit a remarkable milestone, recording just 193 murders in the first six months of the year. In that same ...
LEAD
"6 years later, Pilsen lot remains contaminated with lead By Michael Hawthorne, Chicago Tribune reporter | November 23, 2012 Federal and state officials have known for more than six years about hazardous levels of brain-damaging lead in a vacant lot near Walsh Elementary School in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood. Yet even after field investigators raised alarms about children possibly inhaling or ingesting contaminated soil, the half-acre lot hasn't been fenced off or cleaned up. Nor have government officials posted signs warning residents in the low-income, largely Latino neighborhood that...
"In a 2000 paper (PDF) he concluded that if you add a lag time of 23 years, lead emissions from automobiles explain 90 percent of the variation in violent crime in America. Toddlers who ingested high levels of lead in the '40s and '50s really were more likely to become violent criminals in the '60s, '70s, and '80s.
And with that we have our molecule: tetraethyl lead, the gasoline additive invented by General Motors in the 1920s to prevent knocking and pinging in high-performance engines."
" — May 20 — US Public Health Service holds conference to discuss viewpoints on Ethyl controversy and appoints blue-ribbon committee to conduct independent inquiry. Alice Hamilton and others insist that alternative anti-knock compounds are available, but consideration of alternatives is suspended as conference is cut back from two to three days to only one day. According to a 1950 memoir by T.A. Boyd, a confrontation between Hamilton and Kettering took place in a hallway during the conference recess, in which Hamilton privately said to Kettering: “You are nothing but a murderer” and “There are thousands of things better than lead to put in gasoline.” Kettering laughs at Hamilton.
Frank Howard of Standard Oil says: “As a result of 10 years research … we have this apparent gift of God of three cubic centimeters of tetraethyl lead… It would be an unheard-of blunder if we should abandon a thing of this kind merely because of our fears.” Responding to Howard was Grace Burnham, director of the Workers Health Bureau, who pointed out that tetraethyl lead “was not a gift of God when those … men were killed or 149 men were poisoned.”
In a 2000 paper (PDF) he concluded that if you add a lag time of 23 years, lead emissions from automobiles explain 90 percent of the variation in violent crime in America.
Fascinating. First time I've read of this; thanks.
Fascinating. First time I've read of this; thanks.
I was 'noting' it, but not catching it's significance until I read the MJ article, then the History of Lead and Leaded Gasoline and then the Chicago 500 murders while NYC dropped.
Makes sense cause Chicago is always dissing the EPA and dragging it's feet on lead.....
I was 'noting' it, but not catching it's significance until I read the MJ article, then the History of Lead and Leaded Gasoline and then the Chicago 500 murders while NYC dropped.
I just went through the Mother Jones article after wading through the History of Lead. I wish I had the time, patience and knowledge background to read the comments to the MJ article - some fairly knowledgeable and opinionated readers.
Really fascinating stuff and to me it appears to be scientifically sound research.
