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The trick to lowering gas prices is driving less, US energy secretary says (www.businessinsider.com)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/nottheonion@lemmy.world
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[–] 13 points 2 months ago (7 children)

I don't understand why the generation that snacked on lead paint chips is allowed to be in charge of this country.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    My understanding is that paint is only very rarely stripped out of existing houses. It's normally just painted over.

    In the US, lead paint prohibitions went into place in 1978.

    So unless you've avoided being in buildings constructed prior to 1978, you have probably been in buildings with lead paint.

    That's not to say that there aren't benefits to painting over lead paint. I'm sure that it reduces the amount of leaded paint dust and such. But a chip can still contain paint from an earlier coat.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead-based_paint_in_the_United_States

    In 1971, Congress banned the use of lead-based paint in residential projects (including residential structures and environments) constructed by, or with the assistance of, the federal government.[3] The Consumer Product Safety Commission followed with implementing regulations, effective in 1978.[4] Additional regulations regarding lead abatement, testing and related issues have been issued by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

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  • [–] 5 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    When my kids were little and we were moving into our new to us house, built in 1946, they also cautioned about the outside. Treat 10’ around the house as potentially contaminated from peeling exterior paint. No vegetable gardens in that dirt. No kids playing in that dirt

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago

    The risk of lead absorption via skin contact isn't worth even thinking about. So unless the kids were eating substantial volumes of dirt, that's absurdly over-cautious. If you keep them indoors and feed them a tuna sandwich, the mercury dose will exceed the damage done by exposure to lead in household soil, unless something well out of the ordinary is happening.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago

    It’s normally just painted over.

    And as long as it's encapsulated like that, it's harmless.

    I’m sure that it reduces the amount of leaded paint dust and such.

    Almost completely, yes.

    But a chip can still contain paint from an earlier coat.

    And as long as you don't eat it and you dispose of it immediately, it's not going to hurt you.

    It's good that we terminated the production of lead paint, but unless you're in substandard, ill-maintained housing, you face far greater toxic risks from other household chemicals, gas stoves, old asbestos insulation, etc.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    I don’t understand why the generation that snacked on lead paint chips is allowed to be in charge of this country.

    It's what the American voters wanted.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago

    The bigger lead exposure back in the day was from breathing in particulate emissions from the burning of leaded gasoline. People's lead levels correlated pretty closely with proximity and volume of nearby vehicular traffic.

    Eating paint chips was never a big contributor, unless the person was living in some crumbling, damp tenement that was seldom cleaned. It just got popularized by some bullshit Freakonomics pseudo-analysis.

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