http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(18)30043-4/fulltext
Lancet is one of the top medical journals in the world.
Wow! While most of us have known for many years about the effect of lead on children–which lead to the movement to unleaded gasoline, it is truly surprising the effects on adults.
I would have thought there was a lot of commonality between those who smoke and those who succumb to a lead induced illness, its not like smokers live in a lead free environment away from the rest of the US population.
Would it be inaccurate to change the wording to "Lead contributes to the deaths of over 400,000 … " ? Or are they, in this case, saying lead CAUSED the cardiovascular disease which led to the death BY cardiovascular disease? The number just seems high, I guess.
Preliminary thoughts:
When you 1) have a single study that dramatically revises upward the number of deaths attributed to lead exposure (and which estimates nearly one-fifth of deaths in the U.S. are attributable to lead toxicity), 2) a statement that there is no safe level of exposure, and 3) a note in the Lancet commentary that lead exposure has significantly dropped off in recent years but there seemingly is no reported parallel decrease in deaths from ischemic cardiovascular or other causes, then my skeptical antennae start twitching.
Lancet generally has a good reputation, but the fact that a report appeared in the Lancet does not by itself give it automatic gravitas, or so historical precedent tells us.
It’ll be interesting to see additional commentary/critiques from those with more expertise in this area and statistical analysis.
Well how do you feel about the statement that “smoking kills about 400,000 people per year in the U.S”. It is the same kind of statement–true in the sense that smokers have a higher death rate than non-smokers. So while I believe smoking killed my father (a smoker dying of lung cancer) the lung cancer could have been caused by something else.
There’s probably also a lot of correlation between lead exposure and a significant number of other risk factors that are likely to shorten one’s life. I’d be curious how they controlled for other such factors in order to isolate what they see as the death rate specifically attributable to lead.
What **Jackmanii **said. There is a big difference between something causing something and something contributing to it.
There may be a contributing relationship between loneliness and someone committing suicide - the loneliness being perhaps one out of a dozen factors piling on and leading to someone pulling the trigger. But to say that loneliness ***causes ***264,000 suicides a year (a random figure) would certainly be a dubious claim.
Been messing with lead since I was a kid. Been messing with Mercury since 1953 or so until 1960 or so.
I smoked Kool Filter Kings & unfiltered brands from 1962 on. Total of 24 years a smoker.
I drank too much from 1963 until 1991. Clean & sober since then.
Stopped smoking for the third time in 1997.
I live with a smoker now.
I am 74 and counting.
One outlier checking in.
Glancing at that article it mentions how the highest decile of lead exposure has a 37% increase in all cause mortality and a 70% increase in cardiovascular disease mortality.
it increases the risk, but a lot of people who smoke or inhale lead are still going to be alive in their 70s. Just fewer of them than the people who don’t smoke or get lead exposure.
Does this number account for all of the people who are killed by little pieces of lead traveling at very high speeds?
Now that is a thread wining question. 