Everybody has heard the claim that Nero played the flute while Rome burned. An advanced city civilization self destructs in less than three hundred years by use of lead goblets, lead lined aqua ducts, and lead laced make-up causing psychosis, dementia, sterility, criminality, immorality, murder, sexual deviation, and a constant state of war. Lead is an abundant, cheap, easily manipulated and mixed metal that can change states with moderate temperature changes and is strong enough to withstand the harshest weather conditions http://www2.epa.gov/aboutepa/lead-poisoning-historical-perspective.
Technically, lead's toxic effects tend to fall into three major categories. The primary toxicity derives from its ability to cause oxidative stress reducing the antioxidant defense system of cells. The second group of effects result from its chemical similarity to calcium which allows it to access critical cellular pathways, particularly within the brain where it antagonizes calcium's action (makes the brain go out of tune). Third, lead affects nucleic acids and is most insidious at the genetic level.
Technically, lead's toxic effects tend to fall into three major categories. The primary toxicity derives from its ability to cause oxidative stress reducing the antioxidant defense system of cells. The second group of effects result from its chemical similarity to calcium which allows it to access critical cellular pathways, particularly within the brain where it antagonizes calcium's action (makes the brain go out of tune). Third, lead affects nucleic acids and is most insidious at the genetic level.
In the twentieth century, the United States, having an abundance of lead ore, began finding new ways to put this insidious metal into every aspect of our lives http://www.thenation.com/article/secret-history-lead. Thanks to companies like Dupont, over the next 60 years, as gasoline became the mechanism for progress and advancement, the entire world was contaminated with lead. In 1976, 13.5 Million children (88%) had elevated Lead levels http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/su6104a1.htm?s_cid=su6104a1_x.\ and twenty percent of the population a mental disability http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1273628. An elevated lead level causes about a seven point loss of IQ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2592285/.
Lead levels today are still two hundred to a thousand times pre-industrial levels http://oralhistories.library.caltech.edu/32/;http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199205073261916; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1694628/. Many countries still disperse lead on a large scale http://www.lead.org.au/fs/fst27.html; http://www.worstpolluted.org/projects_reports/display/86.
We must move to eliminate this hazardous metal from our blood streams as even at very low lead levels, we will very slowly loose many higher functions over a longer period of time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBvIweCIgwk.
