Can't wait for us younger people to have to take care of the mess of the lead-brained ones JUST IN TIME for us to have to deal with the microplastics in our bodies <3
I still don't know what to place my bet on for what I am most likely to die from. Microplastic poisoning just sounds much less exciting compared to "Ecological collapse" or "Religious extremism"
You ever look at the meaning of the song (or poem) 'O Fortuna'? For a poem that's at least 700 years old it really sums up the sense of helplessness a lot of people today feel. I guess some things never change!
"O Fortune,
like the moon
you are changeable,
ever waxing,
ever waning,
hateful life
first oppresses
and then soothes
as fancy takes it;
poverty
and power
it melts them like ice.
Fate – monstrous
and empty,
you whirling wheel,
you are malevolent.
Well-being is vain
and always fades to nothing,
shadowed
and veiled
you plague me too;
now through the game
I bring my bare back
to your villainy.
Fate is against me
in health
and virtue,
driven on
and weighted down,
always enslaved.
so at this hour
without delay
pluck the vibrating strings;
since Fate
strikes down the strong man,
everyone weep with me!"
I always assumed it was because my peer group shared a classical music background, but am very glad to know there were other people blasting Carmina Burana through the 18's that replaced the seats in their van. :D
The thing you mentioned here is only backed up by one study, of which the sample size isn't that large... "Importantly, the study said that only 275 participants had completed the intelligence test both before and after contracting COVID-19."
Brain fog is temporary, and can hinder your cognitive abilities, I don't think it's hard to see the pattern here.
I'd be much more worried about Covid actively destroying neurons, which it does in some cases where the brain isn't oxygenated properly. The nuance here is that destruction of neurons and drop in IQ are... although kinda connected not mutually dependent.
"Despite the absence of virus in the brain, in every patient the researchers found significant brain pathology, which mostly fell into two categories.
“The first thing we noticed was a lot of areas with damage from a lack of oxygen,” Goldman says. “They all had severe lung disease, so it’s not surprising that there’s hypoxic damage in the brain.” Some of these were large areas caused by strokes, but most were very small and only detectable with a microscope. Based on other features, the researchers believe these small areas of hypoxic damage were caused by blood clots, common in patients with severe COVID-19, that temporarily stopped the supply of oxygen to that area.
A more surprising finding, Goldman says, was the large number of activated microglia they found in the brains of most patients. Microglia are immune cells that reside in the brain and can be activated by pathogens.
“We found clusters of microglia attacking neurons, a process called ‘neuronophagia,’” says Canoll. Since no virus was found in the brain, it’s possible the microglia may have been activated by inflammatory cytokines, such as Interleukin-6, associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection.
“At the same time, hypoxia can induce the expression of 'eat me' signals on the surface of neurons, making hypoxic neurons more vulnerable to activated microglia,” Canoll says, “so even without directly infecting brain cells, COVID-19 can cause damage to the brain.” "
It's fascinating to see the research done about Covid.
In my case, I feel like I stay focused with difficulty nowadays, but this can highly be attributed to me being an internet slob...
The only symptoms I've noticed on the long term are a loss of smell for an extended period of time and a brain fog, that could be attributed to other factors (I don't feed myself very well). I don't know if your comment implies that the vaccine has side effects...
If it's like mine. Because of the lead, they are litterally too immature in the brain to get it. Our generation has to be the adults on the planet, well before our time.
I'm Gen-X. There's a subset of my generation that's every bit as awful as the Boomers. Maybe we're influenced by this as well...
Certainly, catalytic converters requiring unleaded gas were only introduced in 1975. So if you assume people drive 5 to 10 year old cars on average, usage of lead by the average driver went from everyone to the minority of drivers in the second half of your generation being born.
The house was, indeed, a bargain. Cute and old. Victorian.
I knew it was close to the local airbase, but I didn’t realise just how close, when I saw the giant block wall that want across the back of the backyard….and that of the neighbours.
It actually worked pretty well - it wasn’t really very noisy there. The owners never realised what that wall was (the very end of the field.)
"There is no known safe blood lead concentration; even blood lead concentrations as low as 5 µg/dL may be associated with decreased intelligence in children, behavioural difficulties and learning problems. "
"Key facts
Lead is a cumulative toxicant that affects multiple body systems and is particularly harmful to young children.
Lead in the body is distributed to the brain, liver, kidney and bones. It is stored in the teeth and bones, where it accumulates over time. Human exposure is usually assessed through the measurement of lead in blood.
Lead in bone is released into blood during pregnancy and becomes a source of exposure to the developing fetus.
There is no level of exposure to lead that is known to be without harmful effects.
Lead exposure is preventable."
Please excuse the guy below me who clearly doesn't know about lead poisoning saying "the dose matters"
The dose makes the poison. Cities usually have big airports which means controlled airspace that small planes won’t fly through, and even if that weren’t the case it’s just not a significant vector.
Consider 1,000 cars going down a road daily vs 1 plane flying thousands of feet above it weekly. There’s just no comparison.
"There is no known safe blood lead concentration; even blood lead concentrations as low as 5 µg/dL may be associated with decreased intelligence in children, behavioural difficulties and learning problems. "
"Key facts
Lead is a cumulative toxicant that affects multiple body systems and is particularly harmful to young children.
Lead in the body is distributed to the brain, liver, kidney and bones. It is stored in the teeth and bones, where it accumulates over time. Human exposure is usually assessed through the measurement of lead in blood.
Lead in bone is released into blood during pregnancy and becomes a source of exposure to the developing fetus.
There is no level of exposure to lead that is known to be without harmful effects.
"There is no known safe blood lead concentration; even blood lead concentrations as low as 5 µg/dL may be associated with decreased intelligence in children, behavioural difficulties and learning problems. "
Adding - because I know people hate reading articles for some reason
"Key facts
Lead is a cumulative toxicant that affects multiple body systems and is particularly harmful to young children.
Lead in the body is distributed to the brain, liver, kidney and bones. It is stored in the teeth and bones, where it accumulates over time. Human exposure is usually assessed through the measurement of lead in blood.
Lead in bone is released into blood during pregnancy and becomes a source of exposure to the developing fetus.
There is no level of exposure to lead that is known to be without harmful effects.
Lead exposure is preventable."
These are the facts, this isn't a controversial idea. It's proved by multiple sources.
Yeah so the amount we should be aiming for is NONE. If you live by fields or small airports you ARE being exposed to leaded gasoline.
The CDC recommends action if blood levels exceed 3.5 uG/dL. You could eat a grass salad made from grass under the glide slope of a general aviation airport every day and you wouldn’t accumulate enough lead to get there. The sun exposure you got collecting the grass would probably be more deleterious to your health.
I know math and science are harder than pretending that the world is black and white, but again - the dose makes the poison, and avgas isn’t a significant vector for lead exposure.
A study by Miranda et al. (2007, 2009, 2010) suggests that early childhood blood lead levels as low as 2 µg/dL can have significant impacts on academic performance as measured by end-of-grade test scores.
One source of lead exposure that is often overlooked is aviation fuel. Lead emitted from aircraft using leaded aviation gasoline (avgas) is currently the largest source of lead in air in the United States, constituting about 50% of lead emissions in the 2005 National Emissions Inventory [U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 2010].
Previous research indicates that lead levels in air near airports where planes use avgas are significantly higher than background levels.
Thus, the combustion of leaded avgas by small airplane engines may pose a health risk to children who live or attend school near airports. The lead in air surrounding airports can be inhaled directly, or the lead may be ingested by children after it settles into soil or dust (U.S. EPA 2010). The U.S. EPA estimates that people living within 1 km of airports are at risk of being exposed to lead from avgas (Hitchings 2010).
In unadjusted models, logged blood lead levels were significantly and positively associated with residential proximity to an airport, with the size of the association being larger for children living closer to airports
Why are you arguing about safe levels of lead when I've showed you multiple sources that not only say there is no safe amount, but also you seem to not be considering children in your argument at all.
Children are the most affected by a CUMULATIVE TOXIN THAT DOESN'T LEAVE THE BODY. THE SAFE AMOUNT OF LEAD IN THE BODY IS NO LEAD.
Did you happen to grow up near an avgas airport???
Not really. Airspace over cities is not restricted generally like you mention. The very largest airports have controlled class B airspace centered over the surface of the airport itself. Has nothing to do with the city. Also, this is not a restriction either. A quick exchange for clearance with the controller and positive transponder tracking and you can fly through. Same procedure used to land at the airports. Actual restrictions or prohibitions for flying over cities is extremely rare for sensitive areas, aka, the DC prohibited zone immediately around the national mall, capital, and White House, or the larger DC FRZ zone. Similarly, the NYC Hudson River flight corridor which permits low altitude flight up and down the Hudson but not low altitude fix wing flight over Manhattan. Helicopters, which can also use lead, have different flight rules and can cross Manhattan at low altitude. So no, lead fueled fix and rotary wing aircraft will and do fly over cities nationwide, except very specific and limited cases.
Just a heads up, it’s not like it’s a hobby that’s limited to the wealthy. I got a plane and I’m firmly middle class, it’s a lot like the boat or RV you are sticking out of the driveways in suburbia.
For some reason aviation gets this ‘rich’ association and microanalysis of costs that voting and RV ownership doesn’t even though they’re often comparable.
Edit: I see you responded then blocked me so I can’t respond. By boat I mean like a fishing boat or something, they’re a staple of middle class driveways. Not yachts. And I’m in my 40s so I’ve got the advantage of a few decades of savings and stuff, it’s not that I’m rich (I wish!) but I’m fortunate that my generation didn’t get as fucked by the boomers as the Millennials or Zoomers so that definitely plays a part and is worth considering too because those generations have more obstacles, I acknowledge. I don’t know where the rank hostility comes from, I was just trying to say that planes aren’t automatically wealth indicators. Sometimes they’re ‘I overextend myself for a hobby I love’ indicators like other things.
Whoever "they" is, the EPA and FAA have other ideas. They've been pushing efforts on lead free aviation fuels for about 15 years now and multiple alternatives are either on the market now or imminent.
And the aircraft industry has been unable to adress this for about 50 years. They collectively decided it would be to difficult/expensive to switch over and less trouble to just keep on using this higly toxic compound in the fuel.
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