re: #224 wheat-dogg

Lead toxicity is why household paint and gasoline no longer have lead compounds as ingredients. Metallic lead reacts with air, forming a non-reactive layer on exposed surfaces, but lead salts are easily absorbed by the body and can accumulate over time if exposure is continual. They interfere with enzyme functions and damage neurons in the brain and elsewhere.

Lead paint was abolished after researchers discovered children would eat lead paint peeling off walls, which apparently had a sweet taste. Tetraethyl lead in gasoline was banned some years later.

I’ve seen suggestions that the reduction of environmental lead may be responsible for the long term decrease in US crime rates. IIRC the times match up pretty closely to when these lead products started disappearing, but of course correlation is not causation.