fuck it i'm posting my take straight up
With that one unfortunately popular post about lead and other heavy metals emitted from vapes having that takeaway that "lead poisoning makes the kids these days evil and brain damaged", I am here to say stop it. At the very least, it is an unhelpful and ableist perspective that demonizes those impacted by potential lead exposure, and falls into a frustrating category of victim blaming.
"but nicotine is poison!! vaping icky!!!! cigarettes bad!" that's not what I'm here to talk about!!!!!! I can't change individual behaviors, but we should do all we can to make those behaviors SAFER for the users. without blaming them for the health outcomes or saying that that's just what you get.
Something we can agree on - no amount of lead exposure is safe. There is no safe level of lead. Any amount of lead in a person's body can have negative health effects.
In the U.S., there is not a single generation of people alive right now that have not been exposed to lead. Whether in water, paint, air, soil, cosmetics, foods, aviation fuel, ammunition, etc. The GOOD news is that the amount of lead in the environment HAS dramatically decreased with federal and state action. There can no longer be lead in residential paints. There can't be any lead in solder, gasoline (except small planes), or in pipes. In some states, there are laws around levels of lead in candies, spices, utensils, mini-blinds, and cookware.
Average blood lead levels have gone down SO MUCH even over the past few decades. Where in the 90s the blood lead level "of concern" was 10 µg/dL, the blood lead reference value (based on a lead level higher than 97.5% of U.S. children) is now 3.5 µg/dL. That is a big deal!!!!
And nowadays, the most common sources of lead we're finding are in consumer goods - applesauce, cinnamon, supplements, water faucets, vapes, cookware. Part of WHY we're able to find those sources of lead is because the lead from other sources is less prevalent in our environment.
As broader context, lead metabolizes in the body differently depending on a person's age and where they're at in the developmental process. That's why the neurological impacts of lead are most significant and concerning to children and youth, especially because of those key developmental stages and the way their bodies metabolize and excrete lead. The same blood lead level in a child vs. a full grown adult would have different impacts. The neurological effects of lead (especially in children) have been extensively studied, as detailed in the ATSDR Lead Tox Profile . And while it may result in adverse health outcomes, it's impossible to say that this is a causal relationship. There are so many other genetic and environmental factors that come into play and interrelate to a person's health outcomes. For instance, I'm certain I was lead poisoned as a child (from eating game meat that had lead shot, reloading ammunition, etc.), and that could very well have contributed to my own learning disabilities. But there cannot be a causal link established !! Just because I was lead poisoned does NOT mean that that is the sole reason my brain is this way.
Another thing is it is often impossible to say with certainty that a specific source is where a person's lead exposure comes from. Exposure risk assessments and environmental testing can absolutely identify sources of lead in a person's environment, but even if that person is tested for lead, it is hard to say with absolute certainty that any one source is wholly responsible for that lead level. It's rare for cases to be so conclusive - in fact, North Carolina blood lead investigations are the reason for the cinnamon applesauce recall. The reason for that was that these children had no other detected sources of lead in their environment, except for shared consumption of these applesauce packets.
Given what we know, it's not surprising that we don't have blood lead level data (blood lead testing is the most reliable way to test if someone's been exposed to lead) for the users of these vapes. The general approach towards regulation and study of lead in products is based off of concentration (parts per million and so on) in the items themselves. Since there is no safe level of lead, a study in this manner would result in continually exposing participants to the lead in their vape products (and likely would not be accepted by an Institutional Review Board). It also wouldn't be that helpful, because there could be other sources of lead in their environments. So this study did the right thing, by looking at the composition of the product and its emissions.
We are increasingly running into the consequences of limited lead regulations. Sure, there are laws around lead in paint and the FDA has set regulatory lead limits in bottled water, but there isn't the robust enforcement mechanism to ensure that lead isn't put in products to begin with (or at least not incorporated into products in a way that will result in lead exposure). Industry is often able to ensure that these robust regulations don't move forward - for instance, this was a huge problem with a statewide lead in cookware law in Washington. The industry leaders cried that reaching the concentration of lead set in the law was impossible and would result in all cookware being banned from sale in the state. That resulted in some amendments to the law that will still regulate the level of lead in cookware, but has a delayed implementation structure.
The focus and takeaway from this study on the lead in vapes should be two things - 1. we know lead is bad for people's health, and can increase risk of adverse health outcomes. 2. this industry is woefully unregulated, and there need to be much more robust regulations put in place to ensure that these products are not exposing its users to dangerous heavy metal emissions.
This should be a critique on the capitalist hellscape that we live in - that products are allowed to exist unregulated, even when they often expose its users to dangerous concentrations of heavy metals and other contaminants. But it should not be an individual critique - that oh this kid is an asshole to me bc they're brain damaged from lead. the industry is responsible for this outcome, and marginalizing those impacted through ableist rhetoric is just as damaging and unhelpful as the "cellphones are ruining the kids these days".
The study is open access and I think everyone should read it - but not with the framing about kids these days being evil and awful. It's been a very convenient lie for us to believe that lead poisoning and lead exposure is a done issue. We have no generation alive today that hasn't been exposed to lead. The only one who benefits from us ever thinking that lead poisoning is "done" are the industries that continue to use, emit, and sell us lead.
