Lead, Mercury, and Heavy Metals
Pouring liquid mercury. Photo credit: Bionerd, Wikimedia Commons.
Introduction
This page explores the health impacts of lead, mercury, and heavy metals.
Messages and Resources on Christian Restorative Justice, Environment, and Health
Out of Eden: A Christian Study and Action Guide to Food and the Environment
A practical Study and Action Guide for use by small groups discussion or personal reflection. The guide covers topics that are actionable on the personal and policy levels: sugar’s impact on our bodies and sugar corporations’ truth-telling and accountability, corn and corn subsidies creating over-supply, plastic and its biological impact on animals and humans, the true cost of meat in terms of soil depletion and air pollution, and food waste and the practices which can diminish it.
Other Resources on Lead, Mercury, and Heavy Metals
Wikipedia, Neuroplastic Effects of Pollution (Wikipedia)
Campaign for Safe Cosmetics (website) Heavy metals and other toxins found in cosmetics and kids products.
Linda Gorman, The Impact of Childhood Lead Exposure on Adult Crime. NBER, May 2008.
Carolyn Gallagher and Melody Goodman, Hepatitis B Triple Series Vaccine and Developmental Disability in US Children Aged 1-9 Years. Journal of Toxicological and Environmental Chemistry, Sep 2008. "Boys in United States who were vaccinated with the triple series Hepatitis B vaccine, during the time period in which vaccines were manufactured with thimerosal [a mercury compound], were more susceptible to developmental disability than were unvaccinated boys"
Physicians for Social Responsibility, How Air Pollution Damages the Brain. Physicians for Social Responsibility, 2009.
Kevin Drum, America's Real Criminal Element: Lead. Mother Jones, Jan/Feb 2013.
Mental Health Daily, Air Pollution Causes Brain Damage. Mental Health Daily, Aug 11, 2015. Very good summary of research and links.
Linda Pressly, How Mercury Poisons Gold Miners and Enters the Food Chain. BBC News, Sep 17, 2013.
Nadia Prupis, As Flint Suffers, Big Pharma Slammed for Lead Poison Drug Price Hike of 2,700%. Common Dreams, Oct 14, 2014.
Megan Cartwright, Treacherous Element: The Most Beautiful, Practical, and Poisonous Uses of Lead in History. Slate, Aug 21, 2015.
Justin Gardner, Navajo Water Supply is ‘More Horrific than Flint,’ But No One Cares Because They’re Native American. Free Thought Project, Jan 31, 2016.
James J. Feigenbaum and Christopher Muller, Lead Exposure and Violent Crime in the Early Twentieth Century. Harvard University, Mar 22, 2016. re: lead pipes
Juliet Linderman, Facebook Account Deactivated as Woman Posts During Standoff. San Francisco Gate, Aug 3, 2016. The woman was lead poisoned
M.B. Pell and Joshua Schneyer, The Thousands of U.S. Locales Where Lead Poisoning Is Worse Than in Flint. Reuters, Dec 19, 2016.
Sophia Tesfaye, House Republicans Shut Down Investigation Into Flint Water Crisis, Blame EPA Instead. Salon, Dec 19, 2016.
Jordan Chariton, Mike Pence May Be Damaged Goods Before Stepping Into White House. Mediaite, Jan 2 2017.
Ben Panko, Scientists Now Know Exactly How Lead Got Into Flint's Water. Smithsonian, Feb 3, 2017.
The Young Turks, Bronx School Lead Levels Sixteen Times Higher Than Flint. The Young Turks, Feb 9, 2017.
Vann Newkirk II, The Poisoned Generation. The Atlantic, May 21, 2017. Lead poisoning, especially in minority communities like in New Orleans.
Sarah Jones and Emily Atkin, Rural America’s Drinking-Water Crisis. New Republic, Feb 12, 2018. See also Darcey Rakestraw, New Analysis Reveals Martin County Water Crisis a Perfect Storm of Coal Industry Power, Mismanagement and Disinvestment. Food and Water Watch, Feb 27, 2018. The Massey coal sludge spill in 2000 contaminated water with heavy metals.
Associated Press, Water Tests at Flint Elementary Schools Show Increase in Lead Levels. Time, Mar 13, 2018.
Michelle Lou and Arthur Delaney, Michigan Not Waiting Around For EPA To Fix Weak Rules On Lead In Drinking Water. Huffington Post, Jun 15, 2018. While federal regulations and the EPA drags its feet on a fix to Flint water crisis.
Abrahm Lustgarten, In How the EPA and the Pentagon Downplayed a Growing Toxic Threat. CNBC, Jul 8, 2018.
Ariel Tu and Associated Press, AP Exclusive: Toxic Metal Found in Chain Stores' Jewelry. ABC News, Oct 11, 2018.
Liz Leyden, In Echo of Flint, Michigan, Water Crisis Now Hits Newark. New York Times, Oct 30, 2018.
J. David Goodman, Al Baker and James Glanz, Tests Showed Children Were Exposed to Lead. The Official Response: Challenge the Tests. New York Times, Nov 18, 2018.
Lisa Friedman, New E.P.A. Plan Could Free Coal Plants to Release More Mercury Into the Air. New York Times, Dec 28, 2018.
Nolan Hicks, Lead-Linked NYCHA Officials Stayed on Payroll Months After Resignation. New York Post, Jun 25, 2019. “NYCHA announced in November 2017 that the two top officials in charge of authority’s lead inspection and abatement program — Brian Clarke and Jay Krantz — had resigned in disgraced fashion, but payroll records show they collected their full salaries through at least June 2018.”
Nick Corasaniti and Corey Kilgannon, Lead Crisis in Newark Grows, as Bottled Water Distribution Is Bungled. New York Times, Aug 14, 2019. “Worries about the safety of the drinking water in New Jersey’s largest city have raised comparisons to Flint, Mich”
Sandee LaMotte, 95% of Tested Baby Foods in the US Contain Toxic Metals, Report Says. CNN, Oct 17, 2019. “Tests of 168 baby foods from major manufacturers in the US found 95% contained lead, 73% contained arsenic, 75% contained cadmium and 32% contained mercury. One fourth of the foods contained all four heavy metals. One in five baby foods tested had over 10 times the 1-ppb limit of lead endorsed by public health advocates, although experts agree that no level of lead is safe. The results mimicked a previous study by the Food and Drug Administration that found one or more of the same metals in 33 of 39 types of baby food tested.”
Sharyn Alfonsi, Early Results from 174 Flint Children Exposed to Lead During Water Crisis Shows 80% of Them Will Require Special Education Services. 60 Minutes | CBS News, Mar 15, 2020. “Five years ago, lead seeped into the tap water in Flint, Michigan, while state and local officials said everything was fine. Now, the same doctor who proved something was wrong is taking the first comprehensive look at the thousands of kids exposed to lead in Flint.”
Jordan Chariton and Jenn Dize, Michigan's Ex-Gov. Rick Snyder Knew About Flint's Toxic Water—and Lied About It. Vice, Apr 16, 2020. “Six years after the city of Flint, Michigan, began using a toxic water source that sickened its residents, VICE uncovered payoffs, the silencing of a whistleblower, a shady financial deal, a coverup, and the former governor who presided over it all.” See also Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, Journalist Uncovers MASSIVE Flint Cover-Up, Reveals How CNN Ignored the Story. Rising | The Hill, Apr 21, 2020.
CNBC, How Tesla’s Battery Mastermind Is Tackling EV's Biggest Problem. CNBC, Apr 10, 2021. Lithium ion batteries and waste management; former Tesla CTO and Elon Musk's right-hand man, JB Straubel and the story of Redwood Materials.
Nicole Estvanik Taylor, A New Study Says the Global Toll of Lead Exposure is Even Worse Than We Thought. Goats and Soda | NPR, Nov 20, 2023.
According to a new study in the journal Lancet Planetary Health, an estimated 5.455 million adults worldwide died in 2019 from cardiovascular disease (CVD) attributable to lead exposure — a toll more than six times higher than a previous estimate. The study goes on to provide what its authors say are the first monetary estimates of the total global cost of these lead-attributable deaths, along with the magnitude and cost of IQ loss in children under 5 years old. For 2019 alone, the study puts the combined toll of cognitive damage and CVD mortality at $6 trillion (based on projected loss of future income and an economic measure known as value of statistical life), with the greatest burden falling on low- and middle-income countries.
Often associated with gasoline and paint, lead exposure can also be traced to lesser-known sources, such as cookware, water supply lines and electronic waste. "Many people believe that with the phase-out of leaded gasoline, the problem was solved," says co-author Ernesto Sánchez-Triana, the global lead for pollution management and circular economy at the World Bank (which funded the study, along with the Korea Green Growth Trust Fund). "What we have shown is that no, the problem is far away from solved."
Environmental lead exposure is known to cause cardiovascular disease, though some of the routes by which it does so are better understood than others. The new study uses a different method — the authors say a more comprehensive one — of counting lead-induced deaths from CVD than previous studies did.
For example, the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD), conducted by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, finds high blood pressure due to lead exposure caused an estimated 850,000 deaths in 2019. The contribution of lead exposure to hypertension is a well-established one, say IHME researchers.”
James Li, The Chemical Cocktail Inside Your Tampon. 51-49 with James Li | Breaking Points, Jan 8, 2025.
Andreas Koutsodendris, Joseph Maran, Ulrich Kotthoff, Jorg Lippold, Maria Knipping, Oliver Friedrich, Axel Gerdes, Stefanie Kaboth-Bahr, Andre Bahr, Hartmut Schulz, Dimitris Sakellariou, and Jorg Pross, Societal Changes in Ancient Greece Impacted Terrestrial and Marine Environments. Communications Earth and Environment | Nature, Jan 30, 2025. The Aegean hosts some of the earliest cultural centers in European antiquity. To reconstruct the evolution of early anthropogenic impact in this region, we have examined lead (Pb) contents and vegetation dynamics on well-dated environmental archives extending to the early Holocene. We show that the impact of agropastoral societies on terrestrial ecosystems was locally confined during the Bronze and Iron Ages (5200–2750 years ago), although we record an onset of Pb pollution already at 5200 cal. years BP and thus about 1200 years earlier than previous archeological evidence. Our data demonstrate a marked increase in Pb pollution at 2150 cal. years BP that left an imprint across terrestrial and marine settings of the Aegean region. This first manifestation of marine pollution coincides with maximum deforestation and agricultural expansion, signaling pervasive human impact on ecosystems connected to the advanced monetized societies during the Hellenistic and Roman periods in Ancient Greece.
ABC10, California Water Experts Respond to Trump's Claims on the State's Water Supply. ABC10, Jan 29, 2025. The water from Northern CA will not reach Southern CA.
Camille Von Kaenel and Annie Snider, Trump Says He Opened California’s Water. Local Officials Say He Nearly Flooded Them. Politico, Jan 31, 2025. The Army Corps of Engineers moved to release massive quantities of water in Central California, panicking local officials.
Before the Corps ratcheted down its plan, local authorities scrambled to move equipment and warn farms about possible flooding, said Victor Hernandez, who oversees water management on one of the rivers, the Kaweah in Tulare County. He said the Corps gave him one hour notice on Thursday. “I’ve been here 25 years, and I’ve never been given notice that quick,” Hernandez said. “That was alarming and scary.”
The incident is the latest chapter in an ongoing feud between Trump and state authorities that has been turbo-charged by the Los Angeles fires, which the president has used to reignite long-running complaints about water management that had nothing to do with the response to the disaster.
An Army Corps spokesperson tied the releases to Trump’s executive order on Sunday directing all federal agencies to maximize water deliveries in order to respond to the fires that started in Los Angeles earlier this month. “Consistent with the direction in the Executive Order on Emergency Measures to Provide Water Resources in California, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is releasing water from Terminus Dam at Lake Kaweah and Schafer Dam at Success Lake to ensure California has water available to respond to the wildfires,” Gene Pawlik said in a statement.
While releasing water from reservoirs before a big storm, like the one expected to hit Northern California this weekend, is standard flood-control procedure to avoid overflowing dams, Hernandez said the Army Corps’ Thursday plan would have released far more water than needed. He said releasing the water at the capacity the Corps had planned to would have flooded both the Kaweah and Tule rivers, where the Corps’ reservoirs are located.
Liam Archacki, Farmers Plead ‘Stop Our Fields Flooding’ as Trump Opens Dams. Daily Beast, Feb 1, 2025. Drowning Them Out: Trump gloated Friday about sending billions of gallons of water to southern California.
Officials in California have revealed that President Donald Trump nearly flooded the region’s farms when his administration tried to send an excessive amount of water south, a feat he bragged about on Friday. “Today, 1.6 billion gallons and, in 3 days, it will be 5.2 billion gallons. Everybody should be happy about this long fought Victory!” Trump gloated in a Truth Social post… “Channel capacity is very dangerous,” he said. “People don’t understand that [with] channel capacity, you’re going to have flood damage down below.” Experts told The New York Times that the water released by the Army Corps on Friday has no way of reaching the region affected by the wildfires, which is over 200 miles away, and could have been useful to farmers months from now as irrigation. As of Saturday, the Palisades and Eaton fires, which raged near Los Angeles, are 100 percent contained, according to Los Angeles Daily News.
Tom Perkins, Republicans Move to Repeal Lead Limits Imposed by Biden-era Rules. The Guardian, Feb 3, 2025. US government would be prohibited from ever mandating lead pipe replacement or lowering lead limits in water
Christian Restorative Justice, Environment, and Health: Topics:
This page is part of our section on the Environment and Health, which explores the following topics:
Christian Restorative Justice Critique of the Right: Domestic Policy Topics:
This page is part of our section Critique of the Right, which engages the following topics: