Flint

 

Flint Lead Crisis Getting a Tad Overdone.  

Flint's 8,000 children have not had their lives destroyed...Taken as a whole, in fact, Flint's kids are better off than the previous generations of Michigander kids in at least one important way. Even after Flint’s disaster, the city’s children have far less lead in their blood than their parents or grandparents did at the same age.

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So all the hoopla is about an additional 3.8% of children having blood lead levels exceeding 5 micrograms per deciliter.

If you don’t know anything about lead, that might sound like some great tragedy. But as this CDC chart shows, it is no big deal.

Almost 90 percent of 70s-era children had blood lead levels in excess of 10 micrograms per deciliter… And the blood lead levels were likely even higher for children from earlier 20th century decades — all without harm.

Lead hysteria was fueled by the junk science of the University of Pittsburgh’s Herbert Needleman.* Though debunked (federal investigators concluded Needleman’s work was “difficult to explain as honest error”), it is the basis for today’s lead hysteria.

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*An EPA panel first rejected his research, stating that, “the Committee concludes that the study results, as reported in the Needleman paper, neither support nor refute the hypothesis that low or moderate levels of [lead] exposure lead to cognitive or other behavioral impairments in children.”

Needleman was subsequently accused of scientific misconduct. A full investigation was recommended by a University of Pittsburgh inquiry panel that stated, “… it is doubtful whether [Needleman’s study] represents a fair and accurate ascertainment of the relationship between IQ and [lead levels].”

After a politically charged O.J. Simpson-like investigation and trial, Needleman was ultimately found not guilty of scientific misconduct.

But like O.J., he was hardly vindicated.

As pointed out in the New England Journal of Medicine (search), University of Pittsburgh and federal investigators determined that Needleman’s work involved a “pattern of errors, omissions, contradictions and incomplete information” in the original and subsequent publications.

The University of Pittsburgh found that Needleman engaged in “deliberate misrepresentation” and “substandard science.” The university referenced Needleman’s dismissal of critics as lead industry representatives and further noted his attempts to intimidate investigators.

The federal Office of Research Integrity (search) said Needleman’s results were “difficult to explain as honest error.”