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In reply to the discussion: Yes, lead poisoning could really be a cause of violent crime [View all]HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)Last edited Fri Jan 11, 2013, 05:09 AM - Edit history (3)
delay & retardation). That in itself is enough to mandate clean-up of toxic sites.
As Needleman, per your link, was key in getting exposure limits lowered because of the IQ research, it seems his critics were unsuccessful.
Here's my problem with the violence research:
1) The association between lead & violence, by implication, applies mainly to black urban males aged 15-25, as that was the demographic primarily implicated in the rise in violent crime circa 1970-1990. There are a number of problematic aspects with this & I won't go into the details, I'll just say that any research alleging a ubiquitous environmental toxin affects one race/sex/age group more than any others is highly suspect and bears an extraordinary burden of proof, which has not been met.
There was similar research done circa 70s-onward that more specifically targeted black males & the reasons for their purported higher rates of violent crime,' looking for genetic & environmental explanations in order to pre-identify likely offenders. I find it racist at its root & to me, this research has a similar smell.
And I'll add that Kevin Drum's article is mostly based on the work of Rick Nevin -- who cites The Bell Curve as one of his sources for the claim that youth with lower IQs exhibit higher levels of violent behavior, and several other points as well. The Bell Curve, the winger book intended to prove that black people have lower intelligence than white people, and that at least part of the difference is genetic. Nevin accepts the claims of that book uncritically & purports to explain them via lead poisoning, and this is a major focus of his work, e.g.:
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:bhNsUBOj1QIJ:www.ricknevin.com/uploads/Nevin_Lead_Poisoning_and_The_Bell_Curve.pdf+rick+nevin+bell+curve&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjX8ZvhMTy_EgMJxJfUwmOT0IQkTKEGOXtHCZN0-21CCL7UOgLrTU2Irx2L5osbYgD2OsHOuRoAyluu4Bx2x99n7xM_Aa10z2UWfkZhE--s5BtwmiXrNqrfLCL1EnAuzHtwDD8F&sig=AHIEtbRCMmlt-ToDQZ-PwuBslZ-OCs830A
This writer is a suspect source, imo:
Rick Nevin is an economic consultant who acts as an adviser to the National Center for Healthy Housing and has worked on the Federal Strategy to eliminate childhood lead poisoning. Amongst other research, he has published papers in the journal Environmental Research claiming to demonstrate a link between environmental lead exposure and violent crime in the United States and in nine countries worldwide.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Nevin
And here's another of his interests:
The Healthy Housing Strategy is designed to stabilize neighborhood home values by converting upgraded REO housing to rental units. The required upgrade - lead-safe window replacement - would increase home value, lower energy bills and related emissions, and prevent childhood lead poisoning. Some variation of the lease-to-own financing arrangements suggested in the NSHHC submission could also leverage low mortgage interest rates to provide safe and affordable rental housing with a lease-to-own option that could rapidly build home equity.
http://www.ricknevin.com/Partner_Perspectives.html
REO units = bank owned units. The proposal is to convert them to rentals & use public money to do upgrades. In whose interest, exactly? Is the purpose really to reduce lead exposure?
2) Despite the claims that the same correlations have been tested in many other countries & have been found to be the same, it's not the case. The list of countries mentioned is small & confined to western europe so far as i've seen. And as we all know, correlation isn't causation.
Japan is an obvious counter-example, a country where vehicle ownership & miles driven rose rapidly post-war, but crime rates & violence declined sharply. Japan began banning leaded gas in 1970 & totally banned it in 1986, so per this hypothesis we'd predict a rise in violence circa 1970-1990s -- but we don't see any such thing.