Black Inner-City Violence: Lead Poisoning and Vaccines and Autism and Cannabis

originally posted by: Agartha
a reply to: Boadicea

Lead was everywhere in Europe until it was banned in the '90s + vaccination rates are high in Europe.

I didn't look at lead-poisoning in Europe or Britian specifically, but I did find some information. Europe (excluding Britain) actually outlawed lead-based paint in the early 20th century, about 60 years before the U.S. If I remember right, they banned lead gasoline after we did though (but I could be wrong about that). I also found a couple articles from Britain which lamented Britain's lack of regulation of lead in the environment. But this, from the Guardian, I found interesting:

There is only one remaining manufacturer of tetraethyl lead on earth. It's based in Ellesmere Port in Britain, and it's called Innospec. The product has long been banned from general sale in the UK, but the company admits on its website that it's still selling this poison to other countries. Innospec refuses to talk to me, but other reports claim that tetraethyl lead is being exported to Afghanistan, Algeria, Burma, Iraq, North Korea, Sierra Leone and Yemen, countries afflicted either by chaos or by governments who don't give a damn about their people.

In 2010 the company admitted that, under the name Associated Octel, it had paid millions of dollars in bribes to officials in Iraq and Indonesia to be allowed to continue, at immense profit, selling tetratethyl lead. Through an agreement with the British and American courts, Innospec was let off so lightly that Lord Justice Thomas complained that "no such arrangement should be made again". God knows how many lives this firm has ruined.

How comes they are not causing the same inner city violence you see in the US?
If lead and vaccines are the cause of autism and violence, how comes it's not happening in Europe?

My best somewhat-informed opinion is that a combination of factors have come together in the inner cities to create the conditions we see now -- some nature, some nurture (or lack thereof). A perfect storm so-to-speak. I strongly suspect diet and nutrition plays a huge part as well, including all the "junk" in our food and water, from preservatives and food dyes, to GMOs, to pesticides and herbicides, and on and on and on. Another ATSer referred me to a Dr. Perlmutter who has done extensive research into this side of it, and one of these days I'm going to check out his work and see what I find. Maybe something... maybe nothing. We'll see!

originally posted by: Boadicea

originally posted by: Agartha
a reply to: Boadicea

Lead was everywhere in Europe until it was banned in the '90s + vaccination rates are high in Europe.

I didn't look at lead-poisoning in Europe or Britian specifically, but I did find some information. Europe (excluding Britain) actually outlawed lead-based paint in the early 20th century, about 60 years before the U.S. If I remember right, they banned lead gasoline after we did though (but I could be wrong about that). I also found a couple articles from Britain which lamented Britain's lack of regulation of lead in the environment. But this, from the Guardian, I found interesting:

There is only one remaining manufacturer of tetraethyl lead on earth. It's based in Ellesmere Port in Britain, and it's called Innospec. The product has long been banned from general sale in the UK, but the company admits on its website that it's still selling this poison to other countries. Innospec refuses to talk to me, but other reports claim that tetraethyl lead is being exported to Afghanistan, Algeria, Burma, Iraq, North Korea, Sierra Leone and Yemen, countries afflicted either by chaos or by governments who don't give a damn about their people.

In 2010 the company admitted that, under the name Associated Octel, it had paid millions of dollars in bribes to officials in Iraq and Indonesia to be allowed to continue, at immense profit, selling tetratethyl lead. Through an agreement with the British and American courts, Innospec was let off so lightly that Lord Justice Thomas complained that "no such arrangement should be made again". God knows how many lives this firm has ruined.

How comes they are not causing the same inner city violence you see in the US?
If lead and vaccines are the cause of autism and violence, how comes it's not happening in Europe?

My best somewhat-informed opinion is that a combination of factors have come together in the inner cities to create the conditions we see now -- some nature, some nurture (or lack thereof). A perfect storm so-to-speak. I strongly suspect diet and nutrition plays a huge part as well, including all the "junk" in our food and water, from preservatives and food dyes, to GMOs, to pesticides and herbicides, and on and on and on. Another ATSer referred me to a Dr. Perlmutter who has done extensive research into this side of it, and one of these days I'm going to check out his work and see what I find. Maybe something... maybe nothing. We'll see!

Here's a decent paper on the removal of lead from gasoline and crime rate in the 90's in the US.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...
Essentially it says that it seems to be more correlative than causative (where have we heard that before I wonder..?) and more studies are needed.
But this paragraph is particularly specific:
"...But the evidence is not sufficient to conclude that variations in environmental lead exposure in childhood over the past 50 or so years in the USA explain, first the rise, and then the decline in crime rates. The major reason for doubt is that the associations in ecological studies are much stronger (explaining 60–90% of the variation in crime rates) than the weaker relationships in the cohort studies (that explain less than 1% of the variance in offending) 19. Lead exposure in childhood may have played a small role in rising and falling crime rates in the USA but it is unlikely to account for the very high percentage of the decline suggested by Nevin 11 and Reyes 5."

And with lead being more prevalent than say, mercury in vaccines I would suggest that you can discount vaccinations as a factor too.
And vaccines don't cause autism.

And as for Dr Perlmutter?
He seems right up your street.

a reply to: Pardon?

Here's a decent paper on the removal of lead from gasoline and crime rate in the 90's in the US.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...
Essentially it says that it seems to be more correlative than causative (where have we heard that before I wonder..?) and more studies are needed.
But this paragraph is particularly specific:
"...But the evidence is not sufficient to conclude that variations in environmental lead exposure in childhood over the past 50 or so years in the USA explain, first the rise, and then the decline in crime rates. The major reason for doubt is that the associations in ecological studies are much stronger (explaining 60–90% of the variation in crime rates) than the weaker relationships in the cohort studies (that explain less than 1% of the variance in offending) 19. Lead exposure in childhood may have played a small role in rising and falling crime rates in the USA but it is unlikely to account for the very high percentage of the decline suggested by Nevin 11 and Reyes 5."

Thank you for the link.

The major reason for doubt is that the associations in ecological studies are much stronger (explaining 60–90% of the variation in crime rates) than the weaker relationships in the cohort studies (that explain less than 1% of the variance in offending) 19.

Would you please explain this to me? Seriously. I'm stuck on the difference between "ecological" studies and "cohort" studies.

And with lead being more prevalent than say, mercury in vaccines I would suggest that you can discount vaccinations as a factor too.

There's lead in vaccines? Am I reading that right?

And vaccines don't cause autism.

So I've been told... in fact, by you!

originally posted by: Boadicea
a reply to: Pardon?

Here's a decent paper on the removal of lead from gasoline and crime rate in the 90's in the US.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...
Essentially it says that it seems to be more correlative than causative (where have we heard that before I wonder..?) and more studies are needed.
But this paragraph is particularly specific:
"...But the evidence is not sufficient to conclude that variations in environmental lead exposure in childhood over the past 50 or so years in the USA explain, first the rise, and then the decline in crime rates. The major reason for doubt is that the associations in ecological studies are much stronger (explaining 60–90% of the variation in crime rates) than the weaker relationships in the cohort studies (that explain less than 1% of the variance in offending) 19. Lead exposure in childhood may have played a small role in rising and falling crime rates in the USA but it is unlikely to account for the very high percentage of the decline suggested by Nevin 11 and Reyes 5."

Thank you for the link.

The major reason for doubt is that the associations in ecological studies are much stronger (explaining 60–90% of the variation in crime rates) than the weaker relationships in the cohort studies (that explain less than 1% of the variance in offending) 19.

Would you please explain this to me? Seriously. I'm stuck on the difference between "ecological" studies and "cohort" studies.

And with lead being more prevalent than say, mercury in vaccines I would suggest that you can discount vaccinations as a factor too.

There's lead in vaccines? Am I reading that right?

And vaccines don't cause autism.

So I've been told... in fact, by you!

A cohort study is a study looking at an individual group in a particular set (or subset) over a period of time etc e.g. detailing an individual group of rhesus monkeys for 2 years.
An ecological study is looking at the overall population of a particular set without focussing on individuals e.g. detailing all rhesus monkeys over 2 years.
Whilst ecological studies are useful, there's more room for error and to drill down it's more precise to use cohorts (from an observational study perspective anyway).

No, there's no lead in vaccines. But lead is more environmentally prevalent especially if you compare it to the amount of mercury in vaccines which is minuscule.

And I've been told vaccines don't cause autism by the overwhelming scientific consensus.

a reply to: Pardon?

A cohort study is a study looking at an individual group in a particular set (or subset) over a period of time etc e.g. detailing an individual group of rhesus monkeys for 2 years.
An ecological study is looking at the overall population of a particular set without focussing on individuals e.g. detailing all rhesus monkeys over 2 years.
Whilst ecological studies are useful, there's more room for error and to drill down it's more precise to use cohorts (from an observational study perspective anyway).

First, thank you very much for the explanation! Second, let me make sure I'm understanding this correctly...

So in the context of this topic, hypothetically speaking, a cohort study might look at African-American children living in the inner cities specifically, but an ecological study would look at all African-American children living anywhere and everywhere?

And if I do understand that distinction correctly, then I have another question that seems pertinent to this discussion and possibly others...

The study you linked to -- "Did the elimination of lead from petrol reduce crime in the USA in the 1990s?" --

...assesses the evidence for the hypothesis that a decline in all types of crime since the early 1990s in the USA was a consequence of removing lead from petrol between 1975 and 1985.

But that time period would also cover the banning of lead from paint in 1978 (in the USA). If I'm understanding correctly then, an ecological study would include the effects of both the removal of lead from paint and the gasoline without distinction. So would a cohort study differentiate between the two sources? For example, would a cohort study specifically look at lead-paint exposures as well? Or separately?