Speaker 1: Hey, friends, it's Joshuam For this week's SYSK Selects. I've
Speaker 1: chosen what makes Lead So Poisonous for twenty sixteen episode
Speaker 1: that was recorded around the time of the Flint Water crisis,
Speaker 1: which apparently is still going on. Sadly, this episode is
Speaker 1: one of those ones that's filled with science culture, history,
Speaker 1: all that stuff. So I hope you really like it.
Speaker 1: It's a good one.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with
Speaker 1: Charles W Chuck Bryant, and Jerry's to my right. So
Speaker 1: this is the stuff you should know.
Speaker 2: It's right recording in a new pop up restaurant called
Speaker 2: Jerry's Burrito Check.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Jerry's eating a burrito right now, A frozen one.
Speaker 1: I guess right. You didn't make that from scratch fresh
Speaker 1: Jerry frozen burrito's fine with me, though, Yeah, some of them.
Speaker 1: Nothing wrong with any frozen burrito ever created.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there's this. They're very specific, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's not like a fresh burrito, but it's
Speaker 2: its own thing that's still good.
Speaker 1: Right, this should call it like a retete or something
Speaker 1: weird like that something that differentiate it. You know, I
Speaker 1: agree with you, man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but man, sometimes when that reefred bean pops out
Speaker 2: and burns your mouth, yeah, that's just the best.
Speaker 1: You have a hole in your in your on your
Speaker 1: gums for a couple of days. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I'll throw a little cheese on top too, to cool
Speaker 2: it in the oven. No, to melt on top.
Speaker 1: Oh that's an enchilada then, Oh.
Speaker 2: Not really.
Speaker 1: I think the enchilada makes the it's the sauce, right, Yeah, okay, that's.
Speaker 2: What I'll say, swimming in sauce.
Speaker 1: All right, enchilada sauce.
Speaker 2: This may be your best intro yet Oa Chuck.
Speaker 1: We're talking about lead today, that's right. Do you know
Speaker 1: much about the Flint, Michigan lead poisoning scandal that happened
Speaker 1: I should say blemish.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I posted about it on our Facebook call a
Speaker 2: couple of months ago and sort of was a part
Speaker 2: of a lively discussion there. But only from that and
Speaker 2: then this research.
Speaker 1: Yeah, same here. I mean I was aware of it,
Speaker 1: kind of, I didn't understand the details.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But for those of.
Speaker 1: You who don't who don't know about the Flint, Michigan
Speaker 1: water poisoning, but Flint Michigan has faced a lot of
Speaker 1: problems since the auto industry went away, but one of
Speaker 1: them wasn't poor water quality. They actually, the people of
Speaker 1: Flint actually paid i think the highest rate or among
Speaker 1: the highest rates in the country to get their water.
Speaker 1: Their water was pumped from Lake hereon through Detroit, and
Speaker 1: Flint bought their water from Detroit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, get that good, clean Detroit water.
Speaker 1: Right, You know you're in a pickle when you're buying
Speaker 1: water from Detroit and that's the healthy water.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So they're building a new pipeline from Lake Huron that
Speaker 1: goes around Detroit, and Flint said we're going to get
Speaker 1: in on that action. And Detroit said, oh yeah, well
Speaker 1: we're can't linger contract. Rather than pay for a short
Speaker 1: term contract with Detroit, the emergency manager, the basically the
Speaker 1: emergency mayor appointed by the governor himself, said we're just
Speaker 1: going to tap into the Flint River.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Not a good idea, as it turned out.
Speaker 1: No, it's not because in Flint, Michigan, they were, among
Speaker 1: other places, something called Buick City. Buick City was a
Speaker 1: four hundred plus acre car manufacturing plant that made buicks,
Speaker 1: and it really heavily polluted the river. So much so
Speaker 1: that people in Flint, after just a few months of
Speaker 1: drinking this water from the tap, started losing their hair.
Speaker 2: Well right away. They said, this looks and taste awful.
Speaker 1: Right, It's tastes of chlorine. And the reason it tasted
Speaker 1: of chlorin is because there were e Coli break outbreaks
Speaker 1: that they had to like treat the water with chlorine.
Speaker 1: And then it also to some people it smelled like
Speaker 1: sulfury as well. It looked, but people started losing hair,
Speaker 1: started getting rashes. There there was one kid who had
Speaker 1: an autoimmune disease already. He just stopped growing, and it
Speaker 1: was it was bad news. But the people of Flint,
Speaker 1: the Flint government, and the Michigan Environmental Protection Division basically
Speaker 1: said no, we're following all the laws. Everything's fine with
Speaker 1: the water. Just go back to sleep. Flint and Flint
Speaker 1: did something different. A bunch of them taught themselves the
Speaker 1: science of like water and sanitation and the drinking water laws.
Speaker 1: They became basically citizen scientists, and they took it back
Speaker 1: to the Flint government and the state government and said,
Speaker 1: you guys are wrong. This is toxic water and we're
Speaker 1: being poisoned, and you have to do something about it,
Speaker 1: and they finally did well.
Speaker 2: And I think the issue was don't play dumb. We know,
Speaker 2: you know, like why are you making us tell you exactly?
Speaker 1: And they kept that. Apparently the company line was no
Speaker 1: that here's the science here, here the results of the tests.
Speaker 1: But the tests were terrible. And if you want to
Speaker 1: know all about it, there's a really really great article
Speaker 1: on five point thirty eight dot com called what went
Speaker 1: Wrong in Flint, and it just really chronicles everything very well.
Speaker 1: But the big problem with Flint isn't that there was
Speaker 1: chlorine in the water. It was that there was a
Speaker 1: bunch of lead in the water.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the reason why there's a bunch of lead in
Speaker 1: the water is because there's lead pipes going to a
Speaker 1: lot of houses in Flint, and the water that was
Speaker 1: being pumped through those pipes was so corrosive that it
Speaker 1: was bringing a bunch of lead with it and poisoning
Speaker 1: the city of Flint for months.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And the reason people use lead in pipes is
Speaker 2: because it's not corrosive. Corrosive, that's how coros the water was. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: That really says something, it really does, And I guess
Speaker 2: we'll loop back later and talk about the lawsuits and
Speaker 2: all that stuff. Sure that sound good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a great idea, kind of bookend it.
Speaker 1: But let's talk about lead itself, like, what's the problem
Speaker 1: with lead? Where did it come from? And that whole
Speaker 1: idea of using lead pipes is nothing new either, It's
Speaker 1: actually pretty old, to tell you the truth.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, lad Well, the Romans, of course, were the
Speaker 2: first to do almost everything, either Asians or Romans.
Speaker 1: Sure, well, I don't know Africa, that's true. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: basically everybody except except Europe as the migration expanded exactly,
Speaker 1: And don't forget all the innovations going on in meso
Speaker 1: America as well.
Speaker 2: Shout out to anyone who came before us. But it's
Speaker 2: been going on since ancient times. Romans using lead as
Speaker 2: lead piping for sewage draining and carrying water, even stored
Speaker 2: water and containers lined with lead. And in fact, this
Speaker 2: is pretty interesting. I think the English word for plumbing
Speaker 2: and the chemical symbol pb that is led, comes from
Speaker 2: the Latin word plumb bumb. Now plumb bumb is is
Speaker 2: that plumber's crack?
Speaker 1: Oh nice? If it wasn't it is officially now.
Speaker 2: You know, my friend Eddie. His young daughter asked him
Speaker 2: what plumbers crack? What was the other day and he said,
Speaker 2: I said, what did you tell her? And he said, well,
Speaker 2: you know told her what it was. He said, sometimes
Speaker 2: plumbers they bend over a lot because pipes are below you,
Speaker 2: and sometimes their pants sag a little. Then you see
Speaker 2: their butt crack. Yeah, and she went, oh, okay.
Speaker 1: The only thing I take issue with is the use
Speaker 1: of the words.
Speaker 2: Sometimes yeah, right all the times.
Speaker 1: Other than that is a great explanation.
Speaker 2: So the Latin plumb bomb, which means lead.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which that has been mysterious to me for many decades.
Speaker 1: PEB doesn't make any sense, Like why would they call
Speaker 1: it PB?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's peani.
Speaker 1: Lead right, and PB is you'll find it on the
Speaker 1: periodic table. And the reason you'll find it on the
Speaker 1: periodic table is because lead is an element, a heavy metal,
Speaker 1: and it has all sorts of properties that make it
Speaker 1: very desirable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, really unique too, although.
Speaker 1: Super super toxic as well.
Speaker 2: Find Yeah, it's not often you can find something that
Speaker 2: is super malleable and soft but also strong and dense.
Speaker 1: Exactly, which makes lead perfect for water pipes. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: it's also it also resists corrosion, Like you said, so
Speaker 1: you can run water through it, and as long as
Speaker 1: the water is not super bad, the the lead won't rust.
Speaker 1: It will leach lead into the water, but it still
Speaker 1: won't rust, right, right. So it's also not very good
Speaker 1: at conducting electricity, which makes lead very useful for other
Speaker 1: things like soldering electrical connections. The electrical connection will remain
Speaker 1: the thing that transmits the current, the lead won't. It's
Speaker 1: pretty awesome.
Speaker 2: Yeah, did you say soldier solder? Solder? Yeah, never heard
Speaker 2: it pronounce that way.
Speaker 1: How do you say it, solder solder? You gotta say
Speaker 1: that l.
Speaker 2: I think the el silent unless it's regional.
Speaker 1: Maybe regional regional to my brain, I think solder.
Speaker 2: You said that because you're from Toedo.
Speaker 1: Right. So the use of the use of leg goes
Speaker 1: back even before the Romans. Actually, but it first appeared
Speaker 1: mostly in art like lead paint.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it wasn't like it They described in the articles
Speaker 2: a novelty, and it was apparently it makes colors more
Speaker 2: vibrant and it's less corrosive, which is why you still,
Speaker 2: even in the United States, see lead paint on street
Speaker 2: signs because it's less corrosive. Oh really, Yeah, that's what
Speaker 2: they say. It's still used on signs.
Speaker 1: Supposedly up until as recently as the nineties, and it
Speaker 1: may still be going on depending on the country that
Speaker 1: it's produced.
Speaker 2: In.
Speaker 1: The ink on the outside of a plastic bread bag
Speaker 1: frequently has lead in it, or it used to, really,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't a problem unless the somebody kept the
Speaker 1: bread bag and turned it inside out to store food in.
Speaker 1: Then that food leached the lead out of the ink.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, it was actually like a big problem for
Speaker 1: a while.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm not sure that it is anymore. I couldn't
Speaker 1: find anything recent. The most recent thing I saw was
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one saying that, yeah, it still happens, right.
Speaker 2: Well, it's less expensive as a paint, which is another reason,
Speaker 2: and the colors are more vivid apparently. But this hasn't
Speaker 2: been a problem in the US for a while. But
Speaker 2: in China they still use a lot of lead in paint,
Speaker 2: and in two thousand and seven there were massive recalls
Speaker 2: for everything from Dora the Explorer toys to Sesame Street
Speaker 2: toys due to the fact that they had lead paint
Speaker 2: on them and little kids put everything in their mouths,
Speaker 2: including their toys because they're big dummies and they end
Speaker 2: up eating lead, which is a big problem. So there
Speaker 2: was a massive recall of Chinese products in nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: seven because of this.
Speaker 1: No, it was two thousand and seven.
Speaker 2: What I say, ninety seven?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're hearkening back even further to the Urban Dance
Speaker 1: Squad days.
Speaker 2: Yeah, did you look them up?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Oh, man, you're missing out.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's true.
Speaker 2: Really, Yeah, why just because I like them now?
Speaker 1: I remember them vaguely. Oh yeah, it wasn't like i'd
Speaker 1: never heard of the Urban Dance Squad. No, you have
Speaker 1: good taste of music.
Speaker 2: Mental flows for the globe. Great, like a legitimately great album.
Speaker 1: Of all right, I'll look it up. I'll look it up.
Speaker 2: It's just weird that you say. You think you're not
Speaker 2: missing out?
Speaker 1: No, No, because I mean again, I remember Urban Dance
Speaker 1: Squad for some reason. I put them in line with
Speaker 1: like Spin Doctors in three eleven.
Speaker 2: No, No, well, you know what I mean. Three eleven
Speaker 2: could be slightly compared because they were kind of a
Speaker 2: rock rap group, but they were Dutch. Urban Dance Squad
Speaker 2: was yeah, oh okay, so that makes them cool in here.
Speaker 1: Right, automatically. Yeah, somebody who just picked this up is like,
Speaker 1: what are they talking about?
Speaker 2: I know Enchilada's Urban Dance Squad. So lead paint in
Speaker 2: the United States is well, it's still an issue in
Speaker 2: some ways because older houses still have it. But yeah,
Speaker 2: as of nineteen seventy eight, they said no more, get
Speaker 2: the light out. That's right, and they define it as
Speaker 2: any paint or surface coating that contains lead equal or
Speaker 2: exceeding one milligram per square centimeter.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So basically in nineteen seventy eight, it said, if
Speaker 1: you're going to manufacture something for somebody's home that people
Speaker 1: are generally going to come in contact with, most people
Speaker 1: don't come in contact with street signs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the deal, right.
Speaker 1: Then you can't have lead in it. But again, any
Speaker 1: house built pre nineteen seventy eight, and there's plenty of
Speaker 1: them out there, very likely has lead paint in it.
Speaker 1: It also probably has lead pipes. Yeah, and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of lead around us all over the place in
Speaker 1: places you wouldn't even think, like there's lead and leaded
Speaker 1: glass like a glass, no, really like a glass you
Speaker 1: like you might be using, you conceivably could be drinking
Speaker 1: lead out of it.
Speaker 2: Oh, but you don't drink out of leaded glass.
Speaker 1: Sure. Yeah. They use it to make regular plain old
Speaker 1: dumb glass in a more like crystal. It gives it
Speaker 1: like a ping when when you tap it. It makes
Speaker 1: it the reflection a lot sharper. It also lowers the
Speaker 1: melting point, so you know, if you put it in the oven,
Speaker 1: it doesn't like right, but it's conceivably bad for you.
Speaker 2: You know, who was on it long before the United
Speaker 2: States government. Federal government was the city of Baltimore. In
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty one, they banned lead pigment for interior paint,
Speaker 2: very smart for their housing. And since the fifties it
Speaker 2: had kind of been phased out in different parts of
Speaker 2: the country. And then in nineteen seventy one we finally
Speaker 2: got the Federal Lead Poisoning Prevention Act, and then it
Speaker 2: took seven years after that to fully ban the paint
Speaker 2: the paint lead paint.
Speaker 1: Right. There's another big source of lead that was all
Speaker 1: over the place in the twentieth century, and that was
Speaker 1: in gasoline in cars. There was an additive in gasoline
Speaker 1: that was added to gasoline called tetra ethyl lead, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you remember that, like you know, up with unleaded
Speaker 2: or fully leaded right.
Speaker 1: And the reason that they added lead to gas was
Speaker 1: because there was a problem called knocking right where in
Speaker 1: a high performance engine, when the gas entered the ignition chamber,
Speaker 1: the combustion chamber, it may just get so amped up
Speaker 1: that it would combust, it would ignite before it was
Speaker 1: supposed to, and this would basically disrupt the movement of
Speaker 1: the pistons. Right when they did that, they knocked, they pinged,
Speaker 1: it did all sorts of bad stuff. The lead kept
Speaker 1: the gas from combusting or igniting before it was meant to,
Speaker 1: so it was a pretty great additive. The thing is,
Speaker 1: we already knew that lead was not good for you
Speaker 1: at the time, but we added it to gas anyway.
Speaker 1: And then it was finally phased out in the seventies.
Speaker 1: Starting in the seventies, i should say, because we started
Speaker 1: adding catalytic converters to our cars.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that helped that, and just our the process of
Speaker 2: the chemical process of refining petroleum just advanced, so we
Speaker 2: no longer needed it.
Speaker 1: Right, So it wasn't just crummy gas. It was pretty
Speaker 1: good gas. It didn't need lead. Yeah, if you run
Speaker 1: leaded gas through a catalytic converter. It totally messes it up.
Speaker 1: And the catalytic converters there to prevent emission, so you
Speaker 1: take lead out of gas. The problem we found is
Speaker 1: that during these few decades from like the twenties till
Speaker 1: actually nineteen ninety six was the last year you could
Speaker 1: have lead in your gas in the United States. Yeah,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six. During this period, basically all the cars
Speaker 1: on the road were spewing lead lead vapors into the
Speaker 1: atmosphere that would just go into the air and then
Speaker 1: come back into the ground and settle in the soil
Speaker 1: and water and your face.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I had. I used leaded gas in my I
Speaker 2: had to put it in my early VW Beetles that
Speaker 2: I drove.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I had a couple of.
Speaker 2: Old you know, vintage, well vintage. They bought them new.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah. My mom she bought a sixty eight
Speaker 2: beetle brand new. Wow. That's when I drove when I
Speaker 2: turned sixteen.
Speaker 1: Wow, I think it was still around huh yeah, yeah. Nice.
Speaker 2: You know, those things they never die if you take
Speaker 2: care of them.
Speaker 1: Did you like ever use duct tape or anything like
Speaker 1: that on it?
Speaker 2: No, but I did. Funny, you mentioned I had a
Speaker 2: whole sizable hole in the rear floorboard. Yeah. That My
Speaker 2: friends call it the Flintstones car because you could, like
Speaker 2: you put your feet down and run.
Speaker 1: So I did have a board, a running board, No,
Speaker 1: just a board over the hole, but I mean you
Speaker 1: could remove the board and run, Yeah, while you were
Speaker 1: sitting in the back seat.
Speaker 2: That's right, great car.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Lead has been added to cosmetics over the years, jewelry, pottery,
Speaker 2: and then today because everyone knows let is so such
Speaker 2: a jerk. One of the only places you're going to
Speaker 2: find it in the US at least is in your
Speaker 2: car battery.
Speaker 1: Your car, yeah, your car battery, or your laptop.
Speaker 2: Actually, yeah, which is why it's really important to recycle
Speaker 2: that car battery, don't or that laptop. Don't throw it
Speaker 2: in the woods. Yeah, responsibly recycle your electronics and batteries.
Speaker 1: Yeah. If there's one thing that we've learned since the
Speaker 1: twentieth century is that lead has some serious staying power,
Speaker 1: and it has a very pesky tendency to get out
Speaker 1: of wherever we put it, right. Yeah, and yeah, if
Speaker 1: you put it in just a regular landfill that's not
Speaker 1: designed to accept things like lead, it'll just leach into
Speaker 1: the ground water, and same thing with your e waste
Speaker 1: your laptops, And the reason that they're used in laptops
Speaker 1: is because the lead actually protects you from the radiation
Speaker 1: that would shoot out of your laptop screen into your face. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if it weren't for the toxic lead in there.
Speaker 2: That's right, glass cathode ray tubes like you find in
Speaker 2: your computer laptop screen.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know about your laptop or your computer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, your monitor, Yeah, I'll bet there's but you should
Speaker 1: lead in there.
Speaker 2: You should responsibly recycle your laptop too, for sure reasons.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know you did a.
Speaker 2: What was it called electronics recycling?
Speaker 1: Yeah? What was it? Like? Just a thought or I
Speaker 1: have no idea what you're talking about. You did a
Speaker 1: video series where you like, now sure deep thoughts.
Speaker 2: No, I can't even remember I created the series.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you did one on e recycling.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but nobody cared or watch.
Speaker 1: So the world was not saved.
Speaker 2: Everyone said, Chuck quit doing it all right, Well, let's
Speaker 2: take a break. I'm gonna go cry a teer for
Speaker 2: a man. What was the name of that series?
Speaker 1: I don't know. We'll go get forties and pour them
Speaker 1: out on the Curb Forum.
Speaker 2: All right, we'll be back in a second. All right, Josh,
Speaker 2: we've talked a lot about lead so far and Enchiladas
Speaker 2: rock bands. Yeah, lead comes from the earth, though, let's
Speaker 2: let's take it underground.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not actually, I mean, it is naturally occurring,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't naturally occur in its pure form.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you don't just like dig down and you're like, hey,
Speaker 2: there's a big hunk of lead, right, let me pull
Speaker 2: it out.
Speaker 1: Instead, lead atoms have I think four unpaired electrons maybe
Speaker 1: in its outer shell. So it likes to form connections
Speaker 1: with other things. So when you find lead in the earth,
Speaker 1: you're gonna find it in the form of an oxide
Speaker 1: or a sulfide or something like that. Frequently it's combined
Speaker 1: with silver, and so that means it has to be separated.
Speaker 1: And even the Romans back in the day, which by
Speaker 1: the way, these Roman lead pipes that they used for
Speaker 1: baths and for sanitation and stuff still intact today.
Speaker 2: You can still dig those up and beat people with them.
Speaker 1: You could, they're so strong. That's the other place you'll
Speaker 1: find a lead pipe is in the hand of some
Speaker 1: dude coming at you.
Speaker 2: Yea or a game of clue.
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, that's right. It was bent. Even the guy
Speaker 1: was hit so hard with it. Yeah, kernel mustard. He
Speaker 1: was not to be trusted.
Speaker 2: He was not. But yes, the Romans they had a
Speaker 2: pretty ingenus man, they were so smart. They had a
Speaker 2: pretty ingenious process called coupilation. The extent of that is
Speaker 2: basically the idea is that some precious metals, I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: precious metals, All precious metals won't oxidize, but dumb metals will.
Speaker 2: So if you heat that junk up, it's going to separate.
Speaker 1: Right, And they used it mostly to separate from silver.
Speaker 1: But these days we get most of our lead from
Speaker 1: something called galena, where a lead sulfide is found, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and our process is sort of similar. It is
Speaker 2: very like using heat to separate things.
Speaker 1: And this actually very much resembles Do you remember our
Speaker 1: waste gasification episode?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I could remember which one this evoked.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was that one, because the process is very similar.
Speaker 1: So you take some lead sulfide and you heat it
Speaker 1: up in the air, so there's the presence of oxygen
Speaker 1: and it converts into lead oxide and sulfur dioxide, right,
Speaker 1: So you separate them out a little bit. Then you
Speaker 1: take that lead oxide and you add carbon coke and
Speaker 1: you again mix it with some air and as that happens,
Speaker 1: the air combines with the oxide into car. No, the
Speaker 1: carbon combines with the air and becomes carbon dioxide takes
Speaker 1: all of the oxygen molecules from the lead atoms. So
Speaker 1: the lead, basically what amounts of pure lead, becomes molten
Speaker 1: and goes down to the bottom of the furnace and
Speaker 1: carbon dioxide goes out into the atmosphere. It sounds like
Speaker 1: a very safe process basically creating molten lead and carbon dioxide.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's called roasting and smelting. And once that lead
Speaker 2: sinks cools down, it's gonna it's called a pig. It's
Speaker 2: just a big mesa lead basically.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like pig iron.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's delicious. And then you have slag, which
Speaker 2: is the non metallic byproduct of the smelting process. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and you siphon and cool that down and it's waste product.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: And like I said, recycling your car battery is important
Speaker 2: because there's also a process called secondary extraction where they
Speaker 2: get that lead out of your battery. You can keep
Speaker 2: using it exactly.
Speaker 1: That's the other good thing about lead It is extremely
Speaker 1: reusable because again, it has a lot of staying power.
Speaker 1: So you're not going to use lead up right, you know,
Speaker 1: which means you want to reuse it. Yes, we should
Speaker 1: get to the point where we don't need to mine
Speaker 1: any more lead or process any more lead. Just reuse
Speaker 1: the lead we've got, yeah, or maybe find some great
Speaker 1: substitute that isn't so toxic.
Speaker 2: You know, you melt down those tiny Civil war figurines.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, those guys?
Speaker 2: Are those lead?
Speaker 1: Sure?
Speaker 2: Okay I thought they were. Yeah, So handling and painting
Speaker 2: those with lead paint it's dangerous.
Speaker 1: Right, yes, yes, yes it is.
Speaker 2: Is that why we're losing so many war figurine buffs?
Speaker 2: I think so at an alarming rate.
Speaker 1: That's why they all have like spittle and drool around
Speaker 1: the corners of their mouths and like zone out while
Speaker 1: they're painting.
Speaker 2: Well, there's other reasons for that, but sure it contributes.
Speaker 1: So okay, Chuck, you mentioned or we mentioned lead refining
Speaker 1: and processing, smelting, roasting, that kind of stuff, right, that
Speaker 1: does create emissions of not just carbon dioxide but also
Speaker 1: lead vapor, which is not good stuff, and you want
Speaker 1: to control that kind of stuff, but it is emitted,
Speaker 1: and it used to be. Well, these days, lead emissions
Speaker 1: from refining and processing are actually the number one source
Speaker 1: of lead vapor emissions in the environment. Right but forty yeah,
Speaker 1: about forty years ago, forty five years ago, that was
Speaker 1: not the case. The case was all those cars driving
Speaker 1: around on the streets emitting lead vapor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you used to account for about seventy eight percent
Speaker 2: if it came from your automobile, and since the phasing
Speaker 2: out and reversal, we know have fifty two percent coming
Speaker 2: from the processing. And what is it down to road sources?
Speaker 2: It's thirteen thirteen percent fuel combustion.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not bad, No, not bad. Still again, you basically
Speaker 1: wanted it like zero. As we're finding, like the as
Speaker 1: we'll see that that lead exposure in any amount is
Speaker 1: not good and it gets it goes from not good
Speaker 1: to really bad very quickly. Apparently.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, let us know good. We mentioned
Speaker 2: kids chewing on something with lead pain is not good.
Speaker 2: If you're redoing your house and it's pre nineteen seventy eight,
Speaker 2: you want to get a piece tested. You can't just
Speaker 2: be like let me sand off, No, the paint on
Speaker 2: this molding.
Speaker 1: No, because again, even if you think you've cleaned it up,
Speaker 1: there's still in there's lead right there, buddy. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: you're not going to get rid of it. Apparently, Also,
Speaker 1: open and closing your windows in a pre nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: eight house can create lead dust.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you're lucky enough to be able to open
Speaker 2: your windows. Sure that's a point minor sealed shut.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or a nail chot or what have you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, just from years of painting basically with probably.
Speaker 1: Lead paint guaranteed.
Speaker 2: No, it's not. Actually we had it tested, Oh did you? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I mean it wasn't one hundred percent lead paint, but.
Speaker 1: You had to test it like all the way through, like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, But what I'm saying is pre nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy eight, it's not like the only paint that was used.
Speaker 2: I know you're saying that's why you get it tested, right,
Speaker 2: But did.
Speaker 1: You get like all the layers underneath tested well for
Speaker 1: any Yeah? Okay, that was my all the layers sound effect.
Speaker 2: Like we hired a lead person.
Speaker 1: I gotcha. Good good good. That makes me feel better. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And if you want to if there is lead and
Speaker 2: you want to get the lead out. You're going to
Speaker 2: have to hire someone that knows what they're doing, and
Speaker 2: oh yeah, they'll come in with their hazmat suits on
Speaker 2: to do so.
Speaker 1: Right. So you can also get it from plumbing, although
Speaker 1: apparently with lead plumbing it's not quite as much of
Speaker 1: a thread as you would think. You know, doesn't that
Speaker 1: make you just want to like never drink water again?
Speaker 1: Knowing that you have lead pipes in your house. You
Speaker 1: shouldn't necessarily be worried because over the years, water sanitation
Speaker 1: experts have figured out that if you have good water
Speaker 1: that's non corrosive, it actually is not only non corrosive,
Speaker 1: the water will leave behind a protective coating that coats
Speaker 1: the inside of the pipes that it runs through. Over
Speaker 1: the lead, Yes, nice, over whatever it is, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it's going to leave a protective coat of other substances
Speaker 1: that aren't toxic. It's going to form a barrier for
Speaker 1: later water and the pipes. Right, And so you shouldn't
Speaker 1: necessarily be freaked out if you have lead pipes coming
Speaker 1: to your house, although I mean, you got the money,
Speaker 1: there's definitely worse things you could spend your money on
Speaker 1: than replacing those pipes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know move to what copper PBC.
Speaker 1: Well, copper can be a problem as well. There's actually
Speaker 1: a copper lead rule that dictates how non corrosive city's
Speaker 1: water has to be right to follow this rule, and
Speaker 1: it's protecting not just against lead but copper. You don't
Speaker 1: really want copper either, although it's not nearly as bad
Speaker 1: for you as lead.
Speaker 2: Interesting, So, if you have lead in your system, I mean,
Speaker 2: it goes, it goes into your blood stream, doesn't matter
Speaker 2: how it gets in there. If you inhale it, it'll
Speaker 2: be absorbed through the capillaries and the lungs into the blood.
Speaker 2: Or if you if you lick it, touch it, if
Speaker 2: you lick it, yeah, it's gonna find its way into
Speaker 2: your blood and you can. I mean it's really easy
Speaker 2: to find out if you have lead in your blood.
Speaker 2: You just get a blood test. I don't know why
Speaker 2: they would do this other test. I don't either, And
Speaker 2: not just a blood test unless it's like prohibitively expensive
Speaker 2: or something.
Speaker 1: So yeah, the other test is called the zinc protoporphyn test,
Speaker 1: and that's a byprop of red blood cells as they
Speaker 1: break down in the presence of lead. So rather than
Speaker 1: directly testing and it's not finding lead either. You're like
Speaker 1: going around to see excuse me, lead, I want to
Speaker 1: see if your shadowy is detectable.
Speaker 2: And don't get it.
Speaker 1: It makes zero sense because you.
Speaker 2: Got to take your blood for that too. Write sure,
Speaker 2: and it's not as accurate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. But the lead blood
Speaker 1: test is so easy that companies like three AM and
Speaker 1: plenty of others sell home lead blood tests.
Speaker 2: Oh that's nice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is nice unless you're the parent who is
Speaker 1: freaked out giving one to your kid.
Speaker 2: Well, that's true. You know, anything over equal to or
Speaker 2: greater than five micrograms per desolet is bad if you're
Speaker 2: a kid. If you're an adult, you can tolerate a
Speaker 2: little bit more, but it's still distressing.
Speaker 1: Right, And that's how it's expressed. So a microgram to
Speaker 1: a desolader, which is what a tenth of a leader, right,
Speaker 1: and so five is not good. Ten programs in a
Speaker 1: destin leader is where demonstrable like behavioral and cognitive problems
Speaker 1: start to develop.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's serious trouble.
Speaker 1: But the EPA has said that there's quote no demonstrated
Speaker 1: safe concentration of lead and blood, like you shouldn't have
Speaker 1: any in it. Right.
Speaker 2: The problem is it's nothing but toxic to humans. There
Speaker 2: is no benefit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we'll talk about it in just a second.
Speaker 1: But the problem with lead is that we're figuring out
Speaker 1: that we shouldn't be exposed to it at all, while
Speaker 1: we're also simultaneously figuring out that we have washed our
Speaker 1: planet in it. Yeah, from the last like couple hundred years.
Speaker 2: Basically, Yeah, you want to take a break, Yeah, all right,
Speaker 2: we'll come back and we'll talk about all kinds of
Speaker 2: fun stuff. All right, So before I left it, Tea
Speaker 2: is that there is no function for lead in the body.
Speaker 2: It is nothing but toxic, and it the way it
Speaker 2: behaves in your body in a negative way is really
Speaker 2: interesting your body. And this happens a lot if youel
Speaker 2: like we covered the body mistaking something for something else
Speaker 2: quite a bit. Yeah, there should be a word for.
Speaker 1: That case of mistaken identity.
Speaker 2: I guess that's it. But the body treats lead like calcium,
Speaker 2: So it's going to go where calcium goes in the body,
Speaker 2: including your bones, which is super scary.
Speaker 1: Yeah, lead settles in very comfortably into calcium receptors and
Speaker 1: it's not just bones, like that's what I always think
Speaker 1: of when I think of calcium, like, well, you need
Speaker 1: calcium because your bones will break, or you get rickets
Speaker 1: if you don't have it or whatever. But calcium comes
Speaker 1: in handy throughout your whole body. And one of the
Speaker 1: big places that shows up is in calcium ions in
Speaker 1: your neuronal activity. Right, Yeah, So when your neurons fire,
Speaker 1: one of the ways that they fire is because the
Speaker 1: neurons or the calcium ions get them all excited and
Speaker 1: then boom, your neurons is fired. If lead is in
Speaker 1: that calcium ion channel instead of calcium, that boo doesn't happen,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, your neurons aren't firing as
Speaker 1: much as they would if the lead wasn't present. And
Speaker 1: now we have a big problem here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's especially big problem with children because children's
Speaker 2: little brains are you know, we talked about plasticity before.
Speaker 2: They're constantly forming these new neural connections, and any kind
Speaker 2: of lead and the mistaken for calcium is going to
Speaker 2: disrupt those connections. And so your child is literally their
Speaker 2: brain isn't going to advance like it should.
Speaker 1: Right exactly. Intellectually, the apparently emotional centers like the amygdala
Speaker 1: can suffer. Yeah, it's been found to produce hyperactivity, antisocial behavior,
Speaker 1: attention deficit disorder, all sorts of problems from the presence
Speaker 1: of lead, right, And like you said, it's worse for
Speaker 1: kids because their brains are still developing and forming. It's
Speaker 1: bad for anybody, but it's definitely worse for kids. And
Speaker 1: the other way that it affects kids is that so
Speaker 1: the regions of their brains aren't developing correctly. But then simultaneously,
Speaker 1: calcium is also important in the formation of myelin, which
Speaker 1: is that protective sheath around the synapses between neurons. So
Speaker 1: that's kind of like flimsy, which means that the neurons
Speaker 1: aren't firing efficiently. So not only do you have brain
Speaker 1: regions affected, but the communication between brain regions are affected
Speaker 1: too in little kids. And the upshot is is that
Speaker 1: it promotes all sorts of problems with cognitive and emotional
Speaker 1: and behavioral development in children.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and like literally lower IQ scores.
Speaker 1: And we should say that's just like the most prominent,
Speaker 1: horrifying effective lead. There's a whole laundry list of other
Speaker 1: things that can happen to you, like kidney failure, pain
Speaker 1: in your bones and joints from all that lead settling
Speaker 1: into where the calcium is supposed to go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how about a decreased sex drive and sterility and
Speaker 2: infertility for both men and women? What else? Diarrhea, lack
Speaker 2: of appetite, constipation.
Speaker 1: I think diarrhea is the least of your worries. If
Speaker 1: you have a life blood.
Speaker 2: High blood pressure, enlarged heart. It affects virtually every system
Speaker 2: in your body basically.
Speaker 1: And the reason why again is because it mimics or
Speaker 1: it takes the place of calcium. And calcium is incredibly vital.
Speaker 1: It's an extremely important mineral that you need found throughout
Speaker 1: your body. And if a leg goes in is like ooh,
Speaker 1: I'm here instead. Yeah, it's not going to do the
Speaker 1: stuff that the calcium is supposed to do, leading to
Speaker 1: all this cascade of horrific problems.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And one of the other scary things is that
Speaker 2: they unless you have acute lead poisoning, you may not know,
Speaker 2: In fact, you probably won't know, yeah, that you're being
Speaker 2: slowly poisoned, and you might just think, oh, I have
Speaker 2: diarrhea and I don't feel like having sex much anymore, right,
Speaker 2: And you might be slowly getting lead poisoning.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you you just blame that on too many
Speaker 1: buffalo wings. But boom, it's lead poison.
Speaker 2: Take scare of both. Sure you remember being a kid
Speaker 2: and like lead pencils, Like it was a big scare,
Speaker 2: Like you know you got lead poisoning if you got
Speaker 2: poked with a pencil.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember that, But then I also remember learning
Speaker 1: that it's actually graphite used in pencils.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we should have by our age, you should have
Speaker 2: David Reese on Oh yeah, how to sharpen a pencil? Man,
Speaker 2: he can school you on some pencils.
Speaker 1: He wrote a whole book on it, literally wrote the
Speaker 1: book on pencil sharpening.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I still have let or I guess, graphite somewhere
Speaker 2: in my hand from when I was jabbed very deep
Speaker 2: with a pencil that broke off. Wow, and it never
Speaker 2: left and there's still just looks like a little black freckle.
Speaker 1: It's like you're in prison and got shanked.
Speaker 2: I know, I can't find where it is shived.
Speaker 1: I see it's right there.
Speaker 2: No, this is scratch good. Try.
Speaker 1: So we've talked about all the cognitive problems that can
Speaker 1: come about in behavioral and emotional This orders that can
Speaker 1: develop from lead. And this is like study after study
Speaker 1: after study has found this. It's one of the big
Speaker 1: reasons why there have been so many restrictions placed on
Speaker 1: lead exposure. And recently some people have some researchers, including
Speaker 1: a couple well, an economist I believe, and an epidemiologist
Speaker 1: have kind of taken that idea that lead can create
Speaker 1: all of these behavioral problems and any social behavioral problems
Speaker 1: and extrapolated to this idea that there is a big
Speaker 1: rise in the crime rate in the United States and
Speaker 1: actually around the world that followed about twenty years the
Speaker 1: same trajectory of the use of lead and gasoline.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was super interesting article, very controversial, like when
Speaker 2: it came well it still is, sure, but yeah, it's
Speaker 2: very interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's called lead America's Real Criminal Element. It was
Speaker 1: in Mother Jones. It was written by Kevin Drum. He's
Speaker 1: one of the all time greats working today. And I
Speaker 1: think I've mentioned it before, but I strongly encourage anybody
Speaker 1: it doesn't even matter if lead's the most boring thing
Speaker 1: in the world to you go read this article. You
Speaker 1: will just be riveted by it. And Kevin Drum does
Speaker 1: a lot of he does a very good job of
Speaker 1: keeping his extrapolations down as low as possible, although anybody
Speaker 1: can see by the evidence that he lays out that
Speaker 1: this is it's pretty clear that lead is some sort
Speaker 1: of culprit in this, and it's been shot down in
Speaker 1: that there's this idea that the science isn't settled. I
Speaker 1: suspect that it's the same mechanisms that force with climate denial, Like, oh,
Speaker 1: unsettled science doesn't prove anything. If you look at all
Speaker 1: the studies associated with this, the correlation between lead use
Speaker 1: and gasoline and therefore led emissions in cars and criminal
Speaker 1: activity and its decline again, it just follows it like
Speaker 1: twenty years after. And the whole idea is that when
Speaker 1: we started emitting led into the atmosphere, kids started suffering
Speaker 1: these cognitive and antisocial behaviors. And then about twenty years
Speaker 1: after these kids were born, they started actually carrying out
Speaker 1: criminal activity, and we saw a tremendous rise and everything
Speaker 1: from like murder to rape, to muggings to everything. And
Speaker 1: the article is too long to really go into detail. Again,
Speaker 1: just i'd strongly urge anybody to go read it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the the backlash that I've seen on the article
Speaker 2: wasn't to me like it was all from scientists mainly. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I read a few of them. They weren't poopooing the notion.
Speaker 2: They said, what this means is it bears a lot
Speaker 2: more investigation, but as much as you want. If you
Speaker 2: can't replicate it, it's still possible confirmation bias or just
Speaker 2: sure correlation and not causation, could be a host of
Speaker 2: other issues into that.
Speaker 1: It could be. And Kevin Jrum makes the same point.
Speaker 1: He's like, there's also a rise in the use of
Speaker 1: vinyl albums that followed roughly the same trajectory as well.
Speaker 1: But yeah, you know, of course it needs more study
Speaker 1: for sure.
Speaker 2: Well this is this one scientist said, what you really
Speaker 2: need to do is follow what he calls a cohort study,
Speaker 2: when you actually follow individuals right along a long timeline. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's just a tough study. It's it bears a lot
Speaker 2: of to prove something like this just takes a lot
Speaker 2: more data than they have.
Speaker 1: Right, And I think the guy you're referencing is Scott Firestone, who.
Speaker 2: Is Yeah, that was a good artist who.
Speaker 1: Wrote on the Discover magazine blog and you know he
Speaker 1: gives kudos to Drum, who definitely deserves it for basically
Speaker 1: saying every time he says, you know it's it's it's
Speaker 1: so obvious, you'd have to be just you know, have
Speaker 1: your head in the sand to deny this. He does
Speaker 1: say that yes, speaking scientifically, it does require more study.
Speaker 2: Super interesting though, because the crime and Drum followed it
Speaker 2: all over the world. He didn't just go to the
Speaker 2: United States, and he saw the same thing in Canada
Speaker 2: and Australia and Great Britain. And the good news is
Speaker 2: if that is the case, then we should see crime dropping.
Speaker 1: Well we have forever. Yeah, But the problem is is
Speaker 1: that it also should get us to basically mitigate the
Speaker 1: lead that is around, like in the soil and in
Speaker 1: the water and everywhere in people's houses. And the dollar
Speaker 1: amounts that he estimates it would cost are pretty prohibitive
Speaker 1: at least as far as like the public will goes
Speaker 1: from right now. But who knows. I mean, if enough
Speaker 1: science is done on it, and you get the scientific
Speaker 1: community vocally speaking about this, then maybe the public will
Speaker 1: will change.
Speaker 2: Yeah. If you do have lead poisoning, you can get
Speaker 2: on meds. There's a prescription called Susimer s U C
Speaker 2: C I M E R.
Speaker 1: That was beautiful.
Speaker 2: Uh, it's that or Suckerer. I like how you said
Speaker 2: they can reduce blood lead. There of course always side
Speaker 2: effects with every medication. And if you work, if you've
Speaker 2: like if there's been a disaster and you get toxic
Speaker 2: lead in your body very quickly, right, they can use
Speaker 2: something called uh Kelson collation collation therapy. Uh. And that's
Speaker 2: when they use a collating agent. I'm not even going
Speaker 2: to try. That's called E T A.
Speaker 1: I'm going to try it. Okay, ethyl lenidiamina tetricetic acid.
Speaker 2: Hey, not bad if you like super quick.
Speaker 1: I missed the last A. That's just a few letters
Speaker 1: off from super califragilistic XP.
Speaker 2: It looks like the alphabet when it's on paper. But uh,
Speaker 2: we'll call it E D T A. And that's when
Speaker 2: it's infused into the bloodstream and actually binds basically says
Speaker 2: lead you're coming with me through the kidney out of
Speaker 2: your body.
Speaker 1: Right. But they use that when it's just an acute
Speaker 1: toxic dose that that a person's been exposed to, if
Speaker 1: a kid's been found to be poisoned with lead. Actually,
Speaker 1: from what I read, one of the best treatments that
Speaker 1: they'll carry out there. There'll be other stuff too, depending
Speaker 1: on how bad it is, but a really good nutritious diet,
Speaker 1: getting the kid foods that are high in things like
Speaker 1: calcium and high in things like vitamin C that help
Speaker 1: the body absorb calcium so that they can go displace
Speaker 1: lead in the body. Because if you got lead and
Speaker 1: you got calcium fighting for the for the same place,
Speaker 1: if you can get the calcium in there, it's going
Speaker 1: to displace the lead and then hopefully leave the body
Speaker 1: like I'm going home.
Speaker 2: That's gotta be hard on the kidney.
Speaker 1: So I don't know, you, Yeah, I think if you
Speaker 1: have an acute lead poisoning or a serious lead poisoning,
Speaker 1: it's it's not good. But yeah, of course it'd be
Speaker 1: hard on the kidneys because one of the things is
Speaker 1: kidney fit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and anemia exactly. If lead is Lead is definitely
Speaker 2: invariably in the ground and the groundwater and in the
Speaker 2: soil around us. And that's a problem because it sort
Speaker 2: of works this way up the food chain in a
Speaker 2: weird way because what you have are these tiny organisms
Speaker 2: it gets in their body, like plankton and microscopic plants
Speaker 2: and they die, and then other things eat that their waste, right,
Speaker 2: and then it just sort of like bigger animals come
Speaker 2: along and keep eating these things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not just humans that suffer from lead toxicity,
Speaker 1: other animals too, even the small ones.
Speaker 2: So should we talk about these Flint lawsuits a little? Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then enchilattis and that will fully yep, well non toxicatus.
Speaker 1: I guess it depends on who manufactured it.
Speaker 2: So I did some reading on the lawsuits. Right now,
Speaker 2: there's more than a dozen and probably growing. I'm sure
Speaker 2: a few of them are class action suits on behalf
Speaker 2: of tens of thousands of Flint residents. And you know,
Speaker 2: attorneys always look their chops when they hear stuff like this.
Speaker 2: But there's some concerns. One is that the state of
Speaker 2: Michigan is, like the city is broke, so don't even bother.
Speaker 2: The state of Michigan may be an route to go
Speaker 2: if you want to get a lot of money, but
Speaker 2: then they say that'll just get pack passed along to
Speaker 2: the taxpayer. And a lot of experts in the legal
Speaker 2: world say that compensation is unlikely to begin with as
Speaker 2: far as money goes, because of something couple of things.
Speaker 2: One thing called sovereign immunity, which basically means the government
Speaker 2: can say, you know, giving water to the citizens is
Speaker 2: a core government function, so we're shielded legally from liability
Speaker 2: for doing that improperly, so like you can't sue us,
Speaker 2: we're trying to give you water. And the other thing
Speaker 2: is specific causation has to be proved. So not only
Speaker 2: do you have to prove that the lead came from
Speaker 2: that water and not like the lead pipes in your
Speaker 2: house or other like the lead paint in your wall,
Speaker 2: maybe it has to come specifically from that Flint River water.
Speaker 2: And you also have to prove that that directly led
Speaker 2: to the problem that your kid is having, and not
Speaker 2: you know, other things.
Speaker 1: Well, one of the things I read was that it's
Speaker 1: very possible that the lead came from the pipes in
Speaker 1: those people's houses, but that it's still on the provider
Speaker 1: of the water. Because they were supposed to be following
Speaker 1: corrosion protection techniques that they lied about following, they weren't
Speaker 1: following them, so it got rid of that protective coating
Speaker 1: that had been on the lead pipes before and was
Speaker 1: bringing all that lead into people's homes directly. So it
Speaker 1: may have been led from the people's homes, but it
Speaker 1: was the corrosive nature of the terrible drinking water that
Speaker 1: was being pumped through those that caused that lead to
Speaker 1: be brought into the people's homes. And then again, on
Speaker 1: top of it, the government was lying about using the
Speaker 1: techniques that they were supposed to be using to prevent
Speaker 1: that from happening. So now that they've switched back over
Speaker 1: to Detroit water, it's going to take a while for
Speaker 1: that protective film to develop on the pipes again. Right, So,
Speaker 1: even now that the different water is coming through, it's
Speaker 1: still lousy with lead. And the sad thing is that
Speaker 1: some people in Flint are too poor to do anything
Speaker 1: about it. They still need water, so they're still drinking
Speaker 1: leaded water even though they know that it's going to
Speaker 1: hurt them down the line.
Speaker 2: Well, and it's sad that it sounds like getting real
Speaker 2: compensation is maybe unlikely.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because a lot of these people who have kids,
Speaker 1: like if their kids suffer severe cognitive development problems, they're
Speaker 1: gonna need help like the rest of their lives.
Speaker 2: Yeah. This one guy, he's a law professor specializing an
Speaker 2: environmental law named Noah Hall. He says what the probably
Speaker 2: the smart thing to do, if you really want to
Speaker 2: help these people is set up do what they did
Speaker 2: with the Deep Water Horizon spill and set up a
Speaker 2: victim's compensation fund instead of doing it via lawsuit like legislature.
Speaker 2: Maybe that would help.
Speaker 1: I don't know, Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2: He basically said what the state shouldn't do is fight this.
Speaker 2: He's like, that would be big trouble. He said they
Speaker 2: should set up some sort of fund so then they
Speaker 2: look like the good guy still. But then I think
Speaker 2: you don't get all the dirty details dragged out in
Speaker 2: public like you would with a lass.
Speaker 1: Well, apparently they're already coming out anyway, like troves of
Speaker 1: emails have been released. The governor set up a task
Speaker 1: force to find out who is to blame, and they
Speaker 1: turned around and they were like you, and.
Speaker 2: He said, fire the task for right.
Speaker 1: Exactly, You're all fired. Yeah. I don't know what's gonna happen,
Speaker 1: but it's very scary public health scare.
Speaker 2: Flint, I know, talk about a city that's been roughed
Speaker 2: up over the years.
Speaker 1: I know. Well, we're there with you, Flint, hanging there.
Speaker 1: If you want to learn more about lead or Flint
Speaker 1: or criminal activity. You can check out all these different
Speaker 1: articles on the Internet and you can type lead into
Speaker 1: the search bar House of Works dot com. I'll bring
Speaker 1: up a pretty great article. Since I said pretty great article,
Speaker 1: it's time for a listener. Man.
Speaker 2: I'm going to call this Finland Rules. Remember we did
Speaker 2: the Dark Money podcast and I was like, what's a
Speaker 2: good place that's not corrupt? I remember we heard from
Speaker 2: a lot of people in Scandinavia. Hi, I'm an American
Speaker 2: living in Helsinki for the last few years with my
Speaker 2: Finnish husband. Chuck, you were right on the money when
Speaker 2: you said there's very little political corruption here. Of course
Speaker 2: there are some, because there are humans, after all, but
Speaker 2: the level compared to the States is laughable. When I
Speaker 2: asked my husband about it, he thought for a second.
Speaker 2: Asked about corruption scandals, he said, a few years back,
Speaker 2: there was something about a prime minister who accepted lumber
Speaker 2: from a company to build his house. Huh, that was it.
Speaker 2: It seems comical to me considering the States in an
Speaker 2: election year. Also, the campaign season is a much shorter year,
Speaker 2: and it's done a little different. A party runs there
Speaker 2: at least five major parties. That's crazy in and of
Speaker 2: itself sure like crazy good Yeah. Party runs in whichever
Speaker 2: gets a majority, elects from its ranks the prime minister
Speaker 2: and makes a cabinet out of a coalition of the
Speaker 2: other parties which receive high numbers of votes. How about that,
Speaker 2: Like you came in second.
Speaker 1: You're on board too, I mean, come on, and here's
Speaker 1: your participant.
Speaker 2: Ribbon campaigns are paid for by disclosed donations and public funds.
Speaker 2: He also made a comment about the high taxes here.
Speaker 2: Many people, usually Americans, say that with distaste that the
Speaker 2: taxes are so high here. But I've come to think
Speaker 2: very highly of it. I've discovered that I don't really
Speaker 2: need another pair of jeans or a new jacket. What
Speaker 2: I need is an educated society around me, and access
Speaker 2: to quality healthcare and a truly equal society where everyone
Speaker 2: is safe and has her basic needs met. That is
Speaker 2: from Gabrielle. Wow, a lot of people hate your guts
Speaker 2: for saying that, Gabrielle.
Speaker 1: That is so brave of you. Thanks Gabrielle for writing in.
Speaker 1: I don't know how they say audios in Finland.
Speaker 2: No, she's American.
Speaker 1: Well, goodbye. Thank you for writing in. If you want
Speaker 1: to get in touch with us, You can tweak to
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