In article ,
Meat Plow wrote:
Lead is a poison, and a nasty one. We know that. The question is really what
happes to the lead in the solder when the item is disposed. I'm still not
convinced that it easily finds its way into the water supply.
I've not heard of one case of innocent children being poisoned by
eating Pb based solder. Isn't that the watermark for government
intervention?
It's not primarily a question of "eating pB based solder." It's a
question of total exposure to lead from all paths, including release
of lead from equipment being dismantled.
Consider the research documented at
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1913570/
This documents the effects of the electronic-waste recycling practices
in Guiyu, China. A high percentage of e-waste from the U.S. is
exported to locations in Asia for recycling, and much of this is done
via rather primitive methods such as those described in Guiyu.
"Results: BLLs in 165 children of Guiyu ranged from 4.40 to 32.67
μg/dL with a mean of 15.3 μg/dL, whereas BLLs in 61 children of
Chendian were from 4.09 to 23.10 μg/dL with a mean of 9.94 μg/."
"In conclusion, elevated BLLs in Guiyu children are common as a
result of exposure to lead contamination caused by primitive e-waste
recycling activities. Lead contamination from e-waste processing
appears to have reached the level considered to be a serious threat
to children."
Back in 2003, the results of a five-year study reported in the New
England Journal of Medicine seems to indicate that children can suffer
a measurable (and quite significant) decrease in their intellectual
capacity from blood-lead levels of 10 uG/dL or less.
"In our sample, most of the damage to intellectual functioning occurs
at blood-lead concentrations that are below 10 mcg/dl," said
Canfield. The amount of impairment was also much greater than the
researchers had expected. "Given the relatively low exposure levels,
we were surprised to find that the IQ scores of children with
blood-lead levels of 10 mcg/dl were about seven points lower than
for children with lead levels of 1 mcg/dl," Canfield said.
--
Dave Platt AE6EO
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