Turning "environmental regulation" into a unified bloc that must be either supported or opposed in totality is a manipulative political maneuver and it should be forcefully rejected.

Regulations are not people, and they don't have rights. It is fair and reasonable to demand that environmental regulation justify its existence with hard, scientifically verifiable data or else get chopped. Clearly, banning leaded gasoline has that kind of justification, and therefore I'm strongly in favor of maintaining that ban and extending it wherever it isn't in place yet. The same reasonable standard should be applied to other regulations across the board.

  The findings, which appear in PNAS, underscore the vital role of environmental regulations in protecting public health.

  The study notes lead rules are now being weakened by the Trump administration in a wide-ranging move to ease environmental protections.

  “We should not forget the lessons of history. And the lesson is those regulations have been very important,”

Definitively interesting that they could get so many old hair samples with good provenance.

And....it worked pretty much exactly as designed - initially only the largest stations carried it because they could justify the storage costs, and eventually it disappeared from almost everywhere. Just before covid there were still 3 small garages selling leaded petrol by the drum, but afaik they all stopped doing so.

And regardless - you can stil buy actual real Tetraethyl Lead fuel additive which turns your petrol into actual real 4-star leaded petrol, just like in the old days:

https://www.demon-tweeks.com/tetraboost-e-guard-15-fuel-addi...

When I go to the range, every once in a while, I'll see one of the older marksmen who's there with his squirrel hunting rifle, chambered in .22 LR. I've noticed that he seems to have a tremor in his hands when he's loading his magazines. Essential tremor is linked to lead exposure [0]

Most .22 LR projectiles are either just lead or have a copper "wash" over the lead, not a proper jacket like you see on other rounds.

I wonder, if you shoot those loads for long enough, and breathe in enough gunsmoke, do you get that problem?

As for the proof being in our hair... well, not mine. Chrome dome over here XD

[0] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1241711/

But when you do look at the details it doesn't look like the results point to the measured lead coming directly from gasoline itself.

Just as likely if not more so coming from the neighborhood lead smelter that operated over a period of decades where the phaseout probably overlapped from both mineral and gasoline sources, in step with the regulations.

These are rare samples but I wonder if it would be possible to determine how much lead was on the outside of the hairs which could be expected to settle from the atmosphere, compared to within the biological matrix itself which could have been incorporated metabolically?

And in a ubiquitous TEL-using environment, would that form of lead build up more so on the outside of the hairs or the inside?

With or without a lead smelter in the neighborhood?

then lead is being sprayed all over you, your car and home, daily

for THREE DECADES NOW

no rush, not like it's poison or does permanent damage to your health/IQ

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/leaded-gas-wa...

The thing is - it's simply not as good. The worst case is probably frying frozen gyoza. They will get stuck when they get gelatinous on that 'ceramic' surface.

I ended up looking up some slightly offbrand stores to get the pan that I wanted.

Obviously there is an absolutely massive problem that you're missing as you're congratulating yourself on "succeeding" with a massive effort with no clear result.