LEAD (Pb)

      ATOMIC NUMBER: 82

      GROUP 14: CARBON, SILICON, GERMANIUM, AND TIN

      Lead is a shiny, bluish-white heavy metal that dulls to gray when it comes into contact with air. Its legendary usage is closely tied to the rise and fall of civilization, used in water-carrying pipes, glazed pottery, cooking utensils, and even the preservation of wines by the ancient Romans, who produced some 40 percent of the world’s lead alongside their abundant quantities of silver and other precious metals.

      Plumbing itself draws its name from plumbum, the Latin word for lead (abbreviated as Pb), a luxury afforded only to the patrician class in what was once the world’s greatest empire. The poisonous effects of lead were known to antiquity, and lead was noted among some thinkers of the time for its effect on shipbuilders. High levels of lead have been found in the bones of patrician gravesites, leading historians to believe it played a role as a regular part in the decadent lifestyle of the upper class, who suffered stillbirths, lower fertility, brain damage, and deformities as Rome’s glory faded.¹⁷⁴

      But these lessons, misplaced in the dark ages, had to be relearned again in the modern industrial age. The “epidemic” effects of lead exposure were starkly noticed alongside spikes of disease in the nineteenth century during the production and manufacture of spreading industrialization.

      Industrial assault of lead

      In considering the modern-day hazards of lead exposure, tainted paint chips and the environmental disaster that was leaded gasoline might immediately come to mind. Although a small amount of lead is naturally occurring, the industrial revolution that began in the latter half of the eighteenth century created the conditions for widespread contamination all over the world. Today, everything from agricultural pesticide use to cosmetics, bullets, batteries, and pipes, to industrial practices such as mining and smelting continue to contribute to overall environmental lead contamination.

      Unsafe at any level

      No safety threshold for lead has ever been established—a multitude of studies have proven time and again lead is downright dangerous to health at any level. Government organizations such as the EPA have admitted there is no safe allowable level of lead intake.¹⁷⁵ Even in small amounts, this cumulative toxin competes with calcium, iron, and zinc, blocking absorption of these necessary nutrients and wreaking havoc.

      Unlike other metals, which play a role in biochemical reactions, lead is just a pollutant. It has no known essential function within the human body, and science has long acknowledged that lead is poisonous to every bodily system. Once lead enters the air, it can travel far distances before it falls to the ground where it readily contaminates water and soil. This cycle inevitably leads to lead-tainted crops that are cooked into lead-tainted dinners. Exposure to cigarette smoke, even secondhand, can also mean exposure to dangerous amounts of lead.

      As such, the EPA regulates it under seven different acts: the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the Residential Lead-Based Paint Hazard Reduction Act of 1992 (Title X), the Clean Air Act (CAA), the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), the Clean Water Act (CWA), the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA).¹⁷⁶

      Unrestricted and pervasive exposure in foods

      Although we are exposed to lead in the air we breathe and the water we drink, many organizations, including the European Food Safety Authority, have concluded that the majority of human lead exposure actually comes from the food we eat.¹⁷⁷

      However, even with all the bad press about lead—as with toys from China and cosmetics—and despite the fact that we know lead inflicts neurological damage on the brain and contributes to cancer, there is no fundamental framework for limiting exposure to food-based lead contamination. Despite the effort to control the impact of this dangerous substance on the environment under the guise of the EPA, there are no limits on the concentration of lead allowed in food sold in the United States, apart from a few specific products, such as candy and food additives, where the FDA has set maximum allowable thresholds.

      Because lead pollution taints the water and soil that is used to grow crops for human consumption, all foods may contain some trace amount of the heavy metal (parts per trillion). Shoddy industrial food-processing practices have led to even more contamination from heavy metals. Trace levels of lead exist in many important foods we consume every day, but, generally speaking, regulators consider trace levels of lead contamination to be safe only because they are focused on short-term, acute effects that are almost never linked directly to the consumption of a food or dietary supplement. Lead is accepted in food at varying trace levels in part because lead is so difficult to avoid, and furthermore, because harmful effects from lead bioaccumulation typically show up years down the road with little solid connection to any specific foods, nutritional supplements, or protein powders.

      When I appealed to Whole Foods to pull the lead-contaminated protein powders from their store shelves, the retailer did nothing to halt their sales of such products. Whole Foods continues to sell vegan, organic protein powders in its stores that show alarming concentrations of lead contamination because the raw materials are sourced from China. Instead of responding in a responsible way to my appeal, Whole Foods managers and employees began spreading rumors that claimed my laboratory didn’t exist and that none of their protein powders contained lead. Whole Foods is another example of a corporation that misleads health-conscious consumers into thinking they’re buying “clean” foods when, in reality, many of those foods have been contaminated with significant concentrations of lead.¹⁷⁸

      Children most affected by lead

      According to the EFSA’s Scientific Opinion on Lead in Food, cereals were found to contribute most to a person’s daily dietary lead intake.¹⁷⁹ This is particularly troubling in light of the fact that many cereals are marketed to the most vulnerable members of our society—kids. Children have been found to be at greater risk for lead poisoning and toxicity than adults because their systems are still developing and they usually absorb more lead than adults do. Fetuses and nursing infants are way less equipped to metabolize harsh toxins, so amounts that are harmful to an adult can be downright deadly to a baby.

      Lead accumulation, as well as that of other heavy metals such as cadmium, in the roots and shoots of wheat and other grains remains a major concern, as a direct result of heavy metal contamination in soils around the globe.¹⁸⁰ A study conducted by the University of Valencia in Spain compared the lead and cadmium content of twenty-nine different infant cereals commercially available on the market, and found consistent contamination levels of both cadmium and lead in the milk-free varieties,