I continue to be fascinated by Kevin Drum’s quest to blame extraordinary levels of crime on environmental lead, and he’s found another study to bolster his case:
Brian Guinn of the University of Louisville decided to do his doctoral dissertation on the lead-crime hypothesis. Since lead was fully removed from gasoline more than two decades ago, the main source of lead poisoning today comes from residual lead dust trapped in topsoil. So first he mapped topsoil lead levels in Louisville:
Then he measured violent crime in each area and found a strong relationship with lead levels. As you’d expect, the relationship weakened once he controlled for income, education, race, etc., but the relationship was still there…
Fascinating. I wonder if this sort of study has been done for the Twin Cities area. And I also wonder about the political blowback it might face. Anti-poverty advocates who place the blame for poverty on unfair political power structures might take strong umbrage at a finding of high levels of lead in the topsoil of those communities, with an implicit finding that the community has lead-based neurological disease. After all, their favorite political theory then goes down the toilet, even if it is actually true.
On the other hand, it’s yet another brick in the wall for environmental purity advocates.
Lead in the environment continues to be an interesting area to keep an eye on. Go, Kevin!
