Category: The psychology
Worldwide In 20th Century, Maybe Half Of All Murders May Be Attributed In Part To Lead Poisoning
Posted by Peter Quennell
That lead damages brains has been known for many years. That it causes murders is more recently accepted.
The first graph below shows when the US began to move from leaded gasoline to unleaded gasoline in the mid 70s. Lead was removed altogether around 1990.
Some but not all countries followed a similar pattern.
The effects, though diminishing, are going to be with us for a long time. Maybe to mid-century? The pioneer researcher economist Nick Nevin wrote this about the murder-rate/lead correlation:
Lead exposure trends affect homicide trends with a 21-year time lag, reflecting the impact of early-childhood neurodevelopmental damage when those children reach the peak ages of homicide offending.
That suggests that anyone alive today over 25 may have had significant exposure. Roughly half the world’s population, some 3.5 billion.
Very few of those committed murders, but of those that did the research findings reflected in the second graph below suggest that half might have been lead-affected and there remain among us millions of time-bombs. This is from a recent BBC report:
Dr Bernard Gesch says the data now suggests that lead could account for as much as 90% of the changing crime rate during the 20th Century across all of the world.
Numerous cases like this one now use lead poisoning as a defense. It doesnt seem a get-out-of-jail-free card, but for some obviously mentally impaired it is proving helpful.
Posted by Peter Quennell on 01/05/16 at 08:49 PM •
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