one of the stories Kevin Drum championed over his career was the causative link between environmental lead poisoning and other societal ills. I think it's one of the most important stories of the last 20 years and Drum was one of the main reasons people knew about it. RIP - ThreadSky

mtsw.bsky.social • 47 days ago

one of the stories Kevin Drum championed over his career was the causative link between environmental lead poisoning and other societal ills. I think it's one of the most important stories of the last 20 years and Drum was one of the main reasons people knew about it. RIP

Comments

yossarian320.bsky.social•46 days ago

Brain damaged Boomers. My cohort sucks.

krizriktr.bsky.social•47 days ago

I have shared this article with so many people over the last decade.

gnot.bsky.social•47 days ago

"If you gave me the choice, right now, of spending $20 billion less on prisons and cops and spending $20 billion more on getting rid of lead, I’d take the deal in a heartbeat.

gnot.bsky.social•47 days ago

"Not only would solving our lead problem do more than any prison to reduce our crime problem, it would produce smarter, better-adjusted kids in the bargain."

brucewilson.bsky.social•47 days ago

20 years ago, people treated me like a nut when I talked about this. Drum picking it up helped a lot. Further, the Lead poisoning crime wave (peaked ~1992) was a main factor that propelled the rise of the religious right, that got us where we are now.

mikewilsoninoz.bsky.social•47 days ago

Vale, Mr Drum. We are all grateful to you.

erica1933.bsky.social•47 days ago

This was such a fantastic story. Godspeed Kevin Drum.

samshell2.bsky.social•47 days ago

Sending you deepest sympathy on the loss of your husband.

chrisbybikes.bsky.social•47 days ago

Thanks. I didn't know about this. I mainly knew him from his anti housing anti density ranting. It's good to hear about what came before his crank period.

mtsw.bsky.social•47 days ago

Yes. It was one of those stories where you could sort of see disconnected pieces of it here and there but Drum really linked everything together and made a very persuasive case https://bsky.app/profile/andrewsheeler.bsky.social/post/3lk26ocaamz24

scottmccaskill.bsky.social•47 days ago

I think it's still not as widely recognized as it should be throughout our media ecosystem(s). Many people don't want to believe it in favor of their just so stories.

mcnater.com•47 days ago

100%. I’ve been following him for what feels like 20 years now and would always have his new post sent to my email. I didn’t always agree with him, but he was definitely one of the best. What a crappy day.

bisynaptic.bsky.social•47 days ago

May his memory be a blessing.

theophite.bsky.social•47 days ago

i feel really bad for Kevin, who seems like he was a genuinely great dude until steroids drove him to madness.

mielcarz.bsky.social•47 days ago

I was a fairly consistent reader of Kevin's and I can't say I agree. Only have his last month of posts in my RSS reader but between the ever-worsening (but clear-eyed) health updates he had many cogent posts with his trademark graphs about current events (even if I disagreed with some of his takes).

theophite.bsky.social•47 days ago

sorry, i don't mean that the quality of his analysis dropped through the floor. i mean that he had pretty obvious, regular jags of corticosteroid rage.

sifu.tweety.fish•47 days ago

I read him for many years before falling off and it definitely seemed pretty clear to me that something about his illness or the treatment was messing him up

dasdoak.bsky.social•47 days ago

Yeah. He was still trying to pull conclusions from the data, but his analysis seemed to get... wonky.

Still left a great body of work behind and would occasionally have a good insight, but it became much more "with a massive grain of salt" unlike his earlier work.

sciortino.bsky.social•47 days ago

Huh? What steroids?

theophite.bsky.social•47 days ago

he was on escalating doses of dexamethasone to treat his leukemia and as someone who has been close to someone who has been on insane doses of dexamethasone it does bad things to your personality while you're on them.

karlsteel.bsky.social•47 days ago

☹️☹️☹️

rickywlmsbong.bsky.social•47 days ago

did not know about that but helps explain some things. what a shit situation

sciortino.bsky.social•47 days ago

I didn't realize. He wrote a lot about how much he hated dexamethasone.

castlekarberg.bsky.social•47 days ago

Evil dex!

castlekarberg.bsky.social•47 days ago

I appreciate this explainer as a one time reader (and fan!) of Drum who was somewhat confused by things like that.

kazzah.bsky.social•46 days ago

Such an interesting article. Especially as where I live we had lead detected in drinking water that was due to old pipes.

megaweapon5.bsky.social•47 days ago

https://bsky.app/profile/megaweapon5.bsky.social/post/3lk276423ss2k

jimmyjazz1968.bsky.social•47 days ago

Not to diminish your valid point, but on balance the guy was kind of a jerk

kwafurther.bsky.social•47 days ago

When I think about his work this is the first thing that comes up for me.

jmsantiago.bsky.social•47 days ago

📌

wclamp.bsky.social•47 days ago

RIP

alexrolfe.bsky.social•46 days ago

1000% it changed the way I read *so many* other stories since then

moongeorge.bsky.social•47 days ago

😭😱

donsayers.bsky.social•47 days ago

Those that are likely to have grown up during the era when lead emissions were highest are now reaching the age of 'elder statesman.'
Just saying.

sheadapts.bsky.social•47 days ago

Shoulda kept baby Donald away from the paint chips.

afferentinput.bsky.social•47 days ago

His stories on that issue was one the main reasons why my lab now investigates the effects of lead toxicity on brain development. It sparked my interest in the topic, and when I found out that we don't fully understand the mechanism, I decided I wanted to learn more.