A Century of Hair Samples Proves Leaded Gas Ban Worked
3 60Scientists at the University of Utah have analyzed nearly a century's worth of human hair samples and found that lead concentrations dropped 100-fold after the EPA began cracking down on leaded gasoline and other lead-based products in the 1970s.
The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, drew on hair collected from Utah residents -- some preserved in family scrapbooks going back generations. Lead levels peaked between 1916 and 1969 at around 100 parts per million, fell to 10 ppm by 1990, and dropped below 1 ppm by 2024. The decline largely tracks the phase-out of leaded gasoline after President Nixon established the EPA in 1970; before the agency acted, most gasolines contained about 2 grams of lead per gallon, releasing nearly 2 pounds of lead per person into the environment each year.
The study arrives amid the Trump administration's broader push to scale back the EPA. Lead regulations have not yet been targeted, but the authors note concerns about loosened enforcement of the 2024 Lead and Copper rule on replacing old lead pipes.
3 comments
Re:tough luck for people living near small airport (Score: 5, Informative)
by XXongo ( 3986865 ) on Monday February 02, 2026 @10:16PM (#65965652)
Partly true.
More information here https://www.epa.gov/newsreleas... [epa.gov] and here https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/l... [faa.gov]
Re:tough luck for people living near small airport (Score: 5, Insightful)
by mrclevesque ( 1413593 ) on Monday February 02, 2026 @10:31PM (#65965660)
> the people who chose to live near an airport did so with the knowledge they would be buying affordable homes in exchange for the tradeoff.
I doubt most people in that situation expect or even know about higher lead contamination.
Re:WTF does this have to do with it? (Score: 5, Insightful)
by Anonymous Coward ( None ) on Tuesday February 03, 2026 @02:39AM (#65965906)
At this point, anyone who suggests that Trump is the same as any president before him must still be huffing leaded gas, in between eating lead paint chips. There is no fucking way that any president in the recent past, going back to Eisenhower, comes close to the level of malfeasance that Trump does. One example: name one other president that proposed suing the FTC for a personal cash payout. This is an unconscionable conflict of interest, since Trump can force the agencies in question to "settle" and still walk away with truckloads of money. If any other president even hinted as much as this, it would be a massive scandal, and likely impeachment.
Yes, motherfucker, orange man is bad. That doesn't even touch on the child raping, or creeping fascism, among other things.