I think you need lead supplements because of your low lead water.
Worth getting a whatever-certified filter? (That seems easy.)
Worth getting the kids blood level tested?
Is this the type of thing where we all have some level of lead in our pipes? Similar to how we all have tumors, but they mostly disappear on their own?
I just recommended lead supplements, so maybe don't take my advice.
I didn't know I had tumors. I do have a lead test kit because we got the same kind of letter and ordered the test kit. But we ignored the test kit once it arrived.
I just remember the "everyone has tumors!" thing being an offhand comment Sifu Tweety made here once, probably 15 years ago.
When you make wine, don't boil the must in a lead vessel. That's a big problem right there.
Did the whole country get this letter?!
Am I an A+ student for dutifully getting the lead test right away?
Do you know who else has unhealthy levels of lead in their blood?
Is this what it sounds like when doves cry?
I think you should just get a water filter.
11: RFK Jr.'s brain worm? I bet it has absorbed a lot of toxins from its environment, poor guy.
Around here, I think there's a fair amount, so kids ate tested for lead levels. Were uour kuds tested since you've lived in the house?
I think they were tested as babies by one doctor's office but not the other. It's inconsistent.
It's actually not a particularly old house - 1998.
Tens of millions of people all over the country are getting these letters, because of a new EPA rule. The Biden administration allocated $15 billion as part of the 2021 infrastructure package to help pay for replacement pipes.
Advocacy groups are pushing for the replacements to be copper or stainless steel, rather than the common-but-problematic PVC.
1998? Did the contractor go out of his way to install lead fittings?
Why is PVC problematic? We switched to PVC so that our pipes wouldn't burst when it freezes.
I clicked Witt's other link and now I know.
Although it's not totally clear if they're a problem because they're poisoning the workers and people who live near the factories, or if they're poisoning the people who use them in their houses, or all of the above.
We got the letter, heebie, and ignored it. We're not overly concerned about the etiology of our children's criminality.
We got the letter but I think it was more forceful, like "you almost certainly have lead pipes but they're probably ok because the city keeps the water pH high because so many people have lead pipes, but if you want to replace them here's how." But our house is 110 years old. 1998 it's virtually impossible that you'd have lead pipes but maybe solder?
Anyway your kids are past the point where small amounts of lead would have any significant developmental impact.
PVC used to be manufactured in such a way that it had some trace lead that could leach out but that also stopped some time last century, 1980s or so.
This is all very helpful. I will not panic unduly.
I'm still worried that we're all going to be poisoned under the Trump Administration, but that's a more ongoing amorphous fear of deregulation. Isn't that funny how they used to put sawdust in bread?
Sawdust isn't poisonous! And it's high in fiber. However, bread made with sawdust is considered an ultra processed food and is best eaten in limited quantities.
What if you just put whole pieces of wood in the bread?
My kid was exposed to lead paint dust as an infant and to this day I wonder if his serious lack of coordination and moderate neurodivergence is a result of that.
During America's decadent period, we mostly had to worry about lead in imported goods, like children's toys and processed foods. My simple, no-nonsense tariff plan will ensure that Americans are poisoned by American lead first and foremost!
I do remember when we had to stop eating our Thomas the Tank Engine.
I just remember the "everyone has tumors!" thing being an offhand comment Sifu Tweety made here once, probably 15 years ago.
Maybe not literally everyone, but this article https://academic.oup.com/jnci/article/102/9/605/894608 talks about very large percentages of detected cancers being types that would never go on to cause any actual symptoms, either because they aren't growing at all or because they're growing so slowly that you'd die of something else first. 50% of lung cancers, 25% of breast cancers, 60% of prostate cancers.
It's tricky to go from that figure alone to an estimate of how many people in the population at large have tumours, but safe to say "quite a lot".
And this is operationally important - it's why the NHS screening committee doesn't like prostrate screening and has added a ton of nuance to the breast screening program.
It's why I pooped in a box instead of getting a colonoscopy. That and having a camera up my butt seemed unpleasant.
42: I tried to do FIT (Cologuard us FIT plys DNA). I found the process of trying to poop on a paper towel without and then collecting a sample much harder than the colonoscopy prep. That's every 10 years instead of every year for FIT.
In my case, they're having me go back in 7 because they did find something, though what exactly is unclear. Pathology is kind of fascinating "suggestive but not diagnostic of" an adenoma. So, i either had donething totally benign (hyperplastic polyp) or one of the most concerning (sessile serrated adenoma).
42: I tried to do FIT (Cologuard us FIT plys DNA). I found the process of trying to poop on a paper towel without and then collecting a sample much harder than the colonoscopy prep. That's every 10 years instead of every year for FIT.
In my case, they're having me go back in 7 because they did find something, though what exactly is unclear. Pathology is kind of fascinating "suggestive but not diagnostic of" an adenoma. So, i either had donething totally benign (hyperplastic polyp) or one of the most concerning (sessile serrated adenoma).
Paper towel? That's amateur pooping. Just poop in the box, like when you mail poop to people that piss you off.
very large percentages of detected cancers being types that would never go on to cause any actual symptoms, either because they aren't growing at all or because they're growing so slowly that you'd die of something else first. 50% of lung cancers, 25% of breast cancers, 60% of prostate cancers.
My memory is that he asserted an additional category, tumors which go away on their own and we never knew we even had them. I think this was maybe around the debate for whether or not people (without risk factors) should be getting mammograms under age 50?
Also inspired by Justin Timberlake's song "That's my poop in box!"
Step 1: Cut a hole in that box.
Step 2: Put your poop in the box.
Step 3: Make a nurse open that box.
My doctor tells me to stay away from specialists and unnecessary screenings. That's one of the reasons I like him. But he's pretty insistent on colon cancer screening. That and blood pressure monitoring.
45: https://visualsonline.cancer.gov/details.cfm?imageid=11282 was what I tried to use.
46: They went to 40 every other year again because the rates among younger women seem to be rising. American Cancer Society had been saying annually from 45 and then at 55 you can switch to every other year. One of the big problems with the data is that women are mostly having fewer children and starting later in life, so the older data may not be good enough for contemporary guidelines. They also need to understand more about the disparities across race and ethnicity.
When I got covid, he said he'd give me Paxlovid, but that he didn't recommend it unless my symptoms got worse.
50.1: That looks too small to poop in.
Paper towel? That's amateur pooping. Just poop in the box,
We have litter boxes you could use.
I heard they are in the schools now.
It's important to start screening young. This is why the kids are so stressed out.
51: Um, but if you were actually someone really high risk, by the time you start to get worse, you are in a phase where you need steroids in the hospital and Paxlovid won't do much good.
My memory is that he asserted an additional category, tumors which go away on their own and we never knew we even had them.
Yes, this does also happen. I have a vague memory of some study that looked at healthy people of various ages who had died in accidents and found that quite a lot of them were pottering around the place with tumours? But I couldn't find it on a quick google.
Memories also go away on their own and we never even knew we had them.
61: all right, steady on there Peter Watts.
Consciousness must poop in a box to be detected.
62: we were talking about people obsessed with negativity?
Step 1: Cut a hole in that box.
Step 2: Put your poop in the box.
Step 3: Make a nurse open that box.
...THEN YOU GET THE WOMEN.
OP, 8: We got that same letter, but I haven't tested the house branch yet. I wonder if that pipe will go into the list of standard disclosures that makes for the endless afternoon when signing house paperwork at the title company.
My favorite is the "We certify that to the best of our knowledge, there is no corpse under the patch in the basement floor" letter.