IT WAS THE LEAD, OFFICER

A study reported on the Washington Post over the weekend linked lead poisoning to crime. Economist Rick Nevin of Fairfax, VA said that in studies in nine countries “65 to 90 percent or more of substantial variation in violent crime was explained by lead”. Lead is prevalent in paint and leaded gasoline.

Nevin linked a nearly 60 percent drop in crimes in New York in 1994-2001 to federal policies to eliminate lead from gasoline and reduction of lead emissions in NY incinerators in 1970-1974.

The Post also cited a 2002 study by Herbert Needleman of the University of Pittsburgh that compared lead levels of 194 adolescents arrested by police with 146 high school adolescents. The arrested youths reportedly had lead levels that were four times higher.

Another example, a Chicago housing development built over a freeway where 150,000 cars passed each day. “Eighteen years after the (housing) project opened in 1962,” the Post wrote, “one study found its residents were 22 times more likely to be murderers than people living elsewhere in Chicago”.

Hmmmm.

Here’s another one that caught my eye.

“Muses, Madmen and Prophets” by Daniel B. Smith (Penguin Press) claimed that 75% of schizophrenics report voices in their heads (they’re called auditory hallucinations). Smith traces history for famous people who “heard voices” including Socrates and Joan de Arc “who both obeyed their voices right up until their executions”.

I was just wondering if all the people who hear and heed voices in their head end up tragically? But Smith says some people find comfort in messages that they alone detect; and suggests voice-hearers will always be among us.