Lead Poisoning Is Solvable. So What’s Been the Hold Up?

How do you get the world to pay attention to a problem it thinks it's already solved?

Around a billion children are exposed to dangerous levels of lead. It can be hiding in cookware, spices and cosmetics, or released through industries like battery recycling. For a child, exposure can mean losing up to six IQ points - irreversible damage that, multiplied across hundreds of millions of children, becomes an enormous drain on human potential. And yet, unlike so many global challenges, we already know how to prevent it.

Meet Drew McCartor, President of Pure Earth. For the past 17 years, Drew and his colleagues have been sounding the alarm about lead poisoning: gathering evidence, understanding the scale of the problem and building the playbook for how to solve it. Now, after decades of “yelling into the void”, the world is finally paying attention - and Drew believes we have an opportunity to eliminate lead poisoning altogether.

In this episode:

Why around a billion children are exposed to dangerous levels of leadThe surprising places lead is still hiding - from cookware to spicesWhat losing four to six IQ points means for a child - and an entire countryHow a Craigslist ad led Drew from unpaid intern to President of Pure EarthWhy Pure Earth spent years wondering if they were crazyThe young boy in Bangladesh who brought the human cost of lead poisoning home for DrewWhat changed when the world finally started paying attentionWhy Drew believes we can eliminate lead poisoning altogetherAbout the title: A Useful Truth comes from a 1786 letter by Benjamin Franklin about lead poisoning: “You will observe with concern how long a useful truth may be known and exist before it's generally received and practiced upon.” Almost 250 years later, it feels remarkably apt.

Timestamps:

00:00 A Useful Truth

00:55 Do you ever feel like something is wrong but no one will listen?

03:20 Haven’t we already solved lead poisoning?

05:00 What does lead poisoning actually mean?

07:43 The curse of the Industrial Fairy

10:20 What’s harder: solving lead poisoning or convincing people it matters?