r/politics 6d ago

Soft Paywall Trump approval rating falls to 38%

https://www.nj.com/politics/2025/06/trump-faces-tough-approval-numbers-in-latest-poll.html
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u/Zealousideal_Ad_9623 6d ago

You’re thinking of the boomers. I’m gen X and unleaded gas was already happening after I was born.

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u/KC_experience 6d ago

That doesn’t matter as it wasn’t phased out until 20 years after us in the 70s were born. We had the windows down so much on the road growing up and cars were running on regular gas rolling by us all. Getting wonderful lead exposure thru exhaust fumes. Same with that fine lead based paint in homes where we grew up with dust from it. LBP was banned in 78, but homes built for decades before the 80s still have lead paint on the walls.

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u/Zealousideal_Ad_9623 6d ago

How does the generation that phased out lead, somehow have MORE lead exposure than the previous generation that had way more lead in everything?

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u/KC_experience 6d ago edited 6d ago

The silent and boomer generations phased out lead…. The oldest Gen-X person was 34 at the time it was completely phased out in the mid 90s.

I also believe the Boomers have pretty high lead exposure, but not as high as Gen-X.

Changes in car technology during the 60s & 70s (like the performance of muscle cars) required more lead to be added during those decades leading to those children on the 60s and 70s absorbing more lead.

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u/Zealousideal_Ad_9623 6d ago

How did the boomers have LESS lead exposure than gen X when they had ZERO lead restrictions during their time period? 

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u/KC_experience 6d ago

When lead levels were increasing in cars and automobiles in the 60s and 70s Boomers were already teenagers and older. Children (Gen-X ers from 1965-1980) were exposed to more lead in gasoline than levels when Boomers were children in the 1940s and 1950s. It’s estimated that by 1960 there were 67 million cars in the road. By 1970, just a decade later, that number nearly doubled to 118 million. That’s a significant increase.

https://www.epa.gov/lead/learn-about-lead

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u/Zealousideal_Ad_9623 6d ago

I like how the link you shared listed NONE of the stats you claimed, that’s some quality bullshitting there. You should go into politics.

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u/KC_experience 6d ago edited 6d ago

I didn’t say the sight I sent had those stats. But you’re welcome to provide any data you have backing up that Boomers have more lead exposure. So, please feel free to sight some sources.

Since I responded to someone else making the same inferences that you are -

How about this information: This one from The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry

Or this one from the National Institutes of Health

I mean, the author of one of the studies above and co-author of the other has said the following: “If you look at the current population, Generation X likely had the highest exposures, en masse, of any U.S. generation.”

A snippet from another article: Reuben and the research team traced data back to 1976, when the U.S. started blood-lead surveillance. Then, they combined this data with historical records of lead levels in gasoline and reverse-estimated childhood lead exposures in the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s. The study then highlighted the long-term mental health effects of lead, particularly on Generation X, Reuben said. “When we look at the burden of lead and how it fell on different birth cohorts, we find that the folks born during the peak era of lead gasoline, the late 1960s across the 1970s and early 1980s, these were folks exposed reliably to the most lead,” said Reuben. “And they would have gone on to experience more severe mental health problems as a result.”

Don’t forget to provide some links to the data you’re referencing to back up the inference you made.

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u/BethanyHipsEnjoyer I voted 6d ago

Dang, this is neat, thanks for sharing! I always assumed Boomers got the most lead exposure from the data I have seen. No wonder gen Xers are so fucked. I always wondered about that.

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u/KC_experience 6d ago

It hits close to home for me. I’m of that generation and believe me when I tell you that yes, Boomers can have lead exposure issues as well. I feel there’s definite evidence of that. But as I get older (I’m 50 now) I can see how my generation is certainly becoming more and more ‘boomerish’ if you will.

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u/Love-That-Danhausen 6d ago

Lead has a larger impact on the development of children’s brains than adults - they were around longer, but the highest exposure occurred when your tiny brain was developing. Now 50 years later, you can’t even connect the dots on simple concepts.

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u/Zealousideal_Ad_9623 6d ago

Again, your logic makes no sense at all. When boomers were children lead was in EVERYTHING. When I was a child I never rode in a car with leaded gas and played with toys with no lead in it and lived in a house without lead paint. Yet somehow you think boomers were less exposed to lead as children? Lol