Lead paint creates serious health risks, but this ad is from 1939, when lead in paint was normal. Many countries phased in bans starting in the 1970s or 80s, mandating lower and lower concentrations over time, or restricting permissible uses, or both. Some countries still allow unrestricted use of lead paint in 2026.
Lead exposure is very bad for anyone, especially children. Unlike certain other toxins, there’s no known safe level of exposure, and it bioaccumulates. There are many other routes into the body besides paint, and some are associated with increased crime rates and intellectual deficits in children.
That’s a weirdly threatening statement, I love it as a chat response
It occupies a much needed middle ground between “I hope you get an unsatisfiable itch between your big toe the next one”, on one end, and outright threats of immediate physical violence on the other.
For too long has the mid-tier threat regime been under-served.
To me it sounds along the same lines of the curse “may you live in interesting times” or the more mundane “I hope you step on a lego”
Tho yours reminds me of the (I think) Yiddish curse “may all your teeth fall out except one, so you can have a toothache”
I feel there’s a bit more nuance to this, like it’s the same threat level, but there’s an aire of my own suffering in this that I love. Like hoping the coworker that stole your lunch gets the runs from it. That the garbage you dumped on my lawn wafts into your house. Here I am, breaking my back to mine the lead and I can only hope you have to suffer similar damage for living around it.
Apparently, lead in paint made it taste sweet, which is where all the allusions to kids eating paint chips, or “wall candy” may have come from.
The Romans sweetened their wine with sugar of lead, lead acetate I think it was. Lead that went right to your head
I think they also used lead vessels which inevitably leeched into their food and drinks
Yep, and on top of that, after enough time it could break down into fine dust, leading to inhalation, even if a child never directly chewed on a window sill.
Nasty, in residential applications. I feel like it has some common ground with hookworm, having degrading social effects, and imposing its problems over time.
Lead was also in car exhaust because of leaded gas so they were screwed either way.
Lead was also used in the toy truck that my dad gamermsuizkkksjsjjennensndnd
It’s still in small plane fuel and there are measurable effects within certain radii of small airfields.
They call it low lead, but it still has twice the lead, 2 grams per gallon, than automotive fuel had in the 60-80s.
They could blend ethanol to get the higher octane, but nah.
The FAA has approved a zero lead option but the GA pilots (rich old guys) don’t want to risk anything new in the 40-60 year old engines.
Ethanol isn’t great though since it attacks seals and fuel pump membranes and those planes sit still a lot, especially during winters.
I miss chewing on the sweet, sweet lead blinds. Troy McClure saved my life with his PSA: Lead Paint, Delicious …but Deadly"
What I find to be interesting is the ad was 100% correct. Lead paint was much more durable than other forms of paint at the time, and it still outperforms many modern paints. It’s still used industrially in some countries with lead paint bans, typically for large, outdoor, metal structures like bridges, holding tanks, pipelines, etc.
We have a ranch house out in the desert that was built in the late 1940s. Some parts of it still have the original coat of lead paint. Even if you wanted it to be pristine, that paint was a “reapply once per generation” thing.
Shame about the heavy metal poisoning, because the stuff’s fantastic otherwise.
Just like asbestos, if you look past the health problems it has some amazing properties.
It made for great fake snow in old Hollywood (this is not a joke, they literally used asbestos)
Which is quite wild given we already back then knew the hazards.
the best cigarette filters!
Everything was better in the olden days.
Ships used red paint below the water line full of arsenic and mercury to prevent animal attachment.
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I’d be shocked if microplastics and ‘forever chemicals’ like PFAS aren’t viewed like this in the future. Did you know they used to put microplastics in fucking toothpaste?? They called it ‘microbeads’.
I work in water. I’ve heard a lot of water departments say that recently. As far as I’m aware nothing is changing yet, they just assume it will.
Out of interest: how do you keep dry or make sure you don’t prune after a long day?
I can’t tell if you’re teasing based on my wording or not 🤣 but I’ll say on literal days when I’m working in water, I don’t. I just get pruney lol.
Yes i was teasing ;)
Lol OK. But there have been many days where a lot of my day was standing in water. I thankfully don’t do main breaks but, hydrants make a lot of water lol.
I am amazed that you actually work a lot IN water! i was so sure that is was that wording like “I work in finance” and you work in management of a water treatment plant :))
Every generation has its own disease, and we have ours.
Oh, fuck, I remember those. I didn’t realize those were plastic.
Most toothpaste contains silica as an abrasive. I’m not aware of any toothpaste products that added plastic microbeads, but a lot of women’s body and face washing products did.
I am now aware of some toothpaste products that added microbeads.
they use marble dust. The plastic beads were stopped because people complained of gum soreness.
Another one that’s new to me, unless marble dust counts as “silica” which is what’s listed on the ingredients of my toothpaste.
So many chemicals really… Food color, preservatives, sweeteners etc.
Did you know that the ancient USAsians used to put a mix of chemicals in their food? The rampant obesity epidemic caused so many heart attacks that the chemically induced ones didn’t even stand out in the statistics.
never seen it in toothpaste, but have in bar soap
We still allow lead in small airplane fuel. Just blow it all into the air.
Yep. I did the math once. The 54 hours it took me to earn my private pilot training, burning some 7.5 gallons of 100LL avgas per hour put enough lead into the air to fill a match box. Right around a cubic inch of solid lead.
Nanoplastics in particular can wind up in the bloodstream and throughout the body. At the nanoscale, the immune system will recognize plastic particles as pathogens and then macrophages will envelop and attempt to digest them. That causes all sorts of inflammatory signals to be put out. That then accelerates inflammaging and all of the associated diseases and conditions. There’s clear evidence for every step of this, the remaining hurdle is quantifying just how much damage it’s doing.
inflammaging
I think the word you’re looking for is “inflammation”.
Ageing and age-related diseases share some basic mechanistic pillars that largely converge on inflammation. During ageing, chronic, sterile, low-grade inflammation — called inflammaging — develops, which contributes to the pathogenesis of age-related diseases. From an evolutionary perspective, a variety of stimuli sustain inflammaging, including pathogens (non-self), endogenous cell debris and misplaced molecules (self) and nutrients and gut microbiota (quasi-self).
ZARKANIAN used PEDANTIC. It doesn’t affect Enemy COGITASE.
AI
Plastic.
Look into factory farming.
The antiquated adspeak wording here is really strange to me
It isn’t the metal of course. But white lead is made straight from the pure metal, lead
It’s gospel truth that you’re money ahead when you paint with white lead.
The antiquated adspeak wording here is really strange to me
You’re just money behind.
You can’t use any other metal for making paint and get the same result
That’s one way of putting it
Titanium and zinc make nice white paints but they’re not as biologically effective
Titanium hwhite
because they aren’t toxic to life.
Is that Daniel Day Lewis?! Wow that man can really disappear into a role.
Okay but can we take just a moment to talk about that glorious mustache? Dude has an entire ferret above his lip.
That’s what they did back then instead of PPE
Imagine if advertising was still like this, but on the Internet. Giant ads full of paragraph after paragraph begging for your purchase.
Few people will read entire paragraphs
Lead paint was banned because kids were eating it, but if not for that, paint made with lead was super awesome. it cleaned off well and lasted way longer. Made the best paint.
i still like lead (white) paints when i oil paint. something about the way they lay down works well for me.
Literally just don’t eat it, wash your hands before eating, and it’s probably fine right?
The big difference is people painted everyday stuff everywhere with it, kids ate the sweet tasting paint chips, and also owners 3 generations later start remodeling a bathroom and demolish something and sand stuff and get the lead dust everywhere unknowingly. It’s a big problem when it’s the default paint.
I guess just be careful how you dispose of your paintings, tell people when you sell them, and that before you die, people know your paintings used lead. The problem is more that it’ll last basically forever or degrade and be toxic somewhere. Not as big a problem as painting a whole ass house with it, but worthy of consideration.
absolutely. i agree
This is where I jump in with the controversial opinion that…
DDT should not be totally banned.
By the 1970/80s, we all grew up thinking that bed bugs were a myth — olden times lore like “sleep tight” referring to tightening the ropes if your bed… sleep tight and don’t let them bedbugs bite!
Mattresses used to be treated with it. No bedbugs.
Sure, fogging the backyard before a bbq was not good practice. Definitely municipal spraying programs were a terrible idea
But, mattresses and couches? That’s a good use case. Put a $100 deposit on every mattress sold, and they will all be returned for the refund, one way or another.
The total elimination of a permanent, safe (for humans) insecticide that prevents that terrible pest was almost as bad an idea as selling it unregulated in the lo Woolworth’s
DDT should not be totally banned.
DDT was banned based on bullshit. In 1962, A US naturalist , Rachel Carson, wrote a book claiming DDT was killing bird populations, but her data was all fake. As a result of banning DDT, millions of people subsequently died of malaria in Southern hemisphere, which conveniently led to decades of economic underdevelopment in those regions, run by US mega agriculture. Governments insist to this day this is all a myth and the UN keeps promoting DDT bans. The “Scientific” studies showing effects on bird eggs and carcinogenesis all used ridiculous levels never practically used. (see also BPA, same shit science).
They still use DDT as malaria control in some regions. When malaria becomes common in the US, you will see regulations relaxed.
Rain --> water --> paint --> runoff --> sewers --> lakes --> drinking water
At the scale of painting houses, sure, that’s a problem.
At the scale of artists using oil paint, not going to be a problem.
Lead paint is super dangerous, especially for kids. Chinese paint, however.
Is that a threat?
It’s definitely “gospel truth”.
That’s not just my idea
Old ads are so odd sometimes lol. I guess I’m supposed to read this ad as if the guy in the picture is speaking the copy to me?
