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The Invisible Threat Taking Away Our Brightest Minds | Drew McCartor | TED
The Invisible Threat Taking Away Our Brightest Minds | Drew McCartor | TED
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0:03
All right. I'm here to deliver good news
0:07
about lead poisoning.
0:09
But first, a little bit of bad news.
0:12
And that is that this issue that we
0:14
treat as a problem of the past
0:17
is just taking an almost unimaginable
0:19
toll on humanity today.
0:23
In fact, what you're looking at behind
0:24
me are IQ points that lead is robbing
0:28
from the youngest kids on Earth
0:30
permanently and in real time.
0:34
And by the end of the day today, that
0:36
number is estimated to exceed 2 million
0:39
IQ points lost on the day.
0:42
And then tomorrow
0:44
it'll be another 2 million.
0:46
And then again, and again, every day
0:50
until we solve it.
0:53
And lead isn't just causing brain
0:55
damage. It kills a shocking number of
0:57
people through cardiovascular disease.
1:00
Heart attacks and stroke.
1:02
In fact, in 2023, the last year that we
1:05
have estimates
1:06
lead took more lives than all active
1:10
wars
1:11
all natural disasters, all road
1:14
accidents
1:16
and HIV and malaria
1:20
combined.
1:22
Just from lead.
1:25
I run a nonprofit called Pure Earth and
1:27
we prevent lead poisoning. And a couple
1:29
years ago, we were cleaning up lead
1:31
pollution in a village in Bangladesh
1:34
that resulted when some men leased a
1:36
plot of land to recycle the lead out of
1:39
old car batteries. And they would take
1:41
these lead plates out of the battery and
1:43
melt them down in an open fire spreading
1:46
toxic dust across the community.
1:49
And that is where we met Saim.
1:54
Now, you cannot spot a lead poisoned
1:56
child.
1:58
But Sayem's mom knew.
2:01
And she told us
2:02
that before the men arrived, Sayem was
2:05
doing well in school
2:06
and he could remember things.
2:08
And then gradually, he began forgetting
2:11
everything.
2:13
I want to show you what Sayem told us.
2:48
Sayem doesn't know what grade he's in.
2:51
I have a daughter Sayem's age and if you
2:53
have kids, you know how important their
2:55
grade level is to their identity.
2:58
You don't get to call your third grader
3:00
a second grader without catching a
3:01
little feedback about that.
3:05
So what can lead be doing in the brains
3:07
of kids to allow a child to forget what
3:09
grade they're in?
3:12
Well, Sayem's brain, like all kids
3:15
brains, is like a new city under
3:17
construction.
3:19
And calcium actually plays a role like a
3:21
city planner directing crews to build
3:24
synaptic roads and bridges that allow
3:27
for things like learning and memory and
3:30
impulse control, all these tools we
3:32
need.
3:33
But when lead is in the body, it
3:35
masquerades as calcium. And the brain
3:38
will use the lead instead.
3:40
But lead is a terrible city planner.
3:44
>> [snorts]
3:44
>> And it directs those crews to build
3:45
dead-end streets and bridges to nowhere.
3:48
And once lead's chaotic network is
3:50
built,
3:52
the damage is permanent.
3:55
And Same isn't alone.
3:57
Around the world, more than 1 billion
4:01
kids and teenagers have a concentration
4:04
of lead in their blood that exceeds the
4:07
World Health Organization's threshold
4:09
for intervening in a child's life.
4:12
A billion.
4:14
That's one in three.
4:18
Now, imagine you're looking at your kids
4:21
and you have to choose
4:23
which one.
4:27
Almost all of these kids live in
4:29
low-income and middle-income countries
4:31
where the average child
4:34
has an exposure level high enough that
4:37
they will lose an estimated four to five
4:39
IQ points due to lead.
4:42
And that is enough to shift the entire
4:46
intelligence curve downward
4:48
such that we cut in half the number of
4:50
kids who have an IQ above 130.
4:55
These are gifted kids.
4:57
And we increase by half the number of
4:59
kids who have an IQ below 70, who face
5:03
intellectual disability.
5:07
Now, I suspect that we agree if you rob
5:10
one child of their potential, that's a
5:12
tragedy.
5:14
But to do it to a billion kids,
5:17
that changes the trajectory
5:20
of humanity.
5:24
Okay, that's all the bad news.
5:26
Now, the good news,
5:28
this thing is solvable.
5:31
This is Yeah.
5:34
>> [applause]
5:37
>> This is not one of those global problems
5:39
that we're going to struggle to make
5:40
progress on cuz the politics aren't
5:42
aligned or it's too expensive or we need
5:45
some magical new technology. This one is
5:47
solvable today with the tools that we
5:50
already have.
5:51
And I know that because for 25 years,
5:54
Pure Earth has been testing prevention
5:56
strategies, and we've learned that when
5:59
governments take three core steps, lead
6:02
levels can drop dramatically.
6:04
So, here's the model.
6:06
First, run a nationally representative
6:09
survey of kids exposure levels.
6:12
That usually means testing the blood of
6:14
a couple thousand kids to establish a
6:16
baseline, to understand how many kids
6:19
and where they are,
6:20
but mostly, this motivates governments
6:23
with their own data
6:25
cuz the news is usually bad.
6:28
Second,
6:29
we got to find out where the lead's
6:30
coming from.
6:31
In the West, we talk a lot about old
6:33
paint and pipes, and those are issues in
6:35
other countries, but the exposure
6:37
sources vary wildly from place to place,
6:40
and can include things like food and
6:42
spices, traditional cosmetics and
6:44
medicines, things like ceramic glazes,
6:47
cheap aluminum cookware, and industrial
6:49
pollution like Same Faced. But the point
6:52
is we need to identify the priority
6:54
ones.
6:56
And then thirdly, and most importantly,
6:58
we have to regulate and remove lead from
7:00
our economy and our environment. And
7:02
this looks like tightening standards,
7:05
improving enforcement capacities, and
7:07
cleaning up old contaminated sites.
7:10
So, that's the model.
7:13
I don't want to pretend like it's easy.
7:14
It's not easy, but it's also not rocket
7:16
science.
7:18
And it works.
7:20
In 2018, the country of Georgia
7:22
conducted a national survey with UNICEF
7:26
and found that 41%
7:28
of Georgian kids exceeded that WHO
7:31
threshold.
7:33
The government brought Pure Earth over,
7:35
and together we identified contaminated
7:37
spices as the major driver. People were
7:40
putting lead-based pigments in the
7:42
spices to make them those bright oranges
7:44
and reds.
7:46
The government tightened their
7:47
regulations, improved their enforcement
7:50
capacity, and today lead levels in the
7:52
hardest-hit regions of Georgia are down
7:55
by 75%. The government owns the agenda,
7:58
and the next generation is well
7:59
protected.
8:02
>> [applause]
8:07
>> But Georgia isn't alone. We've helped
8:08
the Philippines conduct their first
8:10
large survey. We've helped Ghana
8:12
identify their exposure sources. We've
8:15
helped Mexico reduce the use of
8:16
lead-based glazes, and there are dozens
8:19
of other examples of countries and
8:21
organizations making progress.
8:25
Now,
8:29
we cannot give back to Thaim what lead
8:32
stole from him.
8:34
But there are millions
8:37
of young brains under construction
8:40
right now.
8:42
We have to get to them before lead does.
8:47
And that's the plan.
8:49
With support from the Audacious Project
8:51
donor community, we are rolling out the
8:53
model that I just described in over 20
8:55
countries that are home to 500 million
8:59
lead-poisoned kids. And I'm confident
9:01
that over the next 8 years, this program
9:04
will improve the intellectual capacity,
9:06
health, and longevity of not just that
9:09
half a billion kids, but every
9:11
generation coming up behind them.
9:15
>> [applause]
9:20
[applause]
9:22
>> So,
9:24
you
9:25
now know more about lead poisoning
9:28
than almost anyone on Earth.
9:31
And that fact remains our central
9:34
challenge.
9:37
So, tell people.
9:39
Tell them how big it is.
9:41
And tell them
9:43
that we can solve it.
9:45
Thank you.
9:46
>> [applause]
