=====> I recall when this onus was on fast food, but I'm still excited.
So we replace two-thirds of the cops with chemists and field
biologists and civilization is saved after all, probably at
a significant profit.
valis
Occupied America
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Polluted water can cause brain damage that leads to a life of crime,
researcher claims
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Copyright © 1997 Nando.net
Copyright © 1997 Reuter Information Service
LONDON (May 29, 1997 00:49 a.m. EDT) - New Scientist magazine reported
Thursday that polluted water can cause brain damage that turns
ordinary people into violent criminals.
It quoted a U.S. researcher who said he had made a careful analysis
showing that toxic metals in drinking water were linked to crime
rates.
Roger Masters of Dartmouth College in New Hampshire compared crime
figures from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) with
information on industrial discharges of lead and manganese from the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
He found a definite link between pollution figures and levels of
murder, assault and robbery. Counties with the highest pollution
levels had crime rates triple the national average.
"The presence of pollution is as big a factor as poverty," Masters
told New Scientist.
Masters has written about his findings in a book, Environmental
Toxicology, to be published later this year. He says there is a
physical basis for the phenomenon.
Experiments have shown lead can inhibit the action of glial cells,
which help clean up unwanted chemicals in the brain. Other tests have
shown manganese can interfere with levels of the neurotransmitters
serotonin and dopamine -- chemical messengers linked with mood and
behavior.
"It's the breakdown of the inhibition mechanism that's the key to
violent behavior," Masters said.
"This quite likely has something in it," Ken Pease, director of the
Applied Criminology Research Unit at the University of Huddersfield,
told New Scientist.
"But I think the approach badly needs individual data to nail it
down."
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Copyright © 1997 Nando.net
