Lead, writes the epidemiologist Devra Davis, has the same electronic charge as calcium, and therefore competes with calcium throughout the body: ‘In the bones, the brain, and the blood and throughout the nervous system all of which depend on calcium, lead can trigger irreparable damage.’2 As a means of getting it into the bloodstream, she says, you couldn’t invent a better way than miniaturising it, putting it into a combustible liquid and releasing its fumes into the air.
Why lead is bad
