A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental Racism and Its Assault on the American Mind

by Harriet A. Washington

An IQ drop of five points makes a child a bit slower to learn, and reduces her memory capacity as well as her ability to read and calculate. Her tests will reveal consistently lower scores. But in addition to IQ loss, lead poisoning sabotages a child’s ability to learn by engendering learning disabilities, hearing loss, balance disorders, hyperactivity, perceptual disorders, attention deficit disorders, and a reduction in perceptual reasoning skills. Lead also causes violent tendencies, greater impulsivity, and disruptive classroom behavior. This synergy renders the child less able to compete in the classroom and more likely to drop out. The lead-poisoning damage is also cumulative, and affected adults are less able to compete professionally and to hold employment, making them more likely to be unemployed or underemployed.