Yes, lead poisoning could really be a cause of violent crime

[happyslug]

68. That was a drug war, something generally removed when it comes to overall murder rates

Drugs wars and other inner crime wars lead to increase number of murders and violent acts, but then the number subsides as one side or another wins the war. It is like any war, the number of people killed drop drastically in 1946 compared to 1944, the reason had nothing to do with any factor other then the end of WWII.

What the author of this report is trying to show, that except for anomalies like a drug war (or any war), the rates of violent crimes goes up and down about 20 years after an increase or decrease in the exposure to lead.

Another set of factors, is the history of violence in the Rural South, overall an overall more violent section of the US then the rest of the US (Tied in with who settled the South, its history of slavery AND its treatment of African Americans between 1865 and 1964). It is just in the Culture of the Rural South to be violent (through this has decreased over the last 50 years as Northern norms came to dominate even in the Rural South). African Americans came from the Rural South and brought with them the Rural South's high rate of violence. With the end of African American movement to urban centers in the 1950s, Violence tied in with African Americans started to go down in the 1970s as more and more African Americans, now living in Urban Areas, internalized northern low rates of violence. This rate has been greater then would be expected for a group that was use to one level of violence when it embraces another set of rules as to violence. This greater increase in the 1960s and greater decrease then what would have been expected may be tied in with lead, for the house that retain the most lead pipes and lead paint were the houses such poor ex rural African Americans could afford in the 1920s, when the move North Started till this very day. At the same time, more and more of the lead pipe and lead paint was being removed from such housing.

Furthermore, the author NEVER claim lead was the sole cause of Violent crime, but that once he controlled for all other factors (including the higher level of violence in the Rural South and its transfer up north by the arrival of African Americans and rural white Southerns, starting in the 1920s) lead drops out as a strong factor in the overall increase and decrease in crime rates.

No, you have to exclude drug wars and areas and groups of traditional high rates of violence, which the author apparently did (while also looking into those areas and groups and trace a similar increase in violence and decrease in violence depending on the exposure to lead). Those anomalies have to be excluded to get valid data, but such exclusions does not make the study invalid. Also citing those anomalies do not show the study is invalid and the point the study shows is invalid. No study is perfect, for most people are affected by more then one thing. In the case of Murder, the tradition of violence in their culture and if any war is going on are factors that has to be controlled for. That appears to be the case with this study and your point are to the anomalies that such studies have to exclude to produce anything useful. Such anomalies, if explained by factors other then what is being studies, have to be excluded to make the study valid. The people who did this study seems to have excluded anything that can be explained by other factors, which left lead as the cause for the overall increase in violence NOT related to other factors.