Series - Toxic Fuel

Toxic Fuel

Automobiles in the US haven’t run on leaded gasoline for decades. Why is it taking so long to get the lead out of fuel for small airplanes?

Economic Indicators

Leaded airplane fuel is poisoning a new generation of American children

It’s a five-minute drive from Michelle Lopez’s home in San Jose, California, to Donald J. Meyer Elementary School, where she drops off her daughter each weekday morning. As seven-year-old Holland tumbles out of the car, the first flights of the day…

Michael J. Coren

Economic Indicators

Living with the risk of childhood lead exposure: A day in the life

Each weekday, Michelle Lopez readies breakfast—scrambled eggs and a mug of hot chocolate on this chilly March morning—for her daughter, seven-year-old Holland Nicole Moreno. As she brushes Holland’s waist-length brown hair, the two chat and laugh…

Michael J. Coren

Economic Indicators

Do you live close enough to a small US airport to have lead exposure? Check our maps

For decades, airplanes taking off from Reid-Hillview Airport in the heart of Silicon Valley filled up their tanks with a heavy metal most Americans assumed was banished long ago: lead.

David Yanofsky

and Michael J. Coren

Energy Transition

50 years of research shows there is no safe level of childhood lead exposure

In 1976, Herbert Needleman, a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School, suspected even trace amounts of lead ravaged children’s brains. His opinion was not popular at the time—the prevailing wisdom was only extremely high amounts could inflict such…

Michael J. Coren