The Man Who Accidentally Killed The Most People In History

A part of this video is sponsored by Wren. Offset your carbon footprint on Wren: ​https://www.wren.co/start/veritasium. For the first 100 people who sign up, I will personally pay for the first month of your subscription!

Massive thanks to Prof. Francois Tissot for suggesting we make a video on the topic of isotope geochemistry. Huge thanks to Prof. Bruce Lanphear for consulting with us on lead and cardiovascular diseases. Thanks to Vincent Mai for lending us your Snatoms kit. Thanks to the Caltech Archives for the audio of Patterson’s interview. Thanks to Rayner Moss for help with the fire piston.

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Other great resources you should check out:
Bill Bryson has a chapter in his fantastic “A Short History of Nearly Everything”
Radiolab have a wonderful podcast: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/heavy-metal
Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey has a wonderful episode – S1E7 which does a great job of telling the story of Clair Patterson
A fantastic Mental floss article – https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/94569/clair-patterson-scientist-who-determined-age-earth-and-then-saved-it

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References:

Much of the lead-crime hypothesis data is from Rick Nevin’s work – https://ricknevin.com/

WHO factsheet on lead poisoning – https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/lead-poisoning-and-health

WHO press release about the end of leaded gasoline https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/08/1098792

UNICEF report – https://ve42.co/UNICEF

Needleman, H. (2004). Lead poisoning. Annu. Rev. Med., 55, 209-222. https://ve42.co/Needleman1

Needleman, H. L. (1991). Human lead exposure. CRC Press. https://ve42.co/Needleman2

Needleman, H. L. et al. (1979). Deficits in psychologic and classroom performance of children with elevated dentine lead levels. New England journal of medicine, 300(13), 689-695. – https://ve42.co/Needleman3

Needleman, H. L. et al. (1996). Bone lead levels and delinquent behavior. Jama, 275(5), 363-369. https://ve42.co/Needleman4

Kovarik, W. J. (1993). The ethyl controversy: the news media and the public health debate over leaded gasoline, 1924-1926 https://ve42.co/Kovarik2

Edelmann, F. T. (2016). The life and legacy of Thomas Midgley Jr. In Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania https://ve42.co/Edelmann

More, A. F. et al. (2017). Next‐generation ice core technology reveals true minimum natural levels of lead (Pb) in the atmosphere: Insights from the Black Death. GeoHealth, 1(4), 211-219. https://ve42.co/More1

McFarland, M. J., et al. (2022). PNAS 119(11), e2118631119. https://ve42.co/McFarland

Kovarik, W. (2005). Ethyl-leaded gasoline. International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, 11(4), 384-397. https://ve42.co/Kovarik3

Nevin, R. (2007). Understanding international crime trends: the legacy of preschool lead exposure. Environmental research, 104(3), 315-336. – https://ve42.co/Nevin2007

Ericson, J. E., et al. (1979). Skeletal concentrations of lead in ancient Peruvians. New England Journal of Medicine, 300(17), 946-951. – https://ve42.co/Ericson1

Patterson, Claire. The Isotopic Composition of Trace Quantities of Lead and Calcium https://ve42.co/Patterson1

Boutron, C. F., & Patterson, C. C. (1986). Lead concentration changes in Antarctic ice during the Wisconsin/Holocene transition. Nature, 323(6085), 222-225. – https://ve42.co/Boulton1

Patterson, C. (1956). Age of meteorites and the earth. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 10(4), 230-237. – https://ve42.co/Patterson2

Lanphear, B. P. et al (2018). Low-level lead exposure and mortality in US adults: a population-based cohort study. The Lancet Public Health, 3(4), e177-e184. – https://ve42.co/Lanphear1

Schaule, B. K., & Patterson, C. C. (1981). Lead concentrations in the northeast Pacific: evidence for global anthropogenic perturbations. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 54(1), 97-116. – https://ve42.co/Schaule1

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Written by Petr Lebedev, Derek Muller, Chris Stewart and Katie Barnshaw
Edited by Trenon Oliver
Filmed by Petr Lebedev
Animation by Fabio Albertelli, Jakub Misiek, Iván Tello and Mike Radjabov, Caleb Worcester
Additional video/photos supplied by Getty Images
Patterson’s 1995 interview audio Courtesy of the Archives, California Institute of Technology
Music from Epidemic Sound
Produced by Derek Muller, Petr Lebedev, and Emily Zhang