OK, so I’m sitting in the chiropractor’s office, perusing the Post while I wait for the doctor, reading an editorial called “The Crime of the Century” that claims a link between crime rates and lead in the atmosphere. Say what? No. For real.

A new study, published last month in the medical journal PLoS Medicine, makes the strongest case to date for a relationship between childhood lead exposure and adult crime. Beginning in 1979, researchers in Cincinnati followed 250 people from birth to young adulthood. They found that prenatal and childhood exposure to lead was a strong predictor of future arrests, particularly arrests for violent crime.

……..

Early exposure to lead is associated with lower IQ, less tolerance for frustration, hyperactivity and poor impulse control. Lead interferes with brain development in children and lowers levels of key neurotransmitters. Brain damage has been found at the lowest levels that can be monitored. Once that damage occurs, it is irreversible.

Last year, economist Jessica Wolpaw Reyes published research showing that the rise and fall of lead exposure rates among American children seems to match the rise and fall of violent crime – but with a 20 year time lag. That makes sense, because people in their late teens and early 20s statistically are more likely to commit crimes.

After I read that, I say to the perky receptionist, “Who would have thought? This editorial says that studies are showing a link between childhood exposure to lead and violent tendencies.”

She rolls her eyes, looking tres annoyed. “What won’t they think of next so people don’t have to be accountable for their own actions.”

Oops. A Republican. I’ll just shut up now before science annoys her any further. So I silently read:

Today, lead paint is the cause of most childhood lead exposure. But before the switch to unleaded gasoline between 1975 and 1985, lead in gas was the primary source. Ms. Reyes used small variations in the lead content of gasoline from state to state to strengthen her conclusions.

If she’s correct, the same effect should be found in other countries. That’s exactly what researcher Rick Nevin found in an international study published in 2006.

Countries like Britain and Australia, which switched to unleaded gasoline only in the 1980s, are only just beginning to see a drop in violent crime rates, Mr. Nevin’s study found. He tracked violent crime and lead content in gasoline in nine countries.

At that point, the doctor shows up and takes me to the examining room. After he adjusts me, he sends the perky receptionist to set me up on some therapeutic equipment, and I can’t help myself. I know what she’s thinking: Twinkie defense.

“I gather you don’t put any stock in the notion that lead could contribute to violent behavior then,” I say.

I’ve embarrassed her. She doesn’t want to discuss it, but she’s stuck in the room with me and can’t gracefully avoid my question. Laughing apologetically, she says, “It won’t be long before someone claims he couldn’t help becoming an armed robber because the paint in his apartment when he was a baby had lead in it.”

Yup. Twinkie defense.

“Right,” I say. “I agree that people have to be accountable for their actions. But at the same time, it’s also criminal to let those children be exposed to lead. We should get rid of it.” I summarize in three or four sentences what the editorial said, and, for politeness’ sake, she smiles and agrees.

We retired teachers are incorrigible. We can’t resist those teachable moments even when a student practically has her fingers stuffed in her ears. Ms. Perky’s bias was so evident from the first roll of her eyes that perhaps I should have left her in ignorant bliss. But like I said, we retired teachers ….

On the other hand, I may be pushy, but I’m not suicidal. I decide not to share with her my conviction that Doe Run–not to mention hundreds of other corporations that screw over consumers–lacks a conscience and any accountability. And that the guilty-as-hell CEOs never end up in jail for their crimes.

Americans by the hundreds of thousands–and that’s a conservative estimate, if you’ll excuse the pun–have died as a result of policies implemented by Newt Gingrich and Dick Cheney. Yet they and their Republican brethren don’t even have the excuse of exposure to lead paint as infants. But they’re not held accountable.

I was serious, though, when I said that, lead paint or not, violent behavior has to be dealt with. You can’t let people run around committing rape and armed robbery. I just long for a day when people would recognize how much of that crime could be prevented if we had more social justice. And how much the crime of greed abetted by power deserves to be punished.