For decades, gasoline contained lead.

This toxic element was added to paint.

What were the effects on public health?

This is the People's Pharmacy with Terry and Joe Graydon.

Dr. Bruce Lanfier is Professor of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University.

He's been studying lead and fluoride for years.

The main reason that we have so many chronic diseases, which are, by the way, predominantly man-made, is because we live in an industrialized world.

What should you know about toxic chemicals and the way industry has obscured their long-term

health effects?

Coming up on the people's pharmacy, lead, lies, and lasting harm the chemical roots of chronic disease.

In the People's Pharmacy Health Headlines,

A new strain of COVID-19 is surging in China.

This variant is called NB.1.8.1. The CDC's airport screening program has detected cases

entering the U.S. starting in late March and early April. By now, it's spreading among people

here. It's more transmissible than previous variants, including Omicron, although it has not yet displaced them in

CDC test results. Keep in mind, though, that the CDC is no longer tracking tests closely,

and states have mostly shut down their COVID-19 surveillance. In general, most people no longer

want to hear about this virus. Public health officials in Hong Kong

say they don't think it results in more severe infections, just a lot more infections overall.

That has boosted the number of hospitalizations in China and might do so here as well.

Even though we are no longer in a pandemic, COVID-19 is

still killing more than 300 Americans each week. That's a lot less than the tens of thousands

...