Introducing Untold: Toxic Legacy

Laura Hughes (0:02)

The symptoms are small at first. You feel a little more tired than usual, perhaps a bit forgetful. You shrug it off as stress. After a while, you feel a little more than tired. You feel unwell. It's hard to tell what could be making you feel this way. Your diet? A long-running cold? It doesn't happen all at once. Basic tasks are making you feel like you're lost. Before you know it, it's all consuming.

But the doctor's standard tests don't show anything. No one knows what's happening. Inside your body, something has been accumulating.

There is toxic lead inside you, and it's poisoning you. My name is Laura Hughes, and for the past two years, I've been uncovering the United Kingdom's perplexing relationship with lead. What I've found has shocked me.

SPEAKER_3 (1:18)

I think the most terrifying thing is, is that once it's happened, there's not really an easy route out of it. The damage is done.

SPEAKER_2 (1:24)

Ticking along, incrementing a little bit, a little bit more, a little bit more, a little more damage, a little more damage.

SPEAKER_4 (1:29)

And you feel like a conspiracy theorist if you talk to people, like, neighbors are interested, kind of, and they're like, oh, you're going on about that, okay.

SPEAKER_5 (1:37)

Every American child is tested for this, so why isn't every British child tested for it too?

SPEAKER_6 (1:42)

And they're failing at one of the most basic functions of government, which is to protect its citizens.

SPEAKER_7 (1:48)

If I report this, people are going to hate me. I won't move on with my life. And I was so petrified of being dragged across the coals for reporting them. And I still am.

Laura Hughes (2:05)

From the Financial Times, this is Untold, Toxic Legacy. Coming soon.