The deadly threat affecting millions — and how to prevent it | Drew McCartor

**Elise Hu** (0:04)
You're listening to TED Talks Daily where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. Sometimes a major problem comes along that we actually have the ability to solve because we've done it before, just not everywhere.
Lead poisoning is one of those problems.

**Drew McCartor** (0:21)
In 2023, the last year that we have estimates, lead took more lives than all active wars, all natural disasters, all road accidents, and HIV, and malaria combined.

**Elise Hu** (0:40)
That's Drew McCartor, the head of Pure Earth, a 2025 TED Audacious Project grantee and non-profit, working to prevent exposure to toxic pollutants like lead globally.
As he shares in his talk, nearly anyone in the US talks about lead as a problem. And that, it turns out, is part of the problem. He reminds us that every day, lead poisoning accounts for an estimated 2 million IQ points permanently lost in children, one of the most overlooked catastrophes of our time.

**Drew McCartor** (1:12)
Now I suspect that we agree, if you rob one child of their potential, that's a tragedy. But to do it to a billion kids, that changes the trajectory of humanity.
Okay, that's all the bad news. Now the good news, this thing is solvable.

**Elise Hu** (1:34)
Drew breaks down Pure Earth's proven three-step model to measure, identify and remove lead and how because of this, they're scaling across more than 20 countries to protect half a billion children. And stick around after the talk, we caught up with Hasiba Huck of TED's Audacious Project, who shares why this hit closer to home than she expected and why Drew's work gives her hope at a moment when so many other problems feel impossible to solve. That's all coming up right after a short break.
And now, our TED Talk of the day.

**Drew McCartor** (2:13)
All right, I'm here to deliver good news about lead poisoning. But first, a little bit of bad news. And that is that this issue that we treat as a problem of the past is just taking an almost unimaginable toll on humanity today.
In fact, what you're looking at behind me are IQ points that lead is robbing from the youngest kids on earth permanently and in real time.

**Elise Hu** (2:44)
Hey, y'all, Elise here. What Drew's referring to right now is a tracker on the screen behind him. The screen is black with large white numbers starting below 100 and rapidly counting up. Underneath, it says real time IQ loss.

**Drew McCartor** (2:58)
And by the end of the day, today, that number is estimated to exceed two million IQ points lost on the day. And then tomorrow, it'll be another two million. And then again and again every day until we solve it.
And lead isn't just causing brain damage. It kills a shocking number of people through cardiovascular disease. Heart attacks and stroke. In fact, in 2023, the last year that we have estimates, lead took more lives than all active wars, all natural disasters, all road accidents and HIV and malaria combined. Just from lead.
I run a nonprofit called Pure Earth and we prevent lead poisoning. And a couple years ago, we were cleaning up lead pollution in a village in Bangladesh that resulted when some men leased a plot of land to recycle the lead out of old car batteries. And they would take these lead plates out of the battery and melt them down in an open fire, spreading toxic dust across the community. And that is where we met Sayim.
Now, you cannot spot a lead-poisoned child. But Sayim's mom knew. And she told us that before the men arrived, Sayim was doing well in school and he could remember things. And then gradually, he began forgetting everything. I want to show you what Sayim told us.

**Elise Hu** (4:39)
Drew is about to play a video of a young boy named Sayim, sitting outside by a tree, speaking with his teacher who is behind the camera. They are speaking in Bengali and I will translate for you here. The teacher asks, what grade are you in? Sayim responds, grade two. Grade two? Which school? Rajabari. Who are your friends in school? Meme. There are many others. Is Meme your classmate? Yes, she is in my grade. Which grade?
Grade three. Meme is in grade three? Yes, we are both in grade three. You are also in grade three? Yes. Didn't you just say that you were in grade two? I can't remember.
You can't remember?
The video ends with Sayim shaking his head, no.

**Drew McCartor** (5:28)
Sayim doesn't know what grade he's in. I have a daughter, Sayim's age, and if you have kids, you know how important their grade level is to their identity. You don't get to call your third grader a second grader without catching a little feedback about that.