Many of you may not remember the 1978 Jimmy Carter’s battle with Congress to ban lead from gasoline (both parties opposed him).  In 1979 I moved from NYU to Maryland because my USDA grant application was approved for 2.5 million dollars to study the effects of environmental toxins such as lead, cadmium, mercury, aluminum, arsenic, etc. and organophosphates on brain development from infancy to adulthood.  QEEG and multiple neuropsych tests (administered by licensed psychologists) and measures of school performance and SES and age and nutrition and demographics, etc. for over 1,300 children from 2 months to 18 years of age was collected and placed in databases that today are still used in NeuroGuide and by ANI.

In 1982 I was proud to testify before an EPA committee when, at that time, there was over 200,000 tons of lead consumed in automobile gasoline per year and was spewed throughout the US.  We showed a significant negative linear relationship between I.Q. and QEEG and the body burden of lead.  In the 1980s we also published studies where we concluded that the dopaminergic motor system in QEEG was especially susceptible to lead and the more posterior occipital-parietal regions were especially susceptible to cadmium.

Bottom line is that the only acceptable level of lead is zero lead.   Every atom of lead and cadmium and mercury is a toxin.

In 1983 I received additional funding from NIH and other agencies and eventually extended the QEEG and psychological and demographic database to age 82 in 1989.  The selected subset of individuals that had low levels of lead and cadmium and normal neuropsychological scores and normal development and no history of neurological disorders became the basic foundation of the NeuroGuide normative database in 1989 which is in use by over 5,000 individuals today.

For those interested here is a review of this history at:

https://appliedneuroscience.com/PDFs/LSNDBweb.pdf

And later by myself and Joel Lubar at:

https://appliedneuroscience.com/PDFs/History_of_QEEG_Databases.pdf

I am copying some of our publications which is a testament to how a team of dedicated and passionate people can make a difference even if it is only a temporary and forgotten difference.

R.W. Thatcher Ph.D., M.L. Lester M.A., R. Mcalaster M.A. & R. Horst Ph.D. (1982) Effects of Low Levels of Cadmium and Lead on Cognitive Functioning in Children, Archives of Environmental Health: An International Journal, 37:3, 159-166, DOI: 10.1080/00039896.1982.10667557

Lester, M. L., Thatcher, R. W., and Monroe-Lord, L. (1982). Refined carbohydrate intake, hair cadmium levels and cognitive functioning in children. Nutrition and Behavior, 1, 1–14.

Thatcher, R.W. and Lester, M.L.  (1983). Anatomically related variations in trace metal concentrations in hair. Clinical Chemistry, 29(9): 1691-2.

Thatcher, R. W., Lester, M. L., McAlaster, R., Horst, R., & Ignasias, S. W. (1983). Intelligence and Lead Toxins in Rural Children. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 16(6), 355–359. https://doi.org/10.1177/002221948301600611

Thatcher, R.W., McAlaster, R. and Lester, M.L. (1984), Evoked Potentials Related to Hair Cadmium and Lead in Children. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 425: 384-390. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.1984.tb23560.x

Thatcher, R. W., & Fishbein, D. H. (1984). Computerized EEG, nutrition and behavior. Journal of Applied Nutrition, 36(2), 81-102.

Thatcher, R.W., McAlaster, R., Lester, M.L. and Cantor, D.S. (1984), Comparisons among EEG, Hair Minerals and Diet Predictions of Reading Performance in Children. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 433: 87-96. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.1984.tb14761.x

Thatcher, R. W., & Lester, M. L. (1985). Nutrition, Environmental Toxins and Computerized EEG: A Mini-Max Approach to Learning Disabilities. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 18(5), 287–297. https://doi.org/10.1177/002221948501800508

Lester, M., Horst, R., and Thatcher, R.W. (1986). Protective effects of calcium and zinc against lead and cadmium toxicity in children. Nutrition and Behavior, 3: 145   161, 1986.

Thatcher, R.W., Walker, R.A. and Guidice, S. (1987). Human cerebral hemispheres develop at different rates and ages.  Science, 236: 1110-1113.

Thatcher, R.W., Lester, M.L., Ignasias, S.W. and McAlaster, R.  Trace Element Assessment of Learning Disabled Children (abstract). Proceedings of the Ninth Annual Meeting of the Orton Society, October, 1980.

Thatcher, R.W., Lester, M.L., Ignasias, S.W. and McAlaster, R.  Relations between Lead and Cadmium Toxins and Intelligence in Rural Children (abstract). Proceedings of the USDA Cooperative Research Symposium, Atlanta, Georgia, November, 1980.

Thatcher, R.W., Lester, M.L., Ignasias, S.W. and McAlaster, R. Electrophysiological Assessment of Brain Development and Nutrition in Rural Children (abstract).   Proceedings of the USDA Cooperative Research Symposium, Atlanta, Georgia, November, 1980.

Thatcher, R.W., Lester, M.L., and McAlaster, R. Electrophysiological and Trace Element Assessment of Learning Disabled Children (Abstract). Proceedings of The Ninth Annual Meeting of The International Neuropsychology Society.  Atlanta, Georgia, Feb. 15 22, 1981.

Thatcher, R.W., Lester, M.L., and McAlaster, R.  Electrophysiological Analysis of Interhemispheric Coordination in Learning Disabled Children. Proceedings of Symposium on Cognitive Processing in the Right Hemisphere. Institute for Research in Behavioral Neuroscience, New York University School of Medicine, New York, November, 1980.

Harland, B.F., Thatcher, R.W. and Lester, M.L.  Hair Mineral Concentrations and Learning Disabilities (abstract). Proceedings of the Twelfth Annual Meeting of the Trace Element Society, Melbourne, Australia, July, 1981.

Thatcher, R.W., Lester, M.L., McAlaster, R., and Horst, R.  EEG Correlates of Intelligence in Children (abstract). Proceedings of the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting.  Los Angeles, California, November, 1981.

Lester, M.L., Thatcher, R.W., Monroe Lord, L. and McAlaster, R. Trace Mineral and Dietary Correlates of Children’s Mental Performance (abstract). Proceedings of the International Conference of the Association for Children and Adults with Learning Disabilities, Chicago, March, 1982.

Thatcher, R.W., McAlaster, R. and Lester, M.L. Hair cadmium and lead and evoked potential measures in children. USDA Fourth Biennial Cooperative Research Symposium, Orlando, Fl., Oct. 4, 1982 (Abstract).

Lester, M.L., Thatcher, R.W. and McAlaster, R. Hair mineral status and cognitive functioning in rural children. USDA Fourth Biennial Cooperative Research Symposium, Orlando, Fl., Oct. 4, 1982 (Abstract).

Krause, P., Walker, R., Lester, M.L. and Thatcher, R.W. Relations between two dietary recall instruments and hair mineral and metal concentrations (abstract).  Twelfth Annual MBS Symposium, Wash. D.C., April, 1983.

Purnell, K., Krause, P., Lester, M. and Thatcher, R.W. Interreliability and validity of 24hr recall vs long term food frequency surveys for nutritional assessment of children (abstract). Twelfth Annual MBS Symposium, Wash. D.C., April, 1983.

Fishbein, D. and Thatcher, R.W. An Appraisal of the Nutrition Behavior Relationship (abstract). Proceedings of the 22nd Annual American Correctional Association, August 1983.

Thatcher, R.W., Lester, M.L., McAlaster, R. and Cantor, D.S. Electrophysiological Correlates of Intelligence in Children. Proceedings of the International Neuropsychological Society, Lisbon, Portugal, June 14, 1983.

Krause, P.J., Lester, M.L. and Thatcher, R.W. Hair element norms for normal and gifted children (abstract). Presented to the Eighth Annual Mid-Atlantic MBS Conference, Petersburg Virginia, November, 1983.

Hunter, S.M., Lester, M.L. and Thatcher, R.W. Biological, nutritional and ecological factors affecting children’s growth (abstract). Eighth Annual Mid-Atlantic MBS Conference, Petersburg Virginia, November, 1983.

Krause, P.J., Lester, M.L., and Thatcher, R.W.  Hair element norms for children. NIH/MBS National Research Symposium, Washington, D.C., April, 1984.