I BLOG PRETTY SOME DAY: Matthew Edgar responds:

Thought you might like a response to your question about the FDA and lead. Simply put, hell no! In more detail (if you want that) the FDA was not the first by any means organization to discover led was bad for you and could poison your brain. The FDA did nothing to restrict the use of lead, doctors and hospitals and makeup organizations have voluntarily gone away from lead use and have encouraged the reduction of use. In fact the Wizard of Oz contributed more to this than anything else because the original tin man died because of lead poisoning. (Crazy, huh?) The FDA hopped on the band wagon late and claimed that it was the champion of this cause.

Matthew also counter-blogged a response on his site to the lead-made-Bin-Laden-crazy story below. Preview: The FDA does not get off easy.

Hey, the first e-mail response to my blog. And I hardly begged at all.