The rundown of the scholarship and the following debate is useful, but I found that post to be immediately suspicious as it simply asserts, repeatedly, that &quot;legitimate scholars&quot; and &quot;legit historians&quot; ignored it or don&#x27;t agree. I find such language to be a strong indicator that someone is about to try overstating their case, and is trying to discourage people from challenging their assertions by dismissing other views. An unfortunately common problem with historians, I&#x27;ve found.<p>I think the guy is correct that the &quot;fall&quot; of Rome is a complex topic and it&#x27;s not entirely clear what this fall really consists of. But it&#x27;s known from skeletal analysis that some Romans did indeed have very high lead levels in their bodies, we know what kinds of effects that can have, etc. Saying Rome fell exclusively because of lead piping would be perhaps overstating things, but we know that our own much more advanced society was becoming more and more violent until lead was removed from gasoline: if that connection had never been made or the solution never happened it&#x27;s not hard to believe that in a hundred years or so we&#x27;d be existing in a far, far worse state.