On the face of it using lead for a pipe seems like the perfect solution. It’s tough, hard wearing and can survive temperature rises and drops. It’s also easy to work with so you can bend it about, which is useful when it comes to pipes. The Roman’s thought it was ok and so did the Victorians but it wasn’t until later that we have come to realise that lead pipes do degrade. When they do they tend to cause quite a few issues in terms of public health.
We don’t have to worry about this in modern times because we have switched to plastic or copper piping that still requires Pipe protectors like those from https://www.meterbox.co.uk/pipe-protectors but are safer.
The issue began when members of a household started to get abdominal pains, felt that there hands and feet were constantly tingling, had trouble remembering even the simplest of things and started to have really bad headaches. These are symptoms of lead poisoning and it was soon discovered that there was a link between the water that they were drinking. The common factor between all of the people that were starting to show the symptoms was that they all had a home supplied via lead pipes. They could not be used any more.