I am a US Physician who was definitely involved in occupational lead exposure control. There are still lead PIPES everywhere. All the cities had mostly lead pipes. Only newer communities have plastic pipes and even those communities may get their water from the old system. Remember, Plumber comes from the Latin word for Lead. There are some theories that lead exposure brought down the Roman Empire.
The Flint, Michigan exposure came from switching the water from the usual source, which was the Detroit Water System, to a local river, which had been polluted from industrial use a long time ago (and could dissolve the lead in the old pipes)
I don't know who thought the river water was OK, nobody in Michigan who I know of would drink from any river near Flint. I am from Michigan.
I would imagine the use of lead pipes was universal outside of the US also.
Lead leaches into the water if the water is acidic. Otherwise it does not leach out in any quantity.
Some ceramic (homemade pottery mostly) had lead in the glaze and this could leach out if you used the bowl for something like tomato sauce. Pewter tableware had lead in it in the past and lots of it is still in use. Never serve Gazpacho in hand made ceramics.
Burning batteries for recycling has always been a big contributor to workplace lead exposure and there are special rules and process for dealing with this exposure. Lead is remelted from old, dead batteries.
Lead was banned from car bodies because of the occupational exposure, smoothing out the lead joints meant grinding at some point which put the lead into the air quite efficiently.
Lead slag on top of molten solder pots is an issue because it is discarded and turn easily to dust.
Hand soldering, even in mass production, has never been shown to be a risk from lead fumes, but hand to mouth is certainly the risk and there are OSHA rules for these occupations. Wash your hands before dinner is just one of the rules that applies to us.
Chemicals do leach out of plastic pipes also but the compounds disappear from the water after using the pipes for maybe a few weeks.