Lead is found in paint, soil, and dust
Repainting,
remodeling, or renovating old homes (build pre-1978) with lead paint can
cause lead dust to gather and to spread
In old homes (built pre-1978), paint can erode and deteriorate exposing children to lead - If a child eats or touches these paint chips it can be very hazardous
If
children are exposed to the paint and/or dust through inhaling or touching
it, they will get poisoned.
Other less common sources of lead include: imported foods such as tamarind products, food coloring (lozenna) from Iraq, prune juice concentrate from France, duck eggs from Taiwan, and raisins from Turkey
Learning
Disabilities
Low
IQ
Slow
Growth Rate
Hearing
Defects
Loss
of Appetite
Headaches
Behavioral Problems
Nerve Disorders
Muscle joint pain
Pregnancy difficulties
High blood pressure
Potential harmful effects on a fetus
Potential sexual dysfunction
*All of these effects are all permanent and will last a lifetime
It is estimated that approximately 1,000,000 US children younger than the age of 5 years have high lead levels (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2000)
4.4% of all US Children are estimated to be lead poisoned - many without knowing it
Nearly 2/3 of all US homes still have lead paint
A Standard lead poisoning test is very simple. All it requires is a small measurement of the blood and can be done at most local doctor's office.
Lead
is measure in the blood per μg/dl
Below
10 μg/dl is normal
Above 10μg/dl in a child and he or she is lead poisoned and can result in any effects listed above
Blood levels greater than 80 μg/dl can cause comas, convulsions, and death
A
lead poisoned child is seven times more likely to dropout of school and six
times more likely not to read very well
City Data (For cities that tested more than 500 children or have been listed in previous years)
County Data (For counties that found at least 10 children with EBL over 10 ug/dL)
*Statistics provided by Ohio Department of health (http://www.odh.state.oh.us/). For more information concerning these statistics, please contact ODH's Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program at (614) 728-6816
The cost of remediation lead in housing is enormous and clearly would require increases in federal funding. Without a strong federal program to remove lead from the housing stock the current problem of lead poisoning will continue. With Tax cuts usually comes budget cuts from local, state, and federal programs.
In addition, the loss in productive income from lead poisoning goes untaxed. The unrecognized symptoms of lead poisoning that are treated as other medical/mental problems consume productivity on top of the lost productivity creating the link between lead poisoning and violent crime and illegal drug use consumes considerable tax money.
Money in politics and lead poisoning:
In places such as Idaho it is probably very predominant. In California the "polluter protection act" that was defeated in 2000 was over an industry ballot initiative attempting to repeal a levy on paint to pay for lead poisoning screening.
Rhode Island, City of Chicago, City of Milwaukee, and many other cities have filed lawsuit against the paint companies and the industries will be involved in politically reacting to this.
Industry Influence Over Policy and Lead Poisoning:
Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tommy Thompson, overruled the nominations of the CDC staff for membership on the CDC Advisory Committee on Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention. Instead, Secretary Thompson has named his own appointees, including several people with close connections to the lead industry. These appointments from CDC being ignored in favor of industry representatives is a major representation of how the lead industry influences public policy and lead poisoning prevention.
Lancet published an analysis of 40 research reports on lead poisoning, half showing problems and half denying problems, and found that every report which denied problems was funded by the lead industry.
Dr. Needleman, the premier researcher for reducing environmental lead exposure, suffered an egregious smear of his professional reputation from attacks by lead industry funded people which took years to refute.
Decreased School Funding and Lead Poisoning:
Mike Martin, a research analyst from the Arizona School Board Association, created a report linking lead poisoning to the symptoms of failing schools (http://www.azsba.org/lead.htm). He0 concludes that it does not explicitly appear to be a connection, but it does cite that much of the antipathy toward public education results from the failure of schools to deal with what are clearly the symptoms of lead poisoning among children that have clearly been documented as lead poisoned (Philadelphia, Cleveland, Houston, etc.).
He says that schools would receive better funding if they did not have large numbers of students suffering from lead poisoning and its learning disabilities, ADHD, propensity toward violence and drug use. As it is, much of the rhetoric about the lack of progress from increased school funding in the past ignores that the bulk of the funding increases went into Special Education, of which it is estimated that up to a third are due to lead poisoning.
National Health Care System and Lead Poisoning:
The Government Accounting Office reported in 1999 that only ten percent of the children covered by Medicaid were being screened for lead poisoning, even though the law requires this screening for all Medicaid recipients.
One proposed idea to correct this problem is by prohibiting payments to doctors who don't do the screening. Many healthcare advocates feel that doctors would stop taking Medicaid patients if this occurred. This shows that there is already a resistance to funding what little required intervention in lead poisoning exists.
Recent studies show that obesity could well be symptomatic of lead poisoning.
Click on the below links for articles relating lead exposure and crime:
