Lead pollution and the collusion of industry and government that sustains it are too dangerous to ignore. It's collusion between government and industry that makes possible the unnecessary maiming and killing of children by the millions. It's "Contra- Life" -- attitudes and people in our midst that work against the environmental health and welfare of our children.
Although some may accuse me of trying to frighten people, the reality is there's plenty to be frightened about.
Everyone wants the world to be a better place -- especially for our children. But most of us can't do much except try to get people to open their eyes to the reality that so many of our agonies are agonies we make ourselves. Pouring poisons and toxins into the environments of fetuses and children is not natural at all -- it's a man-made agony, and it's a sorrowful thing to watch the consequences.
High levels of lead in the blood can be severely damaging to the developing brains of fetuses and children.
So you say: "That may be interesting, but my child has a blood lead level that's average."
The trouble is: average for where? We now know the average blood lead concentration in children in many localities is too high.
If the local average is 10 units (micrograms per deci-liter), and your child has a blood lead level (BLL) of 10 units, it's likely your child already has an IQ deficit of 7.4 points compared to a child with a BLL of only 1 unit.
If your child has a BLL of 60 units, it's likely the IQ deficit will be 31 points.
And the child with a BLL of only 1 unit isn't "safe" either.
As far as we can tell, there's no "threshold" for lead in the blood, no concentration below which lead is harmless to the developing brain.
The only concentration at which lead in the blood is surely safe for the developing brain is zero.
That's the consensus of clinical researchers and pediatricians in America and around the world.
Nevertheless, the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has a current BLL standard of 10 units as a "threshold for concern".
Does the CDC have a rational basis for its threshold?
In 1965, the CDC standard was 60 units.
In 1975, the CDC standard was 30 units.
In 1985, the CDC standard was 25 units.
The current 10-unit standard was instituted in 1991, and within a decade it was apparent from clinical research that even the 10-unit standard was too high.
We're now in the second decade of the 10-unit standard, and it hasn't been changed yet by the CDC.
Are we poisoning the brains of our children with lead?
Fifty to 70 percent of children living in the inner cities of New Orleans and Philadelphia have blood lead levels above the current Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) guideline of 10 units.
In Manhattan, five to seven percent of children have levels greater than 10 units, enough to cause IQ deficits. Just across the East River in Brooklyn, where exposed soil is common, the levels in children are several times higher.
In 2001, according to the EPA, about 11 percent of the children in Chicago under six years of age had enough lead in their blood to be considered lead-poisoned.
At the present time, according to the EPA, at least six million American children below the age of six years have measured levels of lead in their blood high enough to impair the development of their brains.
The consequences are reading disorders, attention deficits, and a constellation of other learning problems in school. In the fetus and early childhood, chronic exposure to low levels of environmental lead is also correlated with low birth weight, hearing loss, and autism.
This is not one of those environmental problems that affects only people you don't know and will never meet.
It's estimated that during the past 15 years, two out of three children in some communities have been lead-poisoned by their environment. Examples are Oakland in California and Chicago in Illinois. The figure for Los Angeles is 32 percent lead-poisoned. The EPA estimates that in 1992 Wisconsin had more than 22,000 lead-poisoned children.
I'm putting together a book on the subject, but books take time to write and time to get published, and meanwhile too many people know too little about the dangers of lead in their environment. During the next few years, how many fetuses and children will be permanently damaged by this insidious environmental hazard? Can we wait? We need to push for more protection as soon as possible. We need to be wary of any Bush administration attempt to weaken current regulations.
And whatever the political situation in America post-Bush, we need to fix this problem. It's a problem that needs our close attention.
Environmental Pollution and Disease
http://www.epa.gov/Indicators/roe/html/roeHealthEn.htm
Case Studies in Environmental Medicine (CSEM) Lead Toxicity
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/HEC/CSEM/lead/index.html
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