Public Health Politics: Lead Exposure and Adult Cataract

With all the recent publicity about the perils of lead pollution for children, the focus has shifted away from certain insidious effects of lead exposure on adults, effects that may ordinarily not be recognized as due to lead exposure.

The fundamental problem is that after almost 80 years of neglecting toxic levels of lead in the American environment (a neglect due mostly to the efforts of the Ethyl Corporation, the lead battery industry, the gasoline industry, and their Congressional supporters), the American environment -- air, soil, and water -- is so thoroughly polluted with lead that even after Congress did finally act there's still enough lead around to be a serious hazard to everyone. Most adults continue to have potentially dangerous levels of lead in their bodies without even knowing about it. (Have you ever had your blood and bone lead levels measured?)

Lead accumulates in the body during a person's lifetime. Much of the lead that goes into the body is incorporated into bone, and from there it continually interchanges with needed metals in other tissues, and when it does the result is often biochemical chaos. There's evidence that accumulated lead is related to chronic aging disorders such as hypertension and cognitive decline. There is also recent evidence that accumulated lead may also be related to another disorder of aging, age-related cataract, the leading cause of blindness and visual impairment around the world.

In 2004, the D.A. Schaumberg research team (D.A. Schaumberg et al. J. Am. Med. Assoc. 2004 292:2750) analyzed data from American men drawn from the general population around Boston, data from a longitudinal study of 2280 healthy male volunteers that were followed from the 1960s onward. At the time of their initial enrollment, all participants in the study were free of heart disease, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, cancer, peptic ulcer, gout, recurrent asthma, bronchitis, or sinusitis. Study participants were predominantly white, and ranged in age from 48 to 93 years at the time of bone lead measurement. Every 3 to 5 years since the 1960s, participants underwent an extensive physical examination that included a standard ocular evaluation. The authors tested whether bone lead levels were associated with later age-related cataract.

Conclusions? The authors concluded that their epidemiological data suggested that accumulated lead exposure, such as that commonly experienced by adults in the U.S., may be an important unrecognized risk factor for cataract. Men with the highest bone lead levels had more than 2.5 times greater risk for cataract compared to those with the lowest level of bone lead. Individuals with cataracts had significant levels of lead in the ocular lens along with decreased levels of zinc in lens tissue. An increased ratio of lead to zinc in the lens was related to decreased lens transparency.

We're now three years down the road, and as far as I know these results have not been seriously challenged by any researchers. The conclusions about the dangers of accumulated adult bone lead apparently still stand. (If you want to challenge the conclusions, read the original paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association. They love receiving criticisms of published research!)

I've been writing about the dangers of lead pollution for some time, and I regularly hear objections from conservative Republicans that my emphasis that government regulation is the best way to solve this problem ignores what conservatives believe is the inherent ability of consumers to look out for themselves.

Conservatives castigate me for promoting pollution regulation when -- they believe -- consumers know enough to be aware of dangers and do what's necessary for their protection.

I'd call that idea blowing smoke out of your ears.

I do think the conservative Republican argument is counterfeit. I think they know better and are bamboozling the public. I think they ought to be ashamed of their notion that greed is good no matter what the human cost.

I'd very much like to know how many of the people who make the conservative argument about pollution regulation understand that most people (including themselves) don't know how to test for lead and other pollutants in water, air, and soil, don't have the equipment for it, and could not afford to pay experts to come to their houses and do the testing for them. And they certainly are not about to test for pollutants dumped into the general environment by industry.

So how are people supposed to protect themselves and their children?

I would like to know why we have local, state, and federal governments if not to test, regulate, and prevent the entry of dangerous pollutants into our environment. Listening to conservative Republicans, you get to believe they think the purpose of government is only to keep funneling taxpayer money into military contracts and the hell with polluted environments and regulations that cost industry money. Their mantra is keep taxes low, keep the rich happy -- and keep poisoning the public.

The idea that environmental pollutants should not be closely monitored and heavily regulated is not good for us. It's dangerous. And every politician should be asked where they stand on this problem.

We don't need to be blindsided by silly conservative Republican ideology -- by arguments about consumer know-how and the "free market" and stupid Friedmaniacal mythologies.

I hope at the next presidential debate someone asks the candidates: Are you in favor of closely monitoring and heavily regulating toxic environmental pollutants such as lead?

If you hear anyone equivocate, seesaw, burp and garumpf, you will know that candidate will not be looking out for you and your children and grandchildren. You will know they don't care about you.

Comments

[klmebane]

oh, and before the bashing starts, i didn't know about environmental lead contamination, i was well aware of the contamination of childrens toys. i heard that a few higher ups in china have killed themselves over the dishonor of this, does anybody know about the veracity of that????

[yellowdogSC]

k,

Select the following link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/users/profile/Stevelagain

Look for "You're a fan of this user - Delete", near top right corner of the screen.

If you wish to no longer be a fan of this commenter, click on "Delete".

Unless I'm mistaken, this should remove this name from your "Fan of:" list, as you wished.

Good day to you!

[yellowdogSC]

k,

Sorry:

You have to be logged in to do this.

Welcome to our world!

[klmebane]

wow... i didn't even know this was a problem... i don't even get how they can say people can protect themselves. "the inherent ability of consumers to look out for themselves." only works if they have the information and resources to do so. by that logic the unborn should be able to protect themselves from being aborted, and they don't need to try to push through legislation to make abortion once again illegal. you hear that conservatives?? you can stop worrying about the unborn, they can take care of themselves. and PETA too. those dogs that michael vick plead guilty to torturing defended themselves just fine, kind of like the american public protect themselves from contamination by lead.

they are such hypocrites. you can't have it both ways, either you want the gov't involved in your day-to-day lives or you don't, but you can't pick and choose what things they get involved in based solely on your personal agenda and criteria, because a democracy (which you laughably call america) is supposed to involve EVERYONE in making those decisions not just a few people. especially when those few are at odds with the majority.

i remember something we used to say when i was in elementary school and we had to decide on an activity. 'Majority Rules.' or have you forgotten that concept?