Lead contamination
caused a crisis with the water supply in Flint, Michigan.
.
But the CDC says at
least 4 million households have children living in them that are being exposed
to high levels of lead.
.
But the CDC says at least 4 million households have children living in them that are being exposed to high levels of lead.
Dr. Joann Schulte, a toxicologist with the North Texas Poison Center at Parkland Hospital System, talks about the dangers of lead exposure in this edition of Vital Signs.
Highlights from Dr. Schulte’s interview:
Dr. Joann Schulte, a toxicologist with the North Texas Poison Center at Parkland Hospital System, talks about the dangers of lead exposure in this edition of Vital Signs.
Highlights from Dr. Schulte’s interview:
Is there a level of lead
contamination considered “safe” or “not as dangerous”? I’d say “not as
dangerous.” I don’t know that any level of lead is safe.
But it’s a matter of how
do you completely eliminate it from the environment? I mean it’s still a source
of pollution. There’s still old houses with lead paint chips in them.
One thing that is not
uncommon to hear about in Texas is pottery that is lead-contaminated. There’s
makeup that contains lead. So there’s other sources of it.
It’s all around
us? It’s all around us. Another thing we commonly see when we have lead
clinic is people who are coming in from gun ranges. Lead is in bullets and we
have treated people with blood lead levels of 40 to 70 who worked at gun
ranges.
What is lead and what
make it so dangerous? Lead is an element. And what make it dangerous is that, if you think
back to your chemistry classes when you had to learn about the charges on
stuff, lead is plus two which is the same as calcium, the same as iron.
The body mistakes it for
other compounds that are needed and puts into red blood cells, and it puts it
elsewhere in the body.
The other issue is that
lead is not a one-time thing. If you have a high enough blood lead level and
you get chelated with an oral medication and that gets rid of blood lead level,
there’s still reservoirs of lead in your bone marrow.
So you can be chelated
one time and then your body does a redistribution and your blood lead level
goes back up. So it could take a long, long time to get rid of huge exposures
of lead.
Is lead exposure more
harmful to children than adults? It’s harmful to adults in the acute sense, but it’s
more harmful to children because their brains are still growing and developing
and, in essence, you’re altering their development.
The I.Q. thing is huge.
There’ve been follow-up studies out of Boston that find with low blood lead
levels, you can have an I.Q. point difference of five to ten points.
.
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http://keranews.org/post/lead-exposure-its-more-water-problem
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