A new study indicates that more children might be at risk from the effects of lead in their environment than previously thought. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush has more:
Transcript
A new study indicates that more children might be at risk from the effects of lead in their
environment than previously estimated. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mark Brush has
more:
Elevated levels of lead in a child’s bloodstream are known to cause mental development
problems. The question is…how much lead is too much? Today, the danger level is set at 10
micrograms per deciliter of blood. But new research published in the New England Journal of
Medicine shows that levels below ten micrograms might also cause problems. Richard Canfield
is a researcher at Cornell University. He headed up the latest study:
“Instead of finding that as lead levels increase the power of lead to cause
problems increases, which most people would think, we found that most of the
damage seems to be done at the low levels.”
Canfield and his group found that IQ levels in young children dropped even at lead levels below
the current standard. He notes that, on the whole, the problem of lead poisoning in children is
decreasing, but it’s still a major concern.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mark Brush.
Children are typically exposed to lead in older homes with lead based paint or lead in the home’s
piping system, and by playing in soil next to roadways contaminated by cars that burned leaded
gasoline in the past. To find out more about lead poisoning visit the Center’s for
Disease Control’s website at www.cdc.gov.