Most US communities have low rates of childhood lead poisoning - averaging 1.2% of the total population. But with the new influx of Burmese immigrants, Fort Wayne’s exposure rate rose to 12%. (Photo by Erika Celeste)
Lead was banned from paint in
1978. And it was taken out of
gasoline a few years later. So
with less lead in the environment,
the problem of lead poisoning in
kids has been decreasing. But
every once in a while, health officials
find a dramatic spike in the number
of lead poisoning cases, and the race
is on to find the source. Erika Celeste reports on the poisoning
of some Burmese refugees:
Transcript
Lead was banned from paint in
1978. And it was taken out of
gasoline a few years later. So
with less lead in the environment,
the problem of lead poisoning in
kids has been decreasing. But
every once in a while, health officials
find a dramatic spike in the number
of lead poisoning cases, and the race
is on to find the source. Erika Celeste reports on the poisoning
of some Burmese refugees:
Three years ago, Mah We took her baby daughter and fled the unrest in Burma to Fort Wayne, Indiana. It’s the largest Burmese settlement outside of their home country. They wanted their new daughter to have an American name. They settled on Snow White after seeing some the Disney movie.
She is now three and a half years old.
Celeste: Hi, Do you like school?
Snow White: “School, yes.”
Celeste: “What’s your favorite thing at school?”
Translator: “Play with my friends.”
Snow White has had a lot of challenges in her young life. Blood tests revealed Snow White had lead poisoning. Exposure to lead can cause brain damage, I-Q loss, behavioral problems, and in rare cases, death.
Most US communities have low rates of childhood lead poisoning – averaging 1.2% of the total population. But with the new influx of Burmese immigrants, Fort Wayne’s exposure rate rose to 12%.
Amy Hastings is with the Allen County Health Department:
“We kind of assumed they had been poisoned when they were in the camps, and it just wasn’t identified until they got to the United States and so we conducted it like a normal lead investigation and found no lead hazards.”
But then new siblings were born into some of the Burmese families. At birth, the babies’ blood levels were normal, yet within a few months those levels became dangerously high.
Most small children get poisoned when they crawl on the floor, get dust from old lead paint on their hands, and then stick their hands in their mouths.
“The babies weren’t old enough to do that yet, and so why they had a blood lead level of in the 20s, made no sense to us.”
With the cases mounting and the source still unknown, the Centers for Disease Control helped Hastings assemble an investigative team. They set up a make shift field office and went door to door in the Burmese apartment complexes.
“We were hunting around for anything we could find that these kids might be getting into. We tested food, we tested toys, anything we thought that babies could have come into contact with.”
They tested more kids. And took samples of various household items. Then a break came in the case. Two homemade Burmese medicines – daw tway and daw kyin— geared specifically to small children for tummy aches came back with extremely high levels of lead.
Hastings was relieved to finally have an answer. But it didn’t solve the problem.
Aye Ma is a Burmese translator. She says many parents didn’t believe Hastings are her team.
“The mother was pretty upset. She referred back to her ancestors, ‘oh my ancestors have been using this medicine and how can you come and out of the blue tell me this is no good and it has lead in it?’”
While some families are taking the advice to stop using the medicine, others are still skeptical. The medicines are banned in the US. But they can still get a hold of them through family connections back home.
Hastings says she’s still seeing new cases of lead poisoning. But because she isn’t certain the medicines are the only cause, educating the families about lead poisoning remains important.
Officials have set up a pilot preschool program for kids like Snow White. The program will help the kids catch up through, speech, cognitive, and nutrition therapy. So far it seems to be a great success.
(sound of kids playing)
While this was an unusual case for the US, the CDC reports that many traditional medicines from East Indian, Middle Eastern, Western Asian, and Hispanic cultures still contain lead.
For The Environment Report, I’m Erika Celeste.
