Unusual Lead Poisoning Case

  • 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.

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Interview: Lester Brown

  • Lester Brown founded the Earth Policy Institute in 2001. (Photo courtesy of the Earth Policy Institute)

One environmental leader says if
we keep doing what we’re doing,
the world will continue on a path
toward economic decline and eventual
collapse. Lester Brown heads up the
Earth Policy Institute. He’s written
a series of books on changes that need
to be made. The most recent book is
‘Plan B 4.0.’ Lester Graham
talked with him about the complexities
involved in a few commodities we take
for granted:

Transcript

One environmental leader says if
we keep doing what we’re doing,
the world will continue on a path
toward economic decline and eventual
collapse. Lester Brown heads up the
Earth Policy Institute. He’s written
a series of books on changes that need
to be made. The most recent book is
‘Plan B 4.0.’ Lester Graham
talked with him about the complexities
involved in a few commodities we take
for granted:

[text of the interview will be posted shortly]

Related Links

A New Climate Conference

  • President Barack Obama meeting with former Vice President Al Gore in the Oval Office on December 7, 2009 regarding Copenhagen. (Photo by Pete Souza, courtesy of the White House)

With no legally-binding agreement in
Copenhagen, there’s now talk of another global
warming conference next summer in Mexico
City. Lester Graham has more on that:

Transcript

With no legally-binding agreement in
Copenhagen, there’s now talk of another global
warming conference next summer in Mexico
City. Lester Graham has more on that:

When the U.S. House passed a climate bill this summer, the Senate was expected to pick it up and vote on it by the end of the year—maybe before the U.N. summit on climate change in Copenhagen.

That didn’t happen.

In Copenhagen last week, former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore looked ahead to another conference next year.

“I believe that we are capable of resolving the remaining issues to the point we can meet in Mexico City this July in the aftermath of a successful action by the United States Senate in April and conclude a binding international treaty.”

Al Gore wants the Senate to pass the legislation by April 22 to be exact – Earth Day. With business concerned about coming greenhouse gas regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Senate might feel more pressure to by then.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

How Much Will Copenhagen Cost?

  • Talks begin in Copenhagen on December 7th. (Photo Source: Thue at Wikimedia Commons)

This week, world leaders are talking
about how to tackle climate change.
Most experts agree that’ll mean
fossil fuels will become more expensive.
Rebecca Williams has been talking
with one climate expert who says we
might not really notice it, at least
at first:

Transcript

This week, world leaders are talking
about how to tackle climate change.
Most experts agree that’ll mean
fossil fuels will become more expensive.
Rebecca Williams has been talking
with one climate expert who says we
might not really notice it, at least
at first:

There’s been a lot of debate about how much our energy bills might go up.

Energy companies and some Republicans have been warning that bills will skyrocket – going up by hundreds or even thousands of dollars a year. The Congressional Budget Office estimates it’ll be a lot less – something between $100 and $200 a year.

Michael Oppenheimer is a professor at Princeton University. He says we will have to make a lot of changes in our lives – but they’ll be little changes and they’ll be really gradual.

“They’ll probably wind up buying appliances which are more energy efficient and that may cost them some money at the outset but it’ll save them money in terms of lower electricity bills. They may be driving cars that look somewhat different than their current vehicles but save them money with less gasoline use in the long term.”

Oppenheimer says higher energy costs will eventually be offset by energy savings – and probably, government rebates – until the economy adjusts.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

The CIA Is Watching Climate Change

  • Grinnell Glacier in Glacier National Park. The top photo was taken in 1940, the bottom in 2006. (Photo courtesy of the USGS)

The Central Intelligence Agency will
keep an eye on climate change. Lester
Graham reports the spy agency plans to
open a climate change office this month:

Transcript

The Central Intelligence Agency will
keep an eye on climate change. Lester
Graham reports the spy agency plans to
open a climate change office this month:

The CIA is still choosing staff for the climate change office.

A spokesperson for the agency, Marie Harf, declined to be recorded. In an email she stated, “Examining the impact that the effects of climate change can have on political and social stability overseas is certainly part of the Agency’s mandate.”

There’s concern that climate change will cause expanding deserts and rising sea levels. That could lead to huge population migrations in search of water and food, threatening world stability.


In a statement, U.S. Senator John Barrasso calls a CIA climate change office “misguided.” Barrasso, a Republican from Wyoming, asks whether CIA staff will be taken off monitoring terrorists to watching polar ice caps. The Senator says other agencies can monitor climate change and share data with the CIA.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

Preliminary Climate Change Talks

  • World leaders are meeting in Bangkok for preliminary discussions on climate change. (Photo source: Alter at Wikimedia Commons)

In December, the world’s nations
meet in Copenhagen to try to come
up with a treaty to deal with climate
change. Right now, preliminary talks
are going on in Bangkok. Lester Graham
reports observers don’t think there’s
much progress:

Transcript

In December, the world’s nations
meet in Copenhagen to try to come
up with a treaty to deal with climate
change. Right now, preliminary talks
are going on in Bangkok. Lester Graham
reports observers don’t think there’s
much progress:

Warren Evans is the Director of the Environment Department at the World Bank. He’s just back from Bangkok where climate change negotiations are going slowly. Evans says that shows just how hard it will be to finalize a treaty in Copenhagen.

“Well, I think our assessment is that there will be considerable progress and that it should set the stage for moving forward, but is it the final agreement that actually put in motion all of the necessary steps and finance? That’s highly unlikely.”

The world will be watching in December to see whether U.S. will agree to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

It refused to ratify the Kyoto climate change treaty in 1997. Critics are making some of the same arguments now.

They say a Copenhagen treaty could put the U.S. at an economic disadvantage to rapidly developing countries such as China and India.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

Finding a Home for Old Nukes

  • President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev sign documents on nuclear arms reduction before their news conference at the Kremlin in Moscow Monday, July 6, 2009. (Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

President Obama has reached what he’s calling a “joint understanding” with Russia on reducing the number of nuclear arms. But as Mark Brush reports this agreement doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll be dismantling a lot more nuclear weapons:

Transcript

President Obama has reached what he’s calling a “joint understanding” with Russia on reducing the number of nuclear arms. But as Mark Brush reports this agreement doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll be dismantling a lot more nuclear weapons:

As it stands now, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia will take warheads off of a delivery system, like a missile.

So, unless things go farther with this treaty, the warheads will still be kept in storage. And as it turns out, there are already thousands of these warheads kept in both countries.

Hans Kristensen is the Director of the Nuclear Information Project with the Federation of American Scientists.

He says even if the warheads get dismantled, there’s still the sticky issue of what to do with all that radioactive plutonium.

“The plutonium cores of those weapons, most of them, are still stored. We have something in the order of 15,000 warhead cores. An enormous amount of plutonium.”

The radioactive plutonium can be reprocessed and used in nuclear power plants.

Kristensen says the U.S. bought plutonium from old Soviet warheads – and that fuel is used nuclear power plants here in the U.S.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

Opening Up New Waters for Whale Hunts?

  • Mother-calf pair of "Type C" orcas in the Ross Sea. (Photo by Robert Pitman, NOAA)

Japan kills more whales than any other country in the world. A new proposal would allow Japanese whalers to hunt off their county’s coasts. Mark Brush reports – some think opening up these waters to whale hunts is a bad idea:

Transcript

Japan kills more whales than any other country in the world. A new proposal would allow Japanese whalers to hunt off their county’s coasts. Mark Brush reports – some think opening up these waters to whale hunts is a bad idea:

The International Whaling Commission passed a moratorium on commercial whaling in 1986. But it allowed some countries to kill whales for what it calls scientific study.

Japanese boats kill hundreds of minke whales in the southern ocean under this designation. Critics say there’s nothing scientific about these hunts.

Now, the Commission wants to stop Japan from killing whales in the southern ocean. Phasing out these so-called scientific whale hunts. But in exchange, they might let the country openly hunt whales off its own coasts.

Jonathan Stern is with the American Cetacean Society. He says whale populations could take a hit, if Japan is allowed to start hunting in these waters:

“I’m just afraid once their fleet starts operating. They’re going to want to take more whales and more different species of whales.”

Japan has long maintained that these hunts are part of their cultural heritage. The International Whaling Commission will meet next month to decide the issue.

For the Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

Noisier Oceans Bad for Whales

  • Beluga whale (Delphinaptherus leucas) with its mouth wide open, White Sea, Russia, Kareliya. (© Andrey Nekrasov / WWF-Canon)

Scientists say the oceans are
getting noisier. The racket threatens
whales and other marine mammals that
communicate through sound. Nancy
Greenleese reports:

Transcript

Scientists say the oceans are
getting noisier. The racket threatens
whales and other marine mammals that
communicate through sound. Nancy
Greenleese reports:


The oceans are already noisy from military sonars and oil and gas exploration. Scientists say it could get worse. Some of the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, is getting soaked up by the oceans and seas. The carbon dioxide makes the water more acidic. Sound travels through that acidic water more easily. A UN climate change panel recently issued a report raising concerns about the chemistry change. Mark Simmonds of the Whale and Dolphin Conversation Society says already there’s an “acoustic fog” in the world’s waters.

“The ambient noise levels in the oceans because of pH are likely to rise. This is a very unexpected finding. They’re anticipating that marine mammals will have further problems communicating.”

The noise confuses marine mammals. So, they’re beaching themselves and running into ships more often.

For The Environment Report, I’m Nancy Greenleese.

Related Links

Protecting Whales Across Borders

  • Mother-calf pair of "Type C" orcas in the Ross Sea. (Photo by Robert Pitman, NOAA)

Environmentalists have wanted to
“Save the Whales” for decades. But experts
say that can’t happen until the people
realize whales don’t know if they’re in
American waters, Mexican waters or Japanese
waters. Nancy Greenleese reports whales
cannot be saved until all countries protect
them:

Transcript

Environmentalists have wanted to
“Save the Whales” for decades. But experts
say that can’t happen until the people
realize whales don’t know if they’re in
American waters, Mexican waters or Japanese
waters. Nancy Greenleese reports whales
cannot be saved until all countries protect
them:

Whales travel off many countries’ coasts and different countries have different laws
about protecting the animals. Chris Butler Stroud is with the Whale and Dolphin
Conservation Society. He told a United Nation’s conference for the Convention on
Migratory Species that international cooperation is key.

“When countries try to take political action to conserve an animal, they often think of
their own borders. Not remembering that animals are able to move beyond those because
they don’t see the lines in the sand or lines in the water.”

(sound of Gray Whales splashing)

Gray whales swarm around fishing boats off Mexico’s Baja California peninsula.
They’ve traveled -without passports – from the Bering Strait in Russia, into U.S. waters,
through Canada, and back into the U.S. before arriving in Mexico. Here they’re
breeding, and providing a water show to rival Sea World for ecotourists.

“Oh…it’s the baby. Right there! Right next to us. And here comes mom! (Splash) Hey,
wow, right at us.”

There’s an international agreement that bans commercial hunting for gray whales. And
the whales draw tourists. That’s pretty important for a poor country such as Mexico.

The whales are safe here, but not everywhere.

And everywhere the whales travel and threat looms: climate change. Many whale species
migrate to the poles where the ice is disappearing. The World Wildlife Fund predicts
30% of the ice will melt away in the next 30 years unless action is taken.

Wendy Elliot says that means the whales will have to travel even farther to get to the ice
and the food they find there.

“So they’re already hungry, tired, they’ve traveled a long, long way and now they are
going to have 500 km extra to go. So how these species are going to adapt is very
unclear and it’s very concerning.”

Another worry is the growing acidity of sea water. Greenhouse gases from burning fossil
fuels mix with the water and make carbonic acid in the ocean. Monterey Bay Aquarium
Research Institute chemists have determined that the altered chemistry will increase the
distances that underwater sounds travel. That disturbs the communications of marine
mammals. The oceans and seas are becoming a headbangers’ ball from rumbling ships,
air guns used for oil and gas exploration and military sonars.

Nicolas Entrup, managing director for the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society,
lobbied at the UN meeting for an international resolution on marine noise pollution.

“Look, we stressed to the governments that underwater noise is a key threat to whales and
dolphins in the ocean. These animals are acoustic animals.”

The Whale and Dolphin Conservation society says research shows loud underwater
noises causes some whales to beach themselves.

At the UN conference, nations passed watered-down resolution to reduce ship sounds.
They did nothing about the noises made by oil and gas industry and the military. Entrup
is furious.

What we’ve passed is absolutely not enough. And I have to say it’s giving in to the
interests of the military and the industries in that occasion. That’s really bad.”

Officials admit that industrial noise can be reduced but the military, that’s another matter.

The 85 governments at the U.N. conference did agree to provide addition protection for
some small whales. But putting any initiatives into effect will be difficult. The global
financial crisis has drastically limited countries’ contributions to field research on whales
and other migratory species. Entrup with the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society
says the nations of the world cannot ignore the problems.

“If you care, then start now and do not wait until it’s too late. That’s expensive, that’s
irrational, that’s stupid.”

Wildlife groups say rich countries have to reach across borders and give a hand to poorer
countries if we’re going to save the whales.

For The Environment Report, I’m Nancy Greenleese.

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