Editorial

There is always too much to do with not enough time, but these last few months have been particularly busy here at The LEAD Group. The extra work is a result of the various exciting new projects we hope will ‘modernise’ the LEAD Group image.

Central projects of this push towards creating a new look for The LEAD Group, the 2013 Lead-Safe World Calendar and inaugural Volcano Art Prize (VAP), were launched on Monday 22nd October 2012 during The LEAD Group’s celebration of the 15th anniversary of Lead Poisoning Awareness Week. The launch was hosted by Melinda Pavey, New South Wales Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Health, at NSW Parliament House. For those who would like to see the VAP Launch presentation, it’s online at http://www.slideshare.net/elizabethobrien712/vap-launch-presentation-20121019

Coinciding with the running of our inaugural Volcano Art Prize (VAP), this LEAD Action News has the issue of art and lead as its theme.

We begin the newsletter with a description of the Volcano Art Prize, and some suggestions for young artists who want to enter the Volcano Art Prize. At The LEAD Group we encourage the participation of all age groups, particularly children.

We then move to a letter by Elizabeth O’Brien to The Hon. Tony Burke MP, urging him to commit to a National Lead Poisoning Awareness Week following the recent VAP celebration of NSW Lead Poisoning Awareness week at NSW Parliament House.

In keeping with our ‘lead in art’ theme, LEAD Group volunteer Filip Szczepanski has collated and typed up documents held by the Sydney Powerhouse Museum Library on silk printing in past decades. Material relating to heavy metals in silk printing has been taken from four separate library books.

As many of you would have seen, lead has been given a lot of attention in Australian based media of late. In light of the recent large amount of media attention surrounding lead issues, we have included a list of those media articles which have appeared recently in the press and provided links for those interested in following them up. Professor Mark Taylor of The LEAD Group’s Committee and Technical Advisory Board (TAB), and Professor Chris Winder of TAB, have whipped up enormous media interest in the need to revise downwards Australia’s blood lead level guideline, and do a national blood lead survey of all ages so we finally have some data on lead exposure in Australia.

We also discuss the new saliva lead test as developed by Western Slope Laboratory - using oral fluid for lead screening. The method allows for the detection of lead in oral fluid with levels as low as 0.05µg/dL; this is one hundred times lower than the current CDC action level for children.

Finally I urge all of you to vote for the VAP 2012 Peoples Choice award. Voting is open until Friday 21 December 2012. All the wonderful entries for the 2012 competition are displayed at www.volcanoartprize.com/peopleschoice, head along and vote for your favourites!

These few months have not only been busy, but exciting ones. We have seen many historic ‘firsts’ for not only The LEAD Group and its staff (including my very first editorial and case study), but for the lead abatement effort. A lead-safe future is starting to come onto the horizon, but we have far to go yet.

- Zac Gethin-Damon