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Editorial
In this issue, we've widened our focus on the lead issue to incorporate
related environmental concerns, such as hazardous chemical management,
and the relationship between exhaust emissions and asthma In the
following I'll be discussing how efforts to reduce children's blood
lead levels necessarily increase one's awareness of other health and
environment issues.
From my experience I have found three essential factors in the attainment
of a child's high blood lead level:
-
high levels of lead in one, some or all of the environmental media
(dust, soil, food, water, air) which impact upon the child;
-
a pathway or pathways for that lead to enter the gut;
-
a high rate of absorption of the lead
A successful intervention strategy may attack anyone, two or all three
of these factors. Moving a child out of a high lead contaminated
environment into a low lead contaminated environment may always be the
best option blood lead-wise, but may not be possible. If you can't
remove the child from the source of the lead, then the second best
option is to create a barrier in any of the multitude of pathways
between the lead and the child. Such barriers may be:
spatial - for example, move child's bed to
a room where there are no cracks in the ceiling for dust to get
through;
temporal - for example, don't allow
children into a room which has been vacuumed until some of the dust
has settled;
behavioural- for example, discourage finger
sucking;
perpetual - for example, housecleaning.
Cutting the rate of absorption of lead from the gut involves:
not skipping meals,
eating five-six small meals per day,
not eating an excess of fatty foods in the diet and
eating sufficient iron, calcium, zinc, protein, vitamin E, ascorbic acid and
thiamine.
It is easy to see that following the above dietary rules will result in
better nutrition which has other advantages apart from cutting lead
absorption, and that action to ameliorate this third causal factor in
high blood lead levels, whether by individuals or by governments, is
paramount in any attempts to reduce blood lead levels.
Naturally, better nutrition is not the only one. There are multiple advantages of
lead abatement actions, including:
- more fuel-efficient driving (in order to
cut leaded petrol consumption);
- reduced use of cars/increased emphasis on
non-emitter transport modes and public transport;
- gas in preference to electricity (coal
burning electric power stations emit lead);
- reduced energy consumption (in cars and
houses);
- urban renewal- abatement of flaking and
chalking paint on buildings and structures;
- increased community awareness of toxic
metals and toxins generally in our environment;
- decreased need for lead mining and primary
smelting as more lead is recycled, for example, from paint removal
debris, contaminated soil and dust, and lead acid batteries;
There are also some disadvantages of lead abatement activities including:
-
shifting lead contaminated paint, dust,
soil, car bodies, building materials, sump oil, sediments, and so on,
away from where they impact on people (especially children) raises
serious concerns about how and where they should be disposed of or
managed;
-
if the recommended high phosphate cleaning
agents are used for wiping all hard surfaces to remove fine lead
particles, then our waterways will suffer. Hosing dust from verandahs
and paths wastes water;
-
wrong advice about lead abatement
activities could raise blood lead levels - for example, until recently
health authorities advised frequent vacuuming as a way of reducing
dust in houses. Unpublished research in Broken Hill now finds a strong
correlation between greater frequency of vacuuming and high blood lead
levels. A logical conclusion from the research is to remove carpets
though this is a hazard in itself if not done safely.
I've saved the best news till last. This week my three year old son's blood
lead result was the lowest it's been found to be in his lifetime,
since his first high reading of 31 micrograms per decilitre (µg/dL),
at the age of twelve months. His (eighth) blood test result was around
10 µg/dL, right on average for an inner western Sydney 1-4 year old
child.
Elizabeth O'Brien
National Coordinator
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