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October 20 – 27 is International Lead Poisoning Awareness Week.
It’s time to sum up The LEAD Group’s achievements, and remind everyone of the
importance of the fight against lead poisoning. We’ve just added three new fact
sheets to our web site. One summarises the damage to the brain caused by lead poisoning,
including the connection between foetal lead poisoning and schizophrenia. See:
Lead Poisoning And The Brain -
Cognitive Deficits And Mental Illness, by Michelle Naylor The
second outlines the history of lead since its first known use. See: Facts And Firsts Of Lead
by Katarzyna Bochynska
The third deals with the nice little earner that is lead royalties in
Australia. See: Lead Mining Royalties By
State And Territory; by Shahilla Balachandran, Eric Steinhaeuser and Elizabeth
O’Brien -
When the LEAD Group was founded in 1991, one of our aims was to help
bring about the elimination of childhood lead poisoning in Australia by the year 2002.
Sadly, children are still getting lead poisoned. But we’ve been able to make
people aware of the dangers of lead. We helped to bring about the banning of leaded petrol
in Australia, and now have joined with the United Nations in trying to get leaded petrol
banned world wide. It’s a big job - 81 countries still sell leaded petrol. America
could, and should, be the leader in this campaign. America has the world’s best
lead-poisoning prevention measures at home, but turns a blind eye to what its chemical
giants and other corporations get up to overseas.
The LEAD Group has been attracting more and more international enquiries. Last year we
acknowledged this by changing the name of our advisory service to the "Global Lead
Advice and Support Service." A quarter of enquiries now come from overseas. Two of
our volunteer staff – and we’re all volunteers – actually came from
overseas to help keep the unfunded LEAD Group alive.
We’re celebrating our survival and achievements on the 26th of October
at our annual dinner.
Roger Kilburn (Secretary, Committee), Michelle
Calvert (Vice-President, Committee), Elizabeth O'Brien
(Committee Member & Full-time Volunteer), Thalia Oneeglio (Thesis
Corporate), José Ponce (Accountant Volunteer), Dianeetha
Nilanthi Kulasena (Data Entry Volunteer), Eric Steinhaeuser
(Public Relationship Volunteer ), Sun Chan (Data Entry Volunteer), Alex
Hopkins (Auditor), Jasmin Kyle (Project Manager Volunteer),
Madeline Aitken (Envronmental Health Campaign Volunteer). |
International Lead Poisoning Awareness Week concludes
with a presentation at Macquarie University on October 27, by Elizabeth O’Brien, on
"Green
Lead" - oxymoron or future vision? (see www.chiro.mq.edu.au/Seminars/2005/2005O%27BrienFlyer.pdf
).
Contact Elizabeth O’Brien (02) 97160014.
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