Over the past eight months, I’ve spent a dizzying amount of time and money trying to keep invisible poisons at bay. It all started when her pediatrician told her she had a worrying amount of lead in her blood at her daughter’s 12-month checkup. The pediatrician said that high levels of lead can cause irreversible damage to the nervous system, brain and other organs in children, while low levels are associated with learning disabilities, behavioral problems and other developmental delays. explained that In the car driving home, I cried when I saw the baby in the car seat.
The pediatrician said my daughter’s lead level needed to be lowered. But when I started researching where the lead came from, I found it in many different places, including baby food, house paint, breast milk, toys, and cumin powder. And it’s powerful. A small amount of lead dust, equivalent to a bag of sweetener, makes an entire soccer field “hazardous” according to EPA standards.
My husband and I spent nearly $12,000 removing highly contaminated soil from our backyard, replacing an old window, and sealing an old clawfoot tub. We mopped the floors at night, washed her hands diligently, and made sure to give her plenty of iron, calcium, and vitamin C, which are thought to help limit the body’s absorption of lead. Four months later, when we visited the pediatrician again, her lead level had dropped from 3.9 micrograms per deciliter of blood to 2.2 micrograms per deciliter of blood. Improved, but still far from zero. And according to the CDC, World Health Organization, and Mayo Clinic, the only safe amount of lead is zero.
We are one of thousands of families who have experienced that ordeal this year. At least 300,000 American children have blood lead levels above the CDC’s so-called limit of 3.5 mcg/dL. But parents are largely left to themselves to take the lead out of their children’s lives. Families who can afford to pay due attention can pour tens of thousands of dollars into this project. And even then it may not be zero.
After learning that her one-year-old son Orin had 4 micrograms of lead per deciliter in his blood, Suz Garrett and her husband waited for guidance from doctors and the county health department, but nothing came. Ta. There, they repainted their 19th-century house in Richmond, Virginia, and let Olin stay with his family while the open soil was mulched. Band-aids like this are more cost-effective, but the invisible lead dust can build up again every time you pry open an old window or your dog traces the dirt in your neighborhood yard. .
The Garretts have been cleaning diligently for nearly a year. Olin’s blood levels are still detectable and he is currently at 2.1 mcg/dL. Garrett and her husband are fed up. In a few months they will be moving into a new house they have renovated with a $200,000 construction loan. “We ended up dismantling the interior to find out it was free of lead paint,” Garrett said.
A few years ago, kids like Orrin Garrett and my daughter wouldn’t have had to worry. Until 2012, children were identified as having a blood lead “level of concern” of 10 mcg/dL or higher. But for the past decade, the CDC has used baseline levels to identify children with more lead in their blood than most other children. Reference numbers are based on statistics, not health outcomes. The reference level was 5 if most children had test results below her 5 mcg/dL. It’s 3.5 today.
Reference levels tend to decrease with lead exposure, Dropped A 95% reduction since the 1970s thanks to policies to remove lead from gasoline, paint, plumbing and food. However, there is growing confusion and concern about what classifies as lead poisoning.
Scientists and public health officials have not yet been able to say exactly how low lead exposure needs to be to prevent harm to individual children. When epidemiologist and developmental neuropsychologist Kim Dietrich began his career in the 70s, it was common knowledge that concentrations above 40 to 60 micrograms had profound effects on the developing brain. was the consensus. However, Dietrich et al.’s research showed that harm could be caused at a much lower level. In the early 2000s he pooled data from seven large studies from around the world, among which Dietrich Cincinnatishowed that an increase in a child’s blood lead level from 2.4 to just 10 mcg/dL corresponded to a 4 point drop in IQ. That’s a terrifying prospect. But Dietrich said, “It’s very important not to confuse the results of these large population-level studies with individual influences.”
Determining the effects of low lead levels below about 10 mcg/dL on cognitive health is a highly complex issue. “A blood alcohol level of 0.2 is very dangerous for anyone behind the wheel. Lead is a little different. ‘, Gabriel Filippelli, a biogeochemist who studies lead exposure in urban environments, told me. Some of the variability in results may be the result of factors that are not yet understood. children `s gene structure.
Policing for low-level lead exposure in children takes a toll on parents, both financially and emotionally. Mary Jean Brown, former director of the CDC’s Healthy Housing and Lead Poisoning Prevention Program, told me that concerned parents should be careful not to make self-fulfilling prophecies. “Most children don’t show any symptoms when their blood levels are 5 or 10 micrograms per deciliter,” she told me. But she said, “If your mother or someone else says, ‘Johnny is different,’ Johnny is different.”
This kind of anxiety is familiar to Pittsburgh health care worker Tanisha Bowman, who has spent nearly three years trying to lower her daughter’s blood lead levels. Initially peaked at 20 mcg/dL for her, but over the past year she has hovered between 2 and 6. “She never had a problem. She was always measuring four to six months ahead of her,” Bowman said. But when she read her horrifying headlines about lead, she couldn’t help but think it applied to her daughter as well. Bowman said she began to suspect she had ADHD when she had a tantrum when she was 2 years old. ADHD may be related to lead exposure. “I will never know what effect this had on her, and no one will ever be able to tell me,” she said. (Bowman’s daughter has no lead-related diagnosis.)
The lack of a concrete, result-based number to help parents decide when to worry has sparked a dogma among doctors, reporters, and medical organizations that there are no safe lead levels. ing. Filipelli said using the tagline was a bit misleading. “There is no valid source of research to support the idea that ‘any amount of lead exposure is safe’ other than the fact that lead exposure must be avoided to avoid potential harm,” he said. explained in an email.
Even if the guidance is well-meaning, it is impossible to avoid all exposure. Tricia Gasek, a mother of her three children in New Jersey, desperately tried to find the source of lead in her children’s blood. She spent her $1,000 to hire a “lead detective” to inspect her home. XRF equipment Call a professional and spend an additional $600 to replace the front door lead lighting. Eventually, she learned that her own blood lead level was also elevated and concluded that the lead in her son’s blood came from her breast milk. Perhaps her doctors attributed it to her being exposed to radiation as a child. That process was tough. “It’s really crazy. Why do I understand all this?” she says.
Parents can’t go to zero without help. Lead is invisible and pervasive. While the Flint, Michigan water crisis and recent product recalls have raised awareness about lead leaching from corroded pipes and hiding in baby food, the biggest source of exposure for children is their It is a space where the live and play. Gardens with deteriorating paint and polluted soil. For many people there is no easy escape. Lead contamination is most common in low-income areas, meaning that Black and Hispanic children are disproportionately affected.
Many local health departments, including where I live, conduct home visits to identify lead sources, but often only if levels are above 10 mcg/dL. You can As such, the majority of children with high lead levels receive little or no assistance, and families must simultaneously play detective, social worker, and home remodeler.
This is paradoxical because the problem of low lead exposure cannot be solved by focusing on one child or one household at a time. Thanks to the family’s efforts, her lead levels have come down slightly, but her daughter and all the other children in her vicinity are still exposed to lead, and the lead epidemic in the neighborhood is still prevalent. Nothing solved the problem. Instead of having every lead-exposed family whack-a-mole at home, Filipelli said that if he were named lead emperor, he would conduct a nationwide analysis of high-risk neighborhoods and households to identify the dangers. It said it would conduct targeted testing to He makes extensive repairs. Requiring coordination between the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Environmental Protection Agency, such a program could cost up to $1 trillion and take 10 years. However, overall lead exposure can be significantly reduced, he says. The trickle-down effect of 500,000 children becoming smarter, healthier adults will affect everyone, even though we can’t say exactly how much smarter and healthier they will become. deaf.
For now, my family is still navigating this maze on their own. I try to think of low-level lead exposure as a risk factor, like air pollution and perpetual chemicals, rather than a diagnosis. Meanwhile, my daughter is doing well. As a family, we will continue to avoid danger as much as possible. We decided to spend a whopping $25,000 to repaint the cracked exterior of our house. But we’re still going to let our kids play in the park and climb walls. After all, nothing can stop her.
