Lead poisoning remains a threat for kids

Risks, whether from paint, drinking water or other environmental sources, are also high for women who are pregnant or nursing.

By Susan J. Landers, AMNews staff. June 7, 2004.

Washington -- Phone calls from concerned Washington, D.C., parents kept physicians busy earlier this year as news broke that high levels of lead were leaching from the city's aging water lines and posing a health risk to vulnerable families.

Children's National Medical Center in Washington actually sponsored a phone bank to respond to queries from area residents and "the phones rang off the hook for two hours," said attending physician Dana Best, MD, MPH. Parents wondered whether to boil the water. The answer was no. Adults wondered if there was any risk to them. The answer was that the damage had probably already occurred.

Those considered most at risk for lead poisoning are children younger than 6 and women who are pregnant or nursing. For those groups the Washington Public Health Dept. advised not to drink the tap water unless it is filtered or to drink bottled water.

At times, the D.C. water situation seemed to reach almost crisis proportions. But concerns about lead poisoning should constantly rank high on everyone's list. Any source of lead is bad news, especially for rapidly growing children, as it affects nearly every system in the body. Once the damage is done, there is no way to reverse it. And lead in water isn't generally the largest lead poisoning threat. Lead-based paint holds that title.

Lead poisoning was recognized as a health threat decades ago, and it remains an issue today. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that approximately 434,000 children in the nation already have lead levels greater than 10 µg/dL of blood, the agency's threshold for concern.