Lead has been linked to permanent harm in still-developing young kids, causing impairment to the brains and neurological systems, as well as cognitive, behavioral, auditory, and speech difficulties. Children are introduced to lead via their surroundings, which is frequently lead paint in old houses.
For the human body, the young age is the period when the body develops at its best, and hence one needs to have the required nutrients, but abundance or scarcity of any of them may lead to severe medical consequences. The higher amount of lead in youth in the USA is a serious concern, said one of the experts from the research team.
The Blood Of Half Of America’s Young Children Contains Lead
Lead pipes that deliver rainwater into homes with the lead present in the soil outside are two further forms of lead. There is no known acceptable amount of blood lead by the Centers for Disease Control and Preventive and the World Health Organization.
“The broad picture is: Kids have lead in the U.S.,” said Morris Markowitz, who directs the lead poisoning prevention and treatment program at Children’s Hospital at Montefiore, who was not involved in the study. “For lead, there’s no too low. We want zero.”
Whereas the majority of the children had modest levels, only 2 percent used to have a level that was related to severe. From October 2018 to February 2020, the study followed almost 1.1 million kids under the age of six who were tested for lead. As per the latest analysis published in a peer journal JAMA Pediatr on Monday, about 50% of young infants who have been examined for lead had measurable amounts of the hazardous element in their bloodstream.
The study’s authors also discovered links between lead exposure and poverty, outdated housing, and primarily Black and Hispanic neighborhoods, which is in line with previous lead research.
According to Harvey Kaufman, one of the study’s co-authors, the new study is the first to look at low levels of lead in children’s blood, thanks to more sensitive equipment. Kaufman is also a senior medical director at Quest Diagnostics Inc., the company that carried out the study’s testing.
“These findings confirm that we still have a long way to go to end childhood lead poisoning in the United States,” wrote Philip Landrigan and David Bellinger in a corresponding editorial also published Monday in the journal, and “underscore the urgent need to eliminate all sources of lead exposure.”
The Biden administration’s proposal to remove old pipes as parts of a larger infrastructural program is a positive move. Still, it must be followed by the removal of the led painting from American houses, which “remains the predominant source of children’s lead exposure,” they said.
According to earlier CDC studies, blood concentrations of 5 milligrams per deciliter or above are present in roughly 2.5 percent of early infants in the United States. In 2012, the CDC established the criterion as just a “reference value” for identifying kids and guiding families in pursuing lead-reduction actions.
According to a team of academics in 2017, protecting children from exposure to lead might save the United States quite so high of $84 billion in economic and public healthcare advantages for children delivered in 2018.
Nevertheless, child’s lead poisoning has decreased dramatically over time, thanks to policies such as the nationwide prohibition on lead painting enacted in 1978. Scientists recently discovered that children’s lead exposure concentrations plummeted by nearly 95 percent during the early 1970s between 2011 and 2016.
“There’s lead in the environment, and it persists,” said Markowitz of Children’s Hospital at Montefiore. “It’s way better than 50 years ago, in terms of how much lead is out there, but it’s still there.”
