Get The Lead Out You enjoy going to ceramic classes and glazing your personally designed clay pots and dishes. Your hobby is making beautifully designed stained glass lamp shades or window hangers. For a past time or even as a hobby you enjoy going fishing. Maybe you enjoy going to the firing range and shooting that old muzzle loading gun or even your newly purchased hand gun. What do all of these great personal activities have in common? Lead. Yes that deadly harmful substance called lead. If you glaze your pottery products with red or yellow chances are there is lead in the paint. Lead glazing bars are used to hold the pieces of glass in your stained glass window or lamp shade. The projectiles, the bullets, most likely have lead. Going fishing what about the lead sinkers. All these products and more have lead. Things you would never think of having lead have lead in them. Like the water you drink. The dye to color your hair. The paint you use in your house or to paint an art object. Little toy cars and antique toys for children. Enjoy smoking. Cigarettes and cigarette smoke also contain small amounts of lead.
Lead is a metallic element that is an end product of uranium, thorium, and actinium, all radioactive elements. Lead is produced when these elements brake down over long periods of degeneration. Bluish white in color when cut, lead tarnishes to an off gray color when exposed to air. When melted, lead is shiny silvery product that is used to make pewter cups, weights, bullets, lead-acid batteries and is used as part of solder to weld two metals together. Lead is very malleable. The soft easy formed lead made excellent piping material that has been used from Roman times up to even present day times. Lead has a low melting point and resists corrosion by either air or water. The largest usage for lead presently is in storage batteries used in automotive vehicles as a source of electricity. Previously, lead was used to make tetraethyl lead and tetramethyl lead as additives to gasoline to increase octane rating of the gasoline and prevent the knocking engine sound caused by low octane. Since January 1, 1996 in the United States, it was phased out although tetraethyl may still be used in gasoline for off-road vehicles and airplanes.
Human activity and the use of lead in many products has increased the naturally occurring lead in the environment to over a 1,000-fold. The greatest increases where from 1950 to year 2000. With the banning of leaded gasoline by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1996, the release of lead into the air has decreased. Also the banning of pesticides that contained lead have helped remove lead from the air and from the foods sprayed with the lead contaminated pesticides. With lead no longer allowed as a solder for cans, foods that were placed in cans have very little lead in them. All ceramic dish ware that has been painted with lead is now banned and must be rendered unusable as tableware with holes punched into them or a waring label to notify the consumer that the product contains lead and is harmful.
Since 1988 in the United States, drinking water from lakes, rivers or groundwater must contain less than 0.005 parts of lead per million parts of water (ppm). Public water treatment system must use measures to make the water less acidic so that lead is not dissolved into the public water supply. Water coolers and equipment that supplies water must not contain lead parts that come in contact with the drinking water.
Lead is easily absorbed through the skin of humans. Dust and dirt contaminated with lead can easily be absorbed into the lungs or skin. Cosmetic jewelry made with lead can transfer lead through routine handling.
Hair products with lead like some types of hair colorants, cosmetics, and dyes contain lead acetate. The exposure can be at home or in the work place. Children are highly susceptible to absorbing lead and should be prevented from handling or exposure to these products. Children absorb about 50% of the lead they are exposed to through handling and ingestion of lead.
The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), based in Atlanta, Georgia, is a federal public health agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services states on its website:
"Shortly after lead gets into your body, it travels in the blood to the "soft tissues" and organs (such as the liver, kidneys, lungs, brain, spleen, muscles, and heart). After several weeks, most of the lead moves into your bones and teeth. In adults, about 94% of the total amount of lead in the body is contained in the bones and teeth. About 73% of the lead in children’s bodies is stored in their bones. Some of the lead can stay in your bones for decades; however, some lead can leave your bones and reenter your blood and organs under certain circumstances (e.g., during pregnancy and periods of breast feeding, after a bone is broken, and during advancing age)." ... "The effects of lead are the same whether it enters the body through breathing or swallowing. The main target for lead toxicity is the nervous system, both in adults and children. Long-term exposure of adults to lead at work has resulted in decreased performance in some tests that measure functions of the nervous system. Lead exposure may also cause weakness in fingers, wrists, or ankles. Lead exposure also causes small increases in blood pressure, particularly in middle-aged and older people. Lead exposure may also cause anemia. At high levels of exposure, lead can severely damage the brain and kidneys in adults or children and ultimately cause death. In pregnant women, high levels of exposure to lead may cause miscarriage. High-level exposure in men can damage the organs responsible for sperm production." http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/phs13.html
Presently, there is no proof that lead causes cancer but the EPA has determined that lead is a probable human carcinogen (cancer causing product). Lead product an organic lead compounds have not been classified because of inadequate evidence from studies in humans and animals. Caution is still advised especially with children and would be pregnant or pregnant women. Fortunately lead in children's blood levels are getting lower and lower each year as bans of more products containing lead are banned. Yet, no safe blood level of lead in children has been determined. The best case scenario for anyone is "No Lead." Help get the lead out.
"CDC recommends that states develop a plan to find children who may be exposed to lead and have their blood tested for lead. CDC recommends that the states test children:
* at ages 1 and 2 years;
* at ages 3–6 years if they have never been tested for lead;
* if they receive services from public assistance programs for the poor such as Medicaid or the Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children;
* if they live in a building or frequently visit a house built before 1950;
* iif they visit a home (house or apartment) built before 1978 that has been recently remodeled; and/or
* if they have a brother, sister, or playmate who has had lead poisoning.
CDC considers children to have an elevated level of lead if the amount of lead in the blood is at least 10 μg/dL. Many states or local programs provide intervention to individual children with blood lead levels equal to or greater than 10 μg/dL. Medical evaluation and environmental investigation and remediation should be done for all children with blood lead levels equal to or greater than 20 μg/dL. Medical treatment (i.e., chelation therapy) may be necessary in children if the lead concentration in blood is higher than 45 μg/dL."...
"The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) develops recommendations and regulations to prevent exposure to lead. HUD requires that federally funded housing and renovations, Public and Indian housing be tested for lead-based paint hazards and that such hazards be fixed by covering the paint or removing it. When determining whether lead-based paint applied to interior or exterior painted surfaces of dwellings should be removed, the standard used by EPA and HUD is that paint with a lead concentration equal to or greater than 1.0 milligram per square centimeter (mg/cm2) of surface area should be removed or otherwise treated. HUD is carrying out demonstration projects to determine the best ways of covering or removing lead-based paint in housing."...
"OSHA regulations limit the concentration of lead in workroom air to 50 μg/m3 for an 8 hour workday. If a worker has a blood lead level of 50 μg/dL or higher, then OSHA requires that the worker be removed from the workroom where lead exposure is occurring."...
"FDA includes lead on its list of poisonous and deleterious substances. FDA considers foods packaged in cans containing lead solders to be unsafe. Tin-coated lead foil has been used as a covering applied over the cork and neck areas of wine bottles for decorative purposes and to prevent insect infestations. Because it can be reasonably expected that lead could become a component of the wine, the use of such foil is also a violation of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. FDA has reviewed several direct human food ingredients (i.e., food dyes) and has determined them to be “generally recognized as safe” when used in accordance with current good manufacturing practices. Some of these ingredients contain allowable lead concentrations that range from 0.1 to 10 ppm."(1) http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/phs13.html
"Where can I get more information?
If you have any more questions or concerns, please contact your community or state health or environmental quality department or:
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
Division of Toxicology and Environmental Medicine
1600 Clifton Road NE, Mailstop F-32
Atlanta, GA 30333
Phone: 1-800-CDC-INFO • 888-232-6348 (TTY)
Email: cdcinfo@cdc.gov
To order toxicological profiles, contact:
National Technical Information Service
5285 Port Royal Road
Springfield, VA 22161
Phone: 800-553-6847 or 703-605-6000 "(2)
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/phs13.html
Treatment of Lead-Exposed Children Trial (TLC)
Epidemiology Branch
The Treatment of Lead-Exposed Children (TLC) clinical trial compared the effect of lead chelation with succimer to placebo therapy. TLC was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial with sites in Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Baltimore, Maryland and Newark, New Jersey. The study was designed to test outcomes in IQ, neuropsychological function, behavior, physical growth and blood pressure three years after initiation of treatment. Enrollment was conducted between 1994 and 1997, with completion of the initial three-year follow-up in 2000.
At enrollment, the children were between 12 and 33 months of age with baseline blood lead levels (PbB) between 20 and 44 µg/dl. Of 1,854 referred children who were screened for eligibility, 780 were randomized to the active drug (oral succimer) and placebo groups, stratified by clinical center, body surface area, blood lead level and language spoken at home; only the New Jersey Clinical Center enrolled Spanish-speaking participants. Up to three 26-day courses of succimer or placebo therapy were administered depending on response to treatment in those who were given the active drug. Eighty-nine percent of children had finished treatment by six months, with all children finishing by 13 months after randomization. Residential lead clean-up and nutritional supplementation with multivitamins and minerals were provided to all study children, irrespective of treatment group. Children were followed for three years, with regular physical exams, psychological and developmental testing, and measurement of lead concentration in venous blood.
Although succimer lowered blood lead levels much more effectively than placebo, there was no difference between the two groups on any of the psychological tests at three years post randomization, when most children were about five years old. Follow up of TLC children continued into school age. At age seven, 647 of 780 subjects remained in the study. Children were tested at age seven and again at seven and a half on standardized neuropsychological batteries that tap cognition, behavior, learning and memory, attention, and neuromotor skills. While chelation therapy with succimer had lowered average blood lead levels for approximately six months, it resulted in no benefit in cognitive, behavioral and neuromotor endpoints when measured at school ages in these children. These additional follow-up data confirm our previous finding that the TLC regimen of chelation therapy is not associated with neurodevelopmental benefits in children with blood lead levels between 20 and 44 µg/dL.(3)
http://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/atniehs/labs/epi/studies/tlc/index.cfm
Research From
(1)http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/phs13.html
(2)http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/phs13.html
(3)http://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/atniehs/labs/epi/studies/tlc/index.cfm
http://www.epa.gov/opptintr/lead.
http://www.cdc.gov/lead/
http://www.epa.gov/iaq/lead.html
http://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/agents/lead/
http://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/atniehs/labs/epi/studies/tlc/index.cfm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead
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Science
