IT'S WORSE, worse than anyone thought about lead poisoning. Lead concentrations in blood, only half as much as the accepted "safe" level, hurts children's intellectual and emotional development. That's the word from researchers in a study released just last week.
For years, the internationally accepted level, the level everyone thought safe, was 10 micrograms per deciliter. But now researchers from University of Bristol in the UK have evidence showing this lead level is dangerous and twice as high as it should be, particularly for young children. Findings reported in the current Archives of Disease in Childhood show a clear link between blood lead levels in early childhood and academic performance by the ages of 7 and 8.
CURRENT 'SAFE' LEVEL TOXIC
The British researchers report the toxic effects of lead on the central nervous system are obvious even below the current so-called safe level of lead in the blood.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), approx. half of all urban children world-wide and under the age of five test with blood lead levels higher than the CDC's safe limit, reports the BBC.
Researchers measured blood lead levels in 488 children at age 2-and-a-half, linking blood lead levels to scores on standardized assessment tests at age 7 to 8. The kids with blood lead levels between 2 and 5 micrograms per deciliter performed significantly better on standardized tests than those with blood lead levels above 5 micrograms per deciliter. (Don't forget: the currently accepted "safe" level is 10 micrograms per deciliter.)
Blood lead levels between 5 and 10 micrograms per deciliter were associated with significantly poorer scores for reading (49 percent lower) and writing (51 percent lower.)
Based on these findings, Dr. Alan Emond, the study's lead researcher, is calling for the safe threshold of blood lead to be halved to 5 micrograms per deciliter.
As part of their study, researchers talked with teachers and found that kids with blood lead levels above 10 micrograms per deciliter were nearly three times as likely to show anti-social behavior and hyperactivity compared to kids whose blood lead levels were between 0 and 2 micrograms per deciliter. (To read about recent research on the brain and anti-social behavior in boys, read Ethic Soup's "Bullies may be wired in brain to enjoy others' pain." ).
CHILDRENS' RISK HIGHER THAN ADULTS
Particularly risky for children, exposure to lead is more easily absorbed by their growing bodies and because their tissues are especially sensitive to damage. Because of their low body-weight, any amount of lead is more dangerous to children than it would be to adults. Blood lead levels seem to peak between the ages of 2 and 3 years, when toddlers seem to put the most items in their mouths.
Lead poisoning is said to be the most common environmental illness in children in the U.S. As emphasized by News Inferno:
"Exposure to lead in children and unborn children can cause brain and nervous system damage, behavioral and learning problems, slowed growth, hearing problems, headaches, mental and physical retardation, and behavioral and other health problems. Lead is also known to cause cancer and reproductive harm. Once poisoned by lead, no organ system is immune."
MATTEL TOYS STILL BIG PROBLEM
Toys tainted with lead paint can be dangerous when the paint is ingested. Remember Mattel Toys? Just two years ago, more than 2 million toys from Mattel, and its subsidiary Fischer-Price, were recalled, with most involving lead-painted toys made in China. The majority of Mattel's toys are still made in China -- where right now the Chinese people are courageously demonstrating against the government for environmentally high lead levels causing serious illness to their children. See "China uses fear to hush up poisoned children" at the Times Online and "Villagers Protest Lead Poisoning" in the Shanghai Daily.
After an unprecedented number of toy recalls-- most from Mattel --Congress passed legislation last year setting strict mandates on lead, lead paint, and phthalate levels. The law requires third-party, independent testing of all products for children 12 years old and younger.
MATTEL EXEMPT FROM TOY SAFETY LAW
The problem is that our government secretly exempted Mattel from the toy safety law's testing requirements. Although an independent lab is mandated to test the toys, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission gave the toy-maker giant, Mattel, an "OUT". Mattel has insisted that they will test their own toys. There's that same fox again, expanding its territory from hen houses to Mattel factories. And since when did Mattel tell the federal government what to do? Maybe that's the way it's been all along -- we just didn't know it.
Isn't it amazing that in communist China, its citizens care enough about their children to risk their very lives to protest to the government about lead poisoning? Yet, in the US, we just keep on buying Mattel toys and pray our kids won't get brain damaged. 'Oh, that just wouldn't be nice to boycott. We believe in free enterprise.'
WHAT IS GOING ON ?
I don't understand it. And the worse offender of lead paint on toys, Mattel, doesn't have to obey the toy safety law, which was enacted because of their huge recalls of Mattel toys. Lord have mercy!
We know who is responsible -- Mattel, Congress and regulator US Commission Product Safety Commission. But who is accountable? The regulators should lose their jobs and go to prison, along with Mattel executives and board of directors. We make bartenders accountable if they serve drinks to a customer who then drives drunk and injures someone, don't we?
READ AND CLICK: "MATTEL'S FISHER-PRICE MASSIVE RECALL -- AGAIN: OVER 11 MILLION TOYS THIS TIME"
TO READ "MATTEL SECRETLY EXEMPT FROM SAFETY LAW TOY TESTING" CLICK HERE.
TO READ "TOY GIANT MATTEL SETTLES WITH 38 STATES FOR TAINTED LEAD-PAINTED TOYS" CLICK HERE.
TO READ "TOYMAKER MATTEL FINED 2.3 MILLION FOR VIOLATING LEAD PAINT BAN" CLICK HERE.
CLICK AND READ:"WHERE ARE MATTEL'S ETHICS: UNDERCOVER LIKE BURKA BARBIE"
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