Lead
What is 'lead poisoning'?
Lead is an element on periodic table that is highly toxic to the nervous system and also has affects on our blood pressure it can lead to damage to our red blood cells, it can be a reproductive health problem. Lead is again an element and it gets into our bodies tissues and actually behaves somewhat like calcium. It can be stored in bone and it deranges the way proteins work. So it's very damaging to protein and it's especially damaging to the developing nervous system.
Hasn't lead been banned in most products?
One of the great public health success stories is the banning of lead. We knew about the dangers of lead in the 1920s in gasoline and in paint, but yet it took our society until the 1970s to start thinking about banning lead. And we banned lead from paint, we banned paint from gasoline, we banned lead from our food cans. That's all for the good. That's great. The public health problem with lead isn't over, and that's because we still have old leaded paint in our homes. It may be under three or four layers of newer paint, but, nonetheless, it's still there as a toxic exposure potential in any home built before 1978. So we're left with the statistic that even now, in 2007 America, we have roughly 400,000 children who have too much lead in their bodies and it's impairing the development of their brain.
Why are windowsills often considered a lead hazard?
The greatest source of exposure in your home to lead from paint may be in the windowsill area, because painted windowsills will tend to flake and chip paint more than any other part of your house, just from normal wear and tear. The vibration of the window going up and down, plus the elements of the weather impacting that part of your house, leads to a lot of weathering, flaking and forming fine powdered dust from the lead paint. Now the added problem is that the wind will tend to blow that dust into the room and so it will supply or feed the ground, the house dust, the floor of your home, with lead paint coming from the windowsills. That's why lead replacement windows is not only good as an energy fix to your home, but it's also good to get rid of that old lead paint.
How are children exposed to lead?
Many children like to play right at the window. They get to look outside a little bit and see what is going on outside. They also may like to play with toy cars that fit in the track where the window comes down and often there is a lot of lead dust right there for them to touch; get on their hands. Children do a lot of hand to mouth activity. They are taking a lot of lead right into their body right off the windowsill.
What are some other sources of lead in the home?
Lead in the indoor environment can come from any lead painted surface and what we have to be careful about is remodeling projects where you maybe taking down a wall, where you may be changing the way the door frame exists, widening a door opening - any of kinds of those remodeling projects you could be freeing up a lot of built up lead in your home. Freeing it up so that young children, pets, yourself can be exposed and it's particularly important if you're pregnant and you live in an older home to not have a remodeling project going on with you living in the house unless it's done under scrupulous conditions where there's no dust that gets out in to your environment will you may get exposure to that lead dust because the most important period for brain development is in the womb and lead is known to be very toxic to brain development during that time. Other places that you should be aware about that could come from your home environment are consumer products like pottery. Imported pottery especially. It has been more of a problem from Mexico. I don't want to single out Mexico, because it could be coming from any place where you bring pottery in, if you traveled somewhere and brought some pottery from a local potter, or if it's imported from places like Mexico, it may have lead glaze and so you would not want to eat out of that particular mug or that particular bowl. The other concern is crystal glassware. Crystal is often leaded glassware. Lead makes glass shinier and unfortunately the lead isn't locked in to the glassware but can leeched out under acidic conditions so wine can leech lead out and you can be exposed to lead in your drinking goblet. You don't want to use leaded crystal glass were to drink out of. It may be fine if you want to have it on your display case to have a nice effect in your home but definitely don't drink out of leaded glassware. And then we also want to remember that lead paint was not only used inside the home but it was also used on the exterior of the home as well. So from years of weathering that paint has flaked off the average house, it has landed in soil, and that leads to soil contamination. Whether it is around an old shed or out in the middle of your yard, or whether it's right around the foundation of your home because the lead will tend to fall out and accumulate right in the immediate buffer zone around the home the first couple of feet or around an old painted fence or an old playscape or an old painted shed.
Can a good diet help prevent lead poisoning?
Lead exposure is worse and most damaging for kids who are malnourished. Diets that are high in iron, high in essential nutrients, high in vitamins, tend to stave off some of the effects of lead poisoning. High in calcium, calcium's also a very important nutrient in helping to fend off lead poisoning. That's doesn't mean that if you're in a house with a lot of old lead paint that you don't have to worry about the lead paint, but you want to have a good diet and prevent your children's exposure to lead by making sure that that lead isn't free for them to be exposed to from dust and paint chips.
