The United States is doing a pitiful job of treating lead poisoning in children. We’ve spent decades talking about cleaning up lead but apparently we forgot that we also needed to worry about its impact on our kids. And a new report shows that the numbers are actually much worse than we thought.
Researchers at the Public Health Institute reported Thursday in the journal Pediatrics that the overall number of children with elevated blood lead levels as of 1999-2000 in the US was 1.2 million, or double what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had reported. (The number is likely even higher now, since testing rates have only declined since 2000.) These kids who are never tested or reported to the CDC also aren’t receiving treatment.
Currently, testing children for lead isn’t required by law and in 11 states (including Arizona and Florida), 80 percent of children were not tested by pediatricians or health departments. This means that doctors miss children that are exposed to lead poisoning and they don’t get treatment. Lead paint was banned in the late 1970s and as a result the percentage of children who blood lead levels has declined. However, researchers have learned in recent years that no level of lead in the blood is safe for children.
Studies have even shown lead concentration in the blood as low as 2 micrograms per deciliter of blood (μg/dL) can lower IQ in children. And once children have blood lead levels of 5 μg/dL and above (what’s now considered lead poisoning), they can suffer severe neurological damage in the form of attention deficit and hyperactivity disorders.
What’s worse is that a number of these children are receiving lead poisoning through exposure via water in public schools. We have a poor infrastructure that is in desperate need of repair. Our schools are literally making kids sick and low-income kids and kids of color are disproportionately affected.
Public schools in Portland, Oregon, shut off their drinking water taps last summer after high levels of lead were found across the school district’s water fountains. A school in western Pennsylvania was sued for letting high levels of lead in the drinking water go untreated for months. And a USA Today investigation found 2,000 public water systemsacross the US with elevated lead levels that exceeded the Environmental Protection Agency limit of 15 parts per billion — 350 of which serviced elementary schools or day cares. [...]
And low-income neighborhoods and communities of color are disproportionately impacted. A 2014 paper found that social disparities exist in accessing clean water and that lower-income communities are at greater risk of exposure to drinking water contaminants.
Engineers estimate that it will cost at least $1trillion to overhaul the drinking water system over the next 25 years. Yet in the budget released by the Trump administration in March, Trump proposed to cut or eliminate key infrastructure programs altogether. Given all that we know, we can be certain that making sure poor and kids of color have clean drinking water and are free of lead poisoning isn’t high on the list of his priorities. Can we expect anyone in the White House over the next several years to care about the health of these kids?