The Health Impacts of Lead

Posted: 29-Jan-2002; Updated: 05-Oct-2007

Lead is a potent toxin that can affect individuals in any age group. Absorbed through eating and breathing, lead accumulates in the body, so even very small doses can pose a health hazard over the long run.

Children and fetuses are particularly vulnerable to lead poisoning because their rapidly developing nervous systems are sensitive to lead. The federal government estimates that over 1.7 million preschool children - 9 percent of all preschoolers - have dangerously elevated lead levels. Much larger percentages of children of color, children living in cities, and children in low-income families have elevated lead levels.

Lead exposure in children can cause learning disabilities, mental retardation, impaired visual and motor functioning, stunted growth, neurological and organ damage, and hearing loss. In adults, it is also associated with hypertension, cancer, and reproductive complications.

China dishes are only one of the many possible sources of lead exposure.

For decades high levels of lead were used in paint, gasoline and plumbing systems. Although these uses have been cut in recent years, lead is an element that does not break down or lose its toxic potency over time. Household dust and residential soil are widely contaminated with lead from old paint and from gasoline vapors and exhaust.

Children most often absorb high levels of lead by ingesting lead-laden dust when they put their fingers or toys in their mouths. Deteriorating lead paint is the main source of lead dust in homes. Lead in drinking water also remains a problem, especially in areas with corrosive water, where lead leaches from pipes, solder, and other plumbing fittings.

Nutritional deficiencies can increase the amount of lead the body absorbs. Parents should ensure that their children's diet includes sufficient amounts of calcium and iron.

Fetuses in the womb are exposed to lead because their mothers are. Unfortunately, this can happen even if the mother's exposure was long before she became pregnant, even as early as her own childhood. The body can store lead in bone for more than 20 years - and then release it during pregnancy, harming the fetus.

As a practical matter, prevention is the only realistic cure for lead poisoning.

Available treatments are expensive and painful, do not completely remove all lead from the body, and are powerless to undo brain damage.

The Importance of Testing

Environmental Defense joins government health officials in urging that all parents have their children's blood lead level checked, preferably by age one and routinely until age six. This is particularly important if they live in cities or if they suspect their children may have had significant lead exposure from paint, soil or dust, ceramics, lead-contaminated drinking water, or other sources. Since the symptoms of lead poisoning can be subtle and difficult to detect, testing is the only way to know if your child is at risk.

Your doctor or your local health department should be able to conduct a blood lead level test for you and your family.

For more information about the health impacts of lead, contact:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program
1600 Clifton Road
Mail Stop E25
Atlanta, GA 30333
(404) 639-2510

Environmental Protection Agency's National Lead Information Center
(800) 424-LEAD [424-5323] Mon.-Fri. 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. to request information packet (English or Spanish recording available 24 hours).
422 South Clinton Avenue
Rochester, NY  14620