Lead poisoning can be linked to poor IQ and behavioural problems.Photo / Thinkstock
Health experts are calling for new national guidelines amid fears that
up to 100,000 young Australian children could have dangerously high levels of
lead in their blood.
The experts say current guidelines on lead levels must be updated
urgently in light of new figures based on analysis of US exposure rates and
published in the latest Medical Journal of Australia (MJA). In a letter
to the MJA, Mark Taylor of Sydney's Macquarie University, Chris Winder of the
Australian Catholic University in Sydney and Bruce Lanphear of Canada's Simon
Fraser University, say 100,000 Australian children aged up to four could have
blood lead levels linked to health problems. These include behavioural problems
and low IQ.
Guidelines recommending blood lead levels of below 10 micrograms per
decilitre of blood introduced by the National Health and Medical Research
Council (NHMRC) in 1993 are "increasingly obsolete", the researchers
say. "New and overwhelming evidence indicates that even levels below 5
micrograms per decilitre are associated with a range of adverse health
outcomes, including decreased intelligence and academic achievement,
sociobehavioural problems such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder,
learning difficulties, oppositional and conduct disorders and delinquency. "Importantly,
the greatest relative effects on IQ occur at the lower blood lead levels."
They recently held a forum on childhood lead toxicity at Macquarie
University and suggest not only that the NHMRC goal is lowered, but also that
ways of identifying sources of lead exposure need to be improved. There is no
recent data for lead levels in Australian children, so the figures were
estimated using US exposure rates and applying them to the Australian
population.
According to advocacy organisation The Lead Group, one of the main
sources of lead is old paint from buildings built prior to 1970. They estimate
3.5 million homes have lead-based paint, which is often sweet tasting and
therefore appeals to young children, who will pick at it and eat it.
Source: NZ Herald
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