Nations Work to Educate Public on Lead Poisoning Risks

More than 35 nations are participating in a campaign to stop the use of lead in paint.

Washington — Health advocates in more than 35 nations are promoting Lead Poisoning Prevention Week October 20–26, educating publics about harmful exposure to lead, a metal known to cause mental retardation when ingested.

The World Health Organization (WHO) calculates that lead exposure contributes to about 600,000 cases of intellectual disabilities in children every year. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) calls childhood lead poisoning the most preventable environmental disease among youngsters.

The CDC and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) join the Global Alliance to Eliminate Lead Paint (GAELP) in promoting this annual education event in October. U.S. agencies have been involved in the event for some time, but 2013 is the first year that the campaign has a global reach.

“Joining with other countries to raise awareness about protecting children from the harmful exposure to lead will have a long-term positive effect on the health of children worldwide,” said Jim Jones, EPA assistant administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention.

EPA has helped customize educational materials about the hazards of lead poisoning that will be used in other national campaigns. National outreach campaigns are being conducted in Georgia and South Africa, for example, and lead poisoning prevention will be an issue before a professional medical conference in India.

The United States banned lead-based paint for use in homes and buildings in the 1970s, but that action did not eliminate the risk of lead-laced paint still in place in older buildings. Many other developed countries have also prohibited the sale of lead-containing paint, but these products are still available in many developing-world countries.

The GAELP reports that lead paint is still “widely available” in many countries and is used in interior-exterior home decorating, in glazes and on toys, furniture and playground equipment. The risk to children is increased by the fact that lead lends a slightly sweet taste to surfaces where it is used. In the United States, for example, toddlers living in older buildings have ingested lead by sucking on paint chips shed by aging walls.

The U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) released research findings October 22 showing that paint lead levels determined from samples collected in unregulated countries could exceed the maximum U.S. lead level standard by as much as 1,000-fold.

The legal maximum for lead content is 90 parts per million (ppm) in the United States. In five of the tested nations, 67 percent of collected paint samples exceeded that level.

“Paints with extremely high levels of lead are still available in most countries,” according to the UNEP-backed report, compiled by a global network of nongovernmental organizations focused on environmental health.

Other nations have adopted maximum lead levels in the range of 90 ppm to 600 ppm, but the research also found a majority of tested samples from some countries exceeding that level also.

Raising awareness among government authorities, regulators, the private sector and manufacturers is a chief objective for GAELP. The alliance is striving to win passage of lead regulations in about 40 additional countries by 2015. Worldwide, 30 countries have already phased out the use of lead paint.