Lead And Public Health

Lead is a ubiquitous toxic agent that is especially damaging to the young child and the developing fetus. Unlike many environmental health risks, the risks associated with lead are no longer theoretical but have been observed for many years. Indeed, the first regulation of lead in paint was enacted in the 1920s. Currently, because of growing evidence of lead toxicity at lower concentrations, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently lowered its lead-exposure guideline to 10 ug/dl lead in blood from 25 ug/dl. Measuring Lead Exposure in Infants, Children, and Other Sensitive Populations addresses the public health concern about the logistics and feasibility of lead screening in infants and children at such low concentrations. This book will serve as the basis for all U.S. Public Health Service activities and for all state and local programs in monitoring lead.

Lead is the most serious and widespread poison in our environment, and can cause serious damage to the mental development of young children at relatively low levels. Taking lead out of petrol has dealt with only one source of exposure: the most serious hazards arise from old leaded paint in our homes, schools and workplaces, and from the old leaded pipes that can carry our drinking water. This is the first book to offer an accessible and authoritative guide to the subject. Focussing on the evidence concerning children - and making use of previously unpublished governmental research - it gives the background to the scientific debate about the toxicology of lead, and examines the impacts on human health. The regulatory regimes of the US and UK are assessed and further appropriate steps are suggested. For over 20 years, scientific evidence has accumulated showing how harmful current exposure to lead is: yet neither the UK nor the US government has faced up to the facts. Lead and Public Health is a persuasive account of the implications of, and possible solutions for, this crucial issue.

The book presents a detailed assessment of the health science of lead and the human health risk assessment models for lead’s human health impacts, followed by an account of various regulatory efforts in the United States and elsewhere to eliminate or reduce human toxic exposures to lead. The science of lead as presented here covers releases of lead into the environment, lead’s movement through the environment to reach humans who are then exposed, and the spectrum of toxic effects, particularly low-level toxic effects, on the developing central nervous system of the very young child. The section on human health risk assessment deals with quantifying not only the dose-response relationships that underlie toxic responses to lead in sensitive populations but also with the likelihood of toxic responses vis-à-vis environmental lead at some level of exposure. This section includes a treatment of computer models of lead exposure, particularly those that use lead in whole blood as a key measure. Various models convert lead intake via various body compartments into measures of body lead burden. Such measures are then directly related to severity of injury. The final section of the book deals with past and present regulatory efforts to control lead releases into the human environment. Current control efforts present a mixed picture. The most problematic issue is the continued presence of lead paint in older housing and lead in soils of urban and mining industry communities. Comprehensive assessment of the three major facets of the public health problem of lead: the voluminous science, the risk assessment approaches, and approaches to controlling lead as a public health problem Integration of the above three elements to provide a coherent whole Provides a single source of information that will be extremely valuable to all professionals working in areas impacted by this toxic substance