[Dialogue] Thanks to colleague Dr Bruce Lanphear: new CDC recommendation

[Ellie Stock]

Hi folks,

In 2000 I became part of a presbytery PC(USA) partnership with Peru related to hunger issues.  One focus was addressing lead and other heavy metal contamination in La Oroya, Peru and also here in the St Louis region (Herculaneum) caused by the same US-owned company.  From time to time the partnership has been helped by the research of colleague Dr. Bruce Lanphear who specializes in lead and other toxins as they relate to health issues, particularly related to children.

I wanted to share a bit of good news I received yesterday in an email from Perry Gottesfeld (OK International) who is a member of a scientific advisory panel to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) that has made a formal recommendaton on childhood lead poisoning prevention that changes a policy that has been in effect in the U.S. since 1991 and is commonly used in other countries based on the same World Health Organization (WHO) recommendation and cut-off.  Previously, World Health Organization and EPA and CDC and other groups used the standard that only a blood lead level over 10 ug/dl was a "level of concern."  Most medical laboratories around the world have adopted this level as the "normal" or "acceptable" cut-off listed on blood test reports going to physicians and hospitals.  The new recommendations eliminate the use of the term "level of concern" and acknowledge that based on a comprehensive review of the scientific literature, there is no known safe level of exposure to children.  The new guidance calls for specific response actions for children with blood lead levels in the upper 2.5% of the population feometric mean (currently 5 ub/dl in the U.S.)  These lower levels currently impact approximately 450,000 children in the U.S. but millions more in developing countries.  [Many children in La Oroya, Peru have blood lead levels as high as 30-60 ug/dl and would be hospitalized if they lived in the U.S.]

As early as 2001 (and probably earlier) colleague Dr. Bruce Lanphear (formerly at Children's Hospital in Cincinnati and now a professor in Vancouver) was writing that there were "no safe blood lead levels and that blood lead levels as low as 1 ug/dl were harmful, especially for children and pregnant women.  The results of tests indicating this were published in 2003 in the New England Journal of Medicine.  Bruce has been on many advisory boards related to toxins and health.  His work (along with a few other prophets in the wilderness) contributed to this latest CDC recommendation (despite years of opposition by government agencies and contaminating corporate entities). 

Lead contamination continues to be a major environmental issue not only in the US (lead paint, lead smeltering) but also in developing countries (where lead is mined and smelted, where leaded gasoline is still the norm) and growing industrial nations (like China, where many of our lead batteries for computers, cars, toys, etc. are produced).   Standards such as this not only help to improve the health of people in the US but also act as leverage for global health standards.

So, thank you to you Bruce and your colleagues for your past work and continuing work which has had a much broader impact.  Its a joy to see such research translate into policy.

Aren't you proud, Nancy?

Ellie Stock
elliestock at aol.com 






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