What's Inside

• Beware The Lead Poisoning

  • How lead exposure affects kids

• Fact Or Fiction: Lead Poisoning Only Happens With …

• What I’m Seeing at Work: Whooping Cough (Pertussis …

• Money-Saving Tip: Know Your Network

• WWWD: Tonsillectomy

• Recalls & Alerts: Guitar String Lubricant

• Funny Things: Lemme Borrow Your Stethoscope 🤣

Beware The Lead Poisoning

I’m a fan of HGTV and occasionally watch one of those home renovation shows. They’re always fun to see the before and after.

But, I always worry when I see them remodeling an older home…especially when the family has kids. I see them tearing into walls, yanking out plumbing, dust flying everywhere. And while I know the final reveal is going to be amazing, I worry about lead poisoning and how it affects children, especially.

Here’s the thing: If you’re remodeling a home built before 1978, you need to get it tested for lead. (It wasn’t until 1978 that they stopped using lead-based paint.)

If your home was built prior to 1978, and you start tearing into walls and such, you could be releasing dangerous lead dust and chips into the air and across all the surfaces. No one should be breathing this stuff in, especially the kids. And if you discover your home has lead pipes, you absolutely must replace all of them. Don’t even hesitate, despite the cost.

High Risk Locations

When I was training in Omaha, NE, all kids got routinely checked for lead at age 1. Lead is in the soil in Omaha due to previous industry (including lead smelters) and we routinely detected high levels of lead in kids there. I admitted many kids to the hospital for lead chelation therapy. So it pays to know what is also in the soil locally. These cities in particular have high levels of lead in the soil:

1. Chicago

2. Indianapolis

3. New York

4. Cleveland

5. Milwaukee

6. Baltimore

7. Cleveland

8. Omaha

What states have the highest risk of lead exposure?

Rhode Island, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania are the worst.

While Illinois, Ohio, New York, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Florida have the highest levels of lead in the water.

How lead exposure affects kids

You’ve probably heard that lead is bad for kids. But I’m telling you, it’s really bad. Kids who are exposed to lead can have major, long-term health issues:

• Developmental delays

• Learning difficulties

• Reduced attention span and behavioral problems

• Hearing loss

• Speech problems

• Damage to the nervous system

• Damage to kidneys

Because your child’s body and brain is still forming, even small levels of lead can have a massive impact.

Signs and symptoms of lead poisoning

This is the tricky part. Because lead poisoning doesn’t usually present with any obvious symptoms, it can go completely undetected for years until serious damage has occurred.

That’s why your pediatrician will often do a blood test to screen your child for lead exposure. (If you haven’t had a blood test done to test for lead, talk to your pediatrician about getting tested.)

Lead poisoning resources

The EPA has produced a bunch of great resources on lead poisoning and prevention.

Click the image below to access the full Lead Poisoning Prevention Toolkit from the EPA:

You can also call the National Lead Information Center at 1-800-424-5323 (LEAD). They can give you all kinds of information about lead hazards and how to prevent exposure/poisoning.

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