January/February 2013 issue of Mother Jones featured an excellent article by Kevin Drum, on the adverse societal effects potentials that research suggests that lead pollution has caused in the US. Some of the correlations remain to be clarified enough to be used to be demonstrated as being causative, but the general description of the research status and trends thus far does give a very good overview of how lead has taken a massive negative effect on societal wellbeing. There has been a very large amount of research accomplished to date that strongly suggests that lead pollution from many sources have harmed us all to varying degrees, and that indicates that it was done in a dose-dependent manner. The current The Flint MI water and public health crisis is just one example of the tragedy of lead poisoning across our nation and around the world. Public health assessment best management practices still almost exclusively use the blood lead test to biomonitor the current lead levels from very recent exposures. This reliance is too simplistic, though still very useful, to really grasp an appropriate understanding of the role of accumulative body burden of lead on individual health, and societal harms. Lead research is rapidly advancing, with many new techniques for biomonitoring exposures, uptakes, and toxicologic effects on individuals and on public health disease causation. Though Flint is just the tip of the iceberg of lead poisoning effects across our nation, we now have a societal awareness momentum that desperately needs to drive further research and drive public health system advances into a new age of lead poisoning prevention and toxic metal pollution cleanup for the nation. We stand to gain vast sums of money AND health, if we grasp this opportunity. The huge monetary costs of the Flint debacle, just beginning to be realized, could have been avoided with appropriate oversight through the years, but we have failed miserably. Divisive finger-pointing, and blame assessment does have a place, but the more advantageous opportunity would be to focus that energy toward directly improving the path from here forward into a more sane future of toxic pollution prevention and reduction. Blood lead testing, while important to do for part of the picture, also masks the more important body burden build-up of lead in individuals and populations. There are important new tools that beg to be utilized and refined in the Flint crisis, to provide a giant leap forward in public medicine advancement concerning lead poisoning, both acute, and chronic low-dose. It will be essential to use bone lead assessment with such tools as XRF non-invasive testing, ALAD-inhibition testing, genetic testing for susceptibility differences, and employing the rapidly evolving new science of sclerochronology of bioincrement growth history metals content in body hard parts such as teeth. Laser ablation ICPMS and similar techniques could take us giant leaps forward in understanding exposure and up-take histories through lifetimes and across populations. We need to insist that these tools be incorporated in the Flint paradigm, to turn such devastating negativity into knowledge and advancement into a more sane future.IMHO
Published by Ray Kinney
January/February 2013 issue of Mother Jones featured an excellent article by Kevin Drum, on the adverse societal effects potentials that research suggests that lead pollution has caused in the US. Some of the correlations remain to be clarified enough to be used to be demonstrated as being causative, but the general description of the research status and trends thus far does give a very good overview of how lead has taken a massive negative effect on societal wellbeing. There has been a very large amount of research accomplished to date that strongly suggests that lead pollution from many sources have harmed us all to varying degrees, and that indicates that it was done in a dose-dependent manner. The current The Flint MI water and public health crisis is just one example of the tragedy of lead poisoning across our nation and around the world. Public health assessment best management practices still almost exclusively use the blood lead test to biomonitor the current lead levels from very recent exposures. This reliance is too simplistic, though still very useful, to really grasp an appropriate understanding of the role of accumulative body burden of lead on individual health, and societal harms. Lead research is rapidly advancing, with many new techniques for biomonitoring exposures, uptakes, and toxicologic effects on individuals and on public health disease causation. Though Flint is just the tip of the iceberg of lead poisoning effects across our nation, we now have a societal awareness momentum that desperately needs to drive further research and drive public health system advances into a new age of lead poisoning prevention and toxic metal pollution cleanup for the nation. We stand to gain vast sums of money AND health, if we grasp this opportunity. The huge monetary costs of the Flint debacle, just beginning to be realized, could have been avoided with appropriate oversight through the years, but we have failed miserably. Divisive finger-pointing, and blame assessment does have a place, but the more advantageous opportunity would be to focus that energy toward directly improving the path from here forward into a more sane future of toxic pollution prevention and reduction. Blood lead testing, while important to do for part of the picture, also masks the more important body burden build-up of lead in individuals and populations. There are important new tools that beg to be utilized and refined in the Flint crisis, to provide a giant leap forward in public medicine advancement concerning lead poisoning, both acute, and chronic low-dose. It will be essential to use bone lead assessment with such tools as XRF non-invasive testing, ALAD-inhibition testing, genetic testing for susceptibility differences, and employing the rapidly evolving new science of sclerochronology of bioincrement growth history metals content in body hard parts such as teeth. Laser ablation ICPMS and similar techniques could take us giant leaps forward in understanding exposure and up-take histories through lifetimes and across populations. We need to insist that these tools be incorporated in the Flint paradigm, to turn such devastating negativity into knowledge and advancement into a more sane future.IMHO