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R/£ Lead poison scare for city kids
November 22, 2004 Edition 2
Di Caelers
Cape Town children, especially those in poorer areas, show alarmingly high levels of lead in their blood that could lead to a reduced IQ, hyperactivity, hearing loss and delayed puberty.
That's the finding of a Medical Research Council (MRC) research group, which identified nearly a third of children in Woodstock and Mitchell's Plain with blood lead levels at the danger end of the international scale of acceptability.
And even that level - 10 micrograms per decilitre - is being challenged by scientists who have found in recent studies that IQ reduction can result in cases of blood lead levels as low at three micrograms per decilitre of blood.
"Even if we take a more conservative figure of five micrograms, we see that we have a huge problem among South African children as a whole," said Angela Mathee, the MRC's health and development research group's director.
They examined the concentrations of lead in the blood of Grade 1 pupils in a cross-section of schools in remote rural towns, a lead mining town, a medium-sized city, and in Johannesburg and Cape Town, according to the MRC's annual report for 2004.
Although the report said blood lead levels are expected to decline as 2006 approached, when parliament has phased out the use of leaded petrol in South Africa, Mathee said the problem ran deeper considering the old housing, with layers of old paint, in which many poor South Africans lived.
Currently, 70% of petrol sold in South Africa is leaded petrol.
In addition, Mathee warned that a small sample of locally sold paint, both well-known and lesser-known brands, showed continued widespread use of lead - especially in orange, yellow and red enamel paints.
In some of the coloured enamel paints, lead levels were up to 38 times as high as the reference standard in the US. South Africa has no similar standards.
According to a Sapa report, a preliminary study of 60 suburbs randomly selected in Johannesburg showed that more than half had one or more houses decorated with lead-based paint.
Mathee said in Alexandra, Johannesburg, more than half the children studied showed blood lead levels in the range associated with IQ reduction.
The annual report said the results, in all settings studied, found "a proportion of children had blood lead levels in a range associated with reductions in IQ, hyperactivity, an inability to concentrate, higher failure rates at school, hearing loss, delayed onset of puberty, and anaemia".
In greater Cape Town, Mathee said they studied three areas; Woodstock, Mitchell's Plain and Hout Bay.
Woodstock and Mitchell's Plain turn up similar results, with nearly a third of children showing blood lead levels high enough to result in learning difficulties.
"Children in Hout Bay, where traffic density is lower, had much lower levels, but even in that area children who live in poorer economic circumstances showed up with problem blood lead levels.
"It is a disease of poverty because even when children live in circumstances where exposure to lead may be equal, those with better nutrition have lower blood lead levels," Mathee said.
They follow the 10 microgram per decilitre "international action level" where the World Health Organisation has deemed problems may occur, but Mathee stressed that scientific studies in the past three or four years were finding IQ reduction could occur in children with blood lead levels as low as three micrograms per decilitre.
"Scientists are beginning to believe there is no safe level of lead in the blood," she said.
Mathee described the situation as serious for South Africa's children, especially considering that there were many effects of lead poisoning that were less well studied, but which pointed to a link between high levels of lead in the blood and violent and aggressive behaviour in children.
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