What You Need to Know About Lead Poisoning

Don't Take It Lightly

By Dr. Aneema Van Groenou

A year and a half ago we moved to California – with a new job, new friends, a 6-month-old baby and an old house in the hills needing renovation. Three months later, our daughter's routine lead blood test came back high. High blood lead levels? I was shocked, surprised and scared.

As a physician, I have learned about lead poisoning and I knew the traditional "risk factors": Low-income, inner-city kids get lead poisoning and it affects their intellectual development. Lead poisoning is a sad consequence of lead-based paints used prior to the 1970s and it tends to affect those who are least likely to live in newer or updated homes. I hardly considered that lead was a danger in my own semi-rural home. And my daughter wasn't chewing on windowsills with flaking paint either.

I immediately read more about what the elevated lead level meant and what I could do about it. It was clear that the renovations in our home, although relatively minor, had kicked up a lot of dust, from under the carpets we removed, from sawing through walls to install windows and from simply cleaning out a house that had been occupied for the past 40 years.

The American Academy of Family Physicians notes that more than 4 percent of children in the United States have lead poisoning.

Indeed, the greatest risk factor for lead poisoning is lead-based paints, which were banned by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the United States in 1978. So houses built before that date probably have layers of lead-based paint, even if it's hidden under newer layers of paint. Any disturbance or peeling can expose the leaded paint. Houses built in the 1950s or earlier have the highest lead levels.

Want to see more?

• Is Your Home a Danger? Facts About Lead Poisoning
• Keep Kids Safe: Avoiding the Hazards of Home Remodeling
• Accidental Poisonings: 6 Things You Need to Know Now
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