MACOMB -- Dr. Herbert Needleman, the physician/scientist who proved that lead poisoning destroys the intellect and behavior of children told a Western Illinois University audience on Wednesday that lead and neurotoxins in the environment still threaten US children.
Needleman delivered the Roger and Jean Morrow Distinguished Lectureship. Afterward he said childhood lead pioisoning "plays an important role" in the low school test scores of inner city children.
During his talk he showed the research that linked lead levels with low IQ and behavor problems in children and adults.
Lead levels remain elevated in African Americans and those living in urban areas, he said.
His work helped convince the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to ban lead in gasoline and the Consumer Product Safety Commission to ban lead from interior paints.
Lead levels in the US population then dropped steadily, along with the murder rate and burglary rate, his research showed.
His efforts led to one of the greatest environmental health gains of modern times, a five-fold reduction in lead poisoning in the U.S.
A pediatrician and child psychiatrist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Dr. Needleman withstood attacks by the lead industry, which claimed that leaded gasoline was harmless.
Scientists now study lead levels in bones and teeth, where it settles. There may be a link between lead and Alzheimer's disease, he said.
There's no real cure for much of the damage that lead does to an individual, he said. "Prevention is the only cure."
Prenatal lead exposure, as seen in the umbilical cord, is related to lower I.Q. levels of the child at age 10, and to delinquency and failure to complete high school, his studies have shown.
"If you have high levels of lead, you are four times as likely to arrested and sent to jail," he said.
In one study from 11 percent to 38 percent of a youth jail population had elevated lead levels, he found.
Lead levels in the US have stopped declining, he said. Foreign-made products such as jewelry from China contain lead, and 20 million homes still have lead paint.
He suggested that inner city residents could be hired to remove that lead, and noted that removal would save money for society in the long run as well as turn the unemployed into taxpayers.
Other substances also may be poisoning children, from mercury to organic phosphates in pesticides. There are 50,000 volatile chemicals in circulation, he said, but only 3,000 have been tested. "We take it on faith that they're harmless," he said.
"I don't think we know how smart our kids can be," he said. "Children at birth (now) have elevated levels of these neurotoxins. We don't know how many of these have jangled their nervous systems."
--Elaine Hopkins
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