Lead poisoning affects youngsters on a “massive and hitherto unknown scale,” according to a new report through UNICEF and the non-profit organization Pure Earth.
Long identified as a fitness hazard, the challenge of lead contamination is acute in low- and middle-income countries in sections of decline and decline where safeguards for commercial waste and pollutants are scarce or poorly applied.
The toxic truth: children’s exposure to lead pollution undermines a generation of potential for the future, it is the first of its kind.It presents comprehensive research on lead exposure in youth through the Institute for Health Metrics Assessment, verified through an approval for publication in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.Presents case studies from six places where lead contaminants and other poisonous heavy steel wastes have affected young people: Kathgora, Bangladesh; Tbilisi, Georgia; Agbogbloshie, Ghana; Pesarean, on the island of Central Java, Indonesia; State of Morelos, Mexico – and Flint, Michigan, United States
The report’s researchers concluded that a third of the world’s young people, about 800 million children under the age of 19, have lead grades of five micrograms consistent with deciliters or more, a point that requires action, according to the CDC.young people with higher degrees in South Asia.
“With few early symptoms, lead is having a quiet effect on the physical condition and development of young people, with potentially fatal consequences,” said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore.Inspire urgent action to protect young people once and for all.
Lead, a chemical element and heavy metal, is a resistant neurotoxin that causes irreparable damage to children’s brains.Lead poisoning occurs when lead builds up in the body for months or years.
According to the World Health Organization, there is no point of exposure to lead known to be harmful.Even small amounts of lead can cause serious fitness disorders and, at the highest points, can be fatal.
Lead exposure in young people is destructive to young children and those under five, the critical age for brain progression, and causes lifelong neurological, cognitive and physical damage.It has been linked to intellectual fitness and habit disorders and to increased crime and violence.
Older youth would possibly also suffer serious consequences, adding a greater threat of kidney damage and cardiovascular disease later in life. The UNICEF/Pure Earth report also assesses the economic chain effects: nearly $1 trillion in wages and productivity lost during the lives of the affected young people.
The main reasons for environmental pollution are mining, smelting, production and poor recycling practices for lead-acid batteries; Other exposure resources come with the continued use of leaded water pipes in homes, lead paint and leaded gasoline.Lead parents bring infected dust to their homes in their clothes, hair, hands and shoes, inadvertently exposing their children.
Blood lead levels have decreased particularly in peak high-income countries since the phasing out of leaded gas and maximum lead-based paints.even playgrounds have made significant progress in reducing lead degrees in young people; however, this progress has been very uneven, with many neighborhoods and young people still at risk of exposure to higher lead.The report cites Flint, Michigan, as a recent example, but not the worst.A Reuters survey found thousands of neighborhoods with higher poisoning rates and, in some cases, double the measures at the height of the city’s water crisis.
8-year-old Bangladeshi Anik was a victim of lead poisoning after opening an informal battery recycling plant near his open-air home in the village of Kathgora, north of Dhaka, in 2016.melting of lead.” Black smoke came out of this place,” Anik told UNICEF in an on-camera interview.
Every morning, the leaves of the trees were covered in soot, recalls Sharmin, Anik’s mother.His son played football in the box just outside the tin walls of the factory.
The factory closed after about a year due to pressure from the villagers. In 2017, Pure Earth worked with the Bangladesh Ministry of Environment to clean the site, collect battery waste and remove infected bamboo and soil from plants.But Anik still suffers from the effects of exposure.. He has disorders with reminiscence and concentration at school work.”I do a lot of things while I study,” Anik says.
For other youth in the neighborhood, symptoms come with common vomiting and headaches, but since the cleanup, youth blood lead levels have dropped.
The UNICEF/Pure Land report calls for stricter regulation and a finish for the fusion of lead and other practices, and calls on governments in affected countries to adopt a coordinated technique to implement monitoring and reporting systems, and to implement prevention and a new law is needed to enforce environmental, fitness and protection criteria for lead-acid battery production and recycling sites.
“The good news is that lead can be safely recycled without exposing workers, their youth and surrounding neighborhoods,” said Pure Earth President Richard Fuller.”Lead-contaminated sites can be remedied and restored.”Communities will be more protected, he added, once others are aware of the risks and are trained to seek the right protections.
The publication of The Toxic Truth follows a primary PUSH through WHO to sound the alarm about the problem.Like WHO, the UNICEF/Pure Earth report calls for laws, regulations and citizens applicable to the use of lead in manufacturing.the creation of global popular measures to determine the effects of pollutant interventions on public health, the environment and local economies, and a foreign register for knowledge sharing.
UNICEF also announced a new three-year partnership initiative with Pure Earth and the Clarios Foundation, Protecting Every Child’s Potential, to advance the cause.
Learn more about global lead contaminants and their poisonous effects on children.Read the full report here.
UNICEF works with partners in more than 190 countries and territories to ensure children’s advocacy and coverage.You can make a difference.
Maryanne Murray Buechner, freelance at Hastings-on-Hudson, NY, is editorial representative for UNICEF USA and Merck for Mothers, a global maternal fitness company …
Maryanne Murray Buechner, freelancer at Hastings-on-Hudson, NY, is editorial representative for UNICEF USA and Merck for Mothers, a global maternal fitness initiative funded through Merck.Experiodist and time magazine contributor, holds an MSGraduate School of Journalism at Columbia University and a Graduate at Georgetown.His thoughts on being an American expat in Tokyo from 2007 to 2012 are perpetuated in the blogosphere.