Lifestyle

Many Michigan Cities Have Higher Percentage of Kids With High Lead Levels Than Flint

January 28, 2016, 5:59 AM
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Lead in childrens' blood systems can come from different sources. As we've learned in Flint, a big source of dangerous lead has been from the tap water.

But kids can also get it from old paint and lead residue in soil.

Mike Wilkenson of Bridge Magazine reports:

While much of the state’s focus on lead has rightly been on poisoned water in Flint, the metal continues to turn up annually in the bodies of thousands of children across the state, at percentages well above the numbers that raised red flags in Flint.

Elevated blood-lead levels are seen in a higher percentage of children in parts of Grand Rapids, Jackson, Detroit, Saginaw, Muskegon, Holland and several other cities, proof that the scourge of lead has not been eradicated despite decades of public health campaigns and hundreds of millions of dollars spent to find and eliminate it.

“This is still an issue. It’s not going away,” said Dr. Eden Wells, chief medical executive of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

He goes on to write:

Flint’s unfolding water crisis once again brought to the fore a danger long known to rob children of cognitive and physiological function and impulse control. High levels of lead found in students in the Detroit Public Schools system have been linked to that city’s notoriously low test scores.


Read more:  Bridge Magazine


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