I just read a Lead Safe Mama post about a boy who got lead poisoning from this plate (pictured). Highly recommend reading the story, it’s very touching. But it just makes me so sad because this is exactly the kind of lead poisoning that would never get identified in NZ since we don’t have universal screening of children’s blood. In the US, babies have a little finger prick of blood tested at their 1 year and 2 year doctor visits. The majority of those families have no clue about lead until their baby gets a high result.
One thing that’s really useful about such a programme is that there will be pockets of poisonings- like a daycare that uses lead fishing sinkers to hold down a screen outside, or has extremely contaminated soil from the neighbour’s wall, or serves morning tea on dishes like these… or a playground with lead painted equipment and contaminated soil, or a sports ground next to a shooting range, or any number of random unsafe lead exposure events. If we had national blood screening, these pockets of poisonings would be identified, someone would figure out the source and stop more kids being poisoned. But right now, everybody is in the dark. We can test our own homes (if you know to because you follow this page or your friend does and tells you about it) but we can’t follow our kids around 24/7, testing every thing they touch. And even if you did suspect something like the scenarios I mentioned, your GP may tell you that’s not how kids get poisoned and turn you away without testing. There are so many barriers.
I envision a national blood lead screening programme in New Zealand, something possibly like this: kids visiting the GP for their 12-15 month and 4 year old immunisations have a little finger prick done, and the samples get sent to their local DHB and then you receive the results in the post a week or two later, with informational pamphlets and follow-up if needed. Kind of like the newborn hearing screening that DHBs offer. It doesn’t seem like it would be very difficult to do, the systems are mostly already in place. But it would mean we could find out if our kids are being poisoned by these invisible and unknown hazards, as well as many people finding out for the first time that their old house could be poisoning their kids (or grandkids).
It’s estimated that thousands of NZ children are lead poisoned every year. But we only identify around 10. Wouldn’t a programme like this be amazing?
Ah, dreams.
Now go and read the article about this rose bowl …