Lead Is a Silent Hazard

Describes the significant threat to children represented by lead poisoning, lists the ways in which children can be exposed to lead, and covers the latest techniques for reversing the effects of lead poisoning

This is an enlightening and terrifying look at lead poisoning among children, and it will completely destroy the false notion that the problem is confined to the poor or uneducated. While researching a segment on the effects of lead poisoning upon children, the author, a former CBS news producer, decided to have his baby son tested. He assumed that "everything was normal," Stapleton writes. "But it wasn't. Our little boy was slowly being poisoned." The Centers for Disease Control believe that as many as one-sixth of all children harbor unacceptably high levels of lead in their blood, while 10,000 more are being poisoned each year by the imperceptible toxin. (Even Millie, the First Dog, came down with lead poisoning during the Bush administration.) Stapleton reveals that lead lurks not only on the windowsills of a bedroom or in the dirt of a backyard but also in school water coolers?and in the dishes and mugs that rest on a dinner table. But the news is not all bad: lead poisoning, as Stapleton observes, is preventable, and he discusses how to avert it by identifying sources of lead and then taking precautions to avoid contamination, such as covering sandboxes.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.