Lead in the African American Communities
By Richard G. Berry
T
he U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently released an advisory for consumers not to buy a specific brand of apple cinnamon fruit puree’ pouches. The products contain elevated levels of lead. As of December 2023, the FDA had received more than 60 reports of adverse events potentially linked to these recalled products. Most of the adverse events were in children under the age of 6. So go right now and check your food inventory. I did.

The environment we live in has also become contaminated with lead exposure and this is where, as African Americans, we need to be vigilant and take action.

AN ONGOING STORY
It is important to remember that before 1978, all commercial paint contained lead. This paint was used on walls both inside and outside of homes as well as on windowsills, trim, and more. It was also used on items such as toys and jewelry. Children, especially African American children, were regularly exposed to the toxin daily.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 2.6 million families in the United States are still at risk for lead poisoning due to the presence of lead-based paint in their homes. What is even more alarming is the fact that, according to the CDC, most of the families at risk for lead poisoning each year are African American families. Lead poisoning disproportionately affects these families in the United States.

In 2011 the CDC estimated that approximately 500,000 children had elevated blood lead levels. Poor and minority children remained at the greatest risk, according to the agency. More recently, the case of Flint, Michigan – which happens to have a 56.7% African American population – highlighted the danger of lead exposure.

Flint city officials, you may recall, switched its water source from the Detroit Water and Sewerage department, which supplied treated water from Lake Huron and the Detroit River, to water from the Flint River. Flint River water had not been properly treated with corrosion inhibitors, so, corrosion from the system’s lead pipes allowed toxins to leak into drinking water. Poor communities, especially with a high minority population, again, suffered the consequences of lead exposure.

Though the water supply was eventually switched back to Detroit’s system in October 2015, the damage had already been done. The interior of the old lead pipes had broken down and released poison into water destined for human consumption. Among those affected were an estimated 6,000-12,000 children.

Children under the age of 6 are most at risk for complications from lead poisoning which, as we have documented, can be found in food and candy, especially from countries that don’t screen well for lead.

ANCIENT CASE STUDY
The ancient Romans regarded lead as the father of all metals. The deity they associated with the substance was Saturn. The very word “saturnine” in its most specific meaning, applies to an individual whose temperament has become uniformly gloomy and cynical as the result of (you got it) lead intoxication.

“Crazy as a painter” was an ancient catch phrase used to describe the demented behavior of lead-poisoned painters.

Lead found its way into ancient Rome’s everyday items such as pots, plates, cups and pans, so almost everyone was exposed over time to toxic lead levels. The Romans even determined that lead was suitable as an inexpensive and reliable piping for the vast plumbing network that kept Rome and the provincial cities of the Roman Empire supplied with water. The very word “plumbing” comes from the Latin word for lead, ‘plumbum’ (now you know why the symbol for lead is Pb).

Could this exposure and poisoning have led to mental derangement of ancient Rome’s ruling class, and could it have contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire? (Just an uneducated thought, but you heard it from me first).

There is no safe level of lead exposure for a child or adult. Lead exposure leads to the impairment of the normal brain development of children, and so contributes to learning and behavioral problems and lower IQs.

Lead in the body is distributed to the brain, liver and kidney. It is stored in the teeth and bones where it can accumulate over time. The lead stored in bone can be released into blood during pregnancy and becomes a source of exposure to the developing fetus.

woman in pink shirt taking strawberries out of a fridge
Photo by: Shutterstock
These are some of the lead poisoning symptoms in children:
  • » Developmental delay
  • » Learning difficulties
  • » Irritability
  • » Loss of appetite
  • » Weight loss
  • » Sluggishness and fatigue
  • » Abdominal pain
  • » Vomiting
  • » Constipation
  • » Hearing loss
  • » Seizures
  • » Eating things, such as paint chips, that aren’t food (pica)
Some of the lead poisoning symptoms in adults include:
  • » High blood pressure
  • » Joint and muscle pain
  • » Difficulties with memory or concentration.
  • » Headache
  • » Abdominal pain
  • » Mood disorders
  • » Reduced sperm count and abnormal sperm
  • » Miscarriage, stillbirth or premature birth in pregnant women
The good news is that lead poisoning can be prevented. You can easily determine the amount of lead in the body by a simple blood test. Further, the American Academy of Family Physicians published an article recently, offering steps one could take to decrease exposure to lead. These are the steps they recommend:
  • » Asking your doctor about testing your child for lead poisoning.
  • » Keeping your child away from peeling paint. Remove all peeling paint up to five feet above the floor. If possible, repaint all rooms that contain lead paint. But don’t scrape the old paint off. Instead, paint over it. This will seal in the old paint and prevent it from peeling.
  • » When remodeling a room, seal it off with heavy plastic. This reduces the spread of lead dust.
  • » Have everyone in the family wipe their feet and remove their shoes before walking inside the home. This lowers the risk of bringing lead dust into the home from outside.
  • » Wash your child’s hands and face before meals.
  • » Wash your child’s toys frequently.
  • » Wet-mop floors and windowsills. This reduces the spread of dust contaminated with lead.
  • » Keep children from playing in dirt. Lead dust may be in the dirt around the home.
  • » Use cold tap water for drinking and cooking. Hot tap water produces more lead from aging pipes.
So, how can we address and take care of the problem of lead in our environment? One article recommended that if lead is found in the home, the child or children of that house should not be allowed back in the home until the problem is corrected.

Diet will also aid in preventing accumulation of lead in our bodies. For reducing lead absorption, the key nutrients appear to be vitamin C, calcium, iron and, to a lesser degree, zinc and phosphorus.

Finally, a process called Chelation therapy is used to get rid of the accumulated lead in the body. In this treatment, a medication given by mouth binds with the lead so that it is excreted in urine.

We need to protect ourselves and our children. I recommend we all become proactive and investigate our environment and the foods we eat to determine if we have been exposed to lead.

Let’s learn from and not repeat the mistakes of the Roman Empire.

Richard G. Berry, MD, FACP, CSA is a Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine, UNC, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He serves as the Health Director for the South Atlantic Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.
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