The lead poisoning article
provided a thorough summary of the history of lead toxicity and the negative
health effects associated with lead among children to older adults. The history
of lead and how it was recognized as toxic is very interesting and
understanding how it affects the organs and systems in our bodies is shocking.
It makes me think how the chemicals we are being exposed to at such high levels
today effect the systems within our body. How lead can mimic and compete with
calcium in our bodies and distort enzymes and structural proteins is very
concerning. Lead has the ability to impact even more than biological and
physical functions by causing behavioral alterations like one’s ability to learn
and impairs social function.
The article about the
childhood lead poisoning in Nigeria Casey Bartrem is truly heartbreaking. The
severe soil lead contamination took the lives of more than 400 children. The
lead poisoning article stated that the accepted toxic threshold for lead in
children in the 1960’s was 60 μg/dL, but this article stated that the children in Nigeria had lead
blood levels of >170 μg/dL. I am glad that the situation was handled
accordingly after the outbreak by remediating and providing a lead safe
environment, but I do worry for the children who were exposed to such high
levels of lead and the long-term health effects they may face. I also hope that
there are more preventative measures rural villages can take to prevent this from
happening in the future and be able to quickly implement and coordinate
environmental and health response models before much harm has been done.
Hey Marisa,
ReplyDeleteGreat summaries! I wonder if there was any compensation to the families who lost their children. Money can in no way make up for the loss of the child, but it could help with the future of those in the family given it was in a rural community. In addition, I think it is the "silent" killers that is of great concern. It is crazy to think that people don't do anything even when there is evidence to support that there is something occurring as a result of the contaminated environment. Thanks for your thoughts!
Hi Marisa,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your post. I really liked how you synthesized what you learned from these articles. It was really interesting to hear what you thought about each of them. I felt the same way about the childhood lead poisoning article. It was truly heartbreaking, but felt very heartwarming to know that the community came together to improve the blood levels of their community.
Great post!
Kera