Indiana health chief: Lead testing will likely show other home hazards

INDIANAPOLIS – A surge in testing children for lead poisoning prompted by toy recalls likely will have the unintended but greater benefit of revealing lead paint in homes and other household sources, Indiana’s health commissioner said Monday.\nRecalls of toys by Mattel and other distributors has prompted thousands of Indiana parents to test their children for lead poisoning, Dr. Judy Monroe said. Blood tests have turned up unsafe levels of lead in 2 percent to 4 percent of the roughly 1,600 children tested in the state’s most populous county, Marion.\nWhile investigators still are determining the sources of the lead poisoning, most likely it will be paint chips and dust from the interior of homes and other household sources, but not toys, Monroe said.\n“Our No. 1 problem with lead is still old houses, and Indiana has a lot of old houses,” Monroe said in an interview with The Associated Press after testimony she was prepared to give a legislative study commission was postponed Monday.\nLead poisoning can cause damage to the kidneys, nervous system and brain and, in young children, behavior and learning problems. Lead poisoning often goes undetected because its initial symptoms, including abdominal pain, constipation, diarrhea, vomiting, irritability and sleeplessness, are similar to common ailments.\n“I think this has raised some really good awareness around the problem,” Monroe said. “Lead poisoning is the No. 1 environmental hazard for children under age 7.”\nThe lead poisoning tests have been prompted by a series of recalls by Mattel and other companies and distributors after they discovered some toys made in China had paint that contained lead.\nThe recalls and publicity about them prompted Monroe’s Indiana State Department of Health to urge local health departments to make lead poisoning tests more available. A testing van in Marion County checked some 500 people at one toy store and 180 people at another location. Hamilton County reported tests by appointment are scheduled through Nov. 21. Montgomery County tested 134 kids in three hours one day, compared with 221 the entire previous year.\nThe recent spike in testing for lead exposure is most pronounced in rural counties, where testing until now has lagged behind urban counties but where the presence of older homes may create a significant threat, said Dave McCormick, director of the Indiana Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program at the health department.\nOf all the homes in Indiana, more than 2 million, or 71 percent of the total, were built before 1978, when the federal government outlawed lead-based paint for residential use. Nearly a quarter of Indiana’s homes were built before 1950.\nAlso, it’s much easier for lead to enter the body through paint chips or dust than by chewing on a toy with lead-based paint, McCormick said.\n“The primary purveyor of lead poisoning in children is going to be a house with ... lead-based paint. It’s not going to be a toy,” McCormick said.\nThe surge in testing is likely to continue. Mattel is the world’s largest toy maker, and smaller companies now also are feeling pressure to recall toys that might be contaminated with lead in paint, McCormick said.\n“We keep hearing there’s more to come,” McCormick said.