This
is a corrected version of this story.
Last
year, Monroe County had fewer reports of children younger than age 6
with elevated levels of lead in their blood. Sort of.
The
numbers and trends depend on which threshold is used. The key
statistic, however, is the number of children with blood-lead levels
of 10 micrograms per deciliter. In Monroe County, that’s the
blood-lead threshold that triggers intervention by public health
officials.
And
the number of children who tested above that threshold dropped from
290 in 2010 to 222 in 2011, according to statistics
released yesterday by the Coalition to Prevent Lead Poisoning. That’s good news. The
2010 uptick was the first since 2002. There were seven more cases in
2010 than in 2009, so the increase appears to have been a statistical
blip.
The
2011 figure is significantly lower than it was in 1999, when 1,698
children had blood-lead levels above 10 micrograms per deciliter.
“We
have been making tremendous progress over the years in reducing the
amount of lead poisoned children,” says Dr. Andrew Doniger,
director of the county Health Department.
In
2011, the number of children with blood-lead levels above 20
micrograms per deciliter increased to 19, compared to the 13 cases in
2010. This could be another statistical blip; it was the first
increase since 2002. And the number of tests in general has
increased, especially in the suburbs, says Dr. Stanley Schaffer, a
pediatrician at Strong Pediatrics and co-director of the Western New
York Lead Resource Center’s Rochester office.
Doniger
says he’s not too concerned about the uptick at the higher level.
The figure is still lower than it was in 2009 or any year the decade
before.
Mel
Callan, a nurse practitioner with Highland Family Medicine and
co-chair of the Coalition to Prevent Lead Poisoning, says more
frequent inspection of older one- and two-unit buildings would help
bring child lead poisoning numbers down further.
Earlier
this year, the Centers for Disease Control recommended a lower
intervention threshold of 5 micrograms per deciliter. Essentially,
the CDC says that there is no safe level of lead. There were 993
Monroe County children under age 6 that crossed the 5 micrograms
threshold.
This article appears in Bye bye unions?.
