Poison. The dust from peeling paint containing lead is the main cause of lead poisoning in the US
The children suffer lasting brain damage from poisoning lead moderate even when treated quickly with a drug that removes lead in their blood, according to a large clinical trial reported in issue 10 May the New England Journal of medicine . The results mean that the only way to avoid permanent brain damage from lead poisoning is to prevent it in the first place, experts say.
Severe lead poisoning causes brain damage, seizures and death, especially in children. Low to moderate levels of lead, which occur in 1 to 20 children under 6 in the US, cause more subtle damage. Even years after exposure, young children have reduced attention span and decreased ability to think and reason abstractly. A drug called succimer orally mops that lead in the blood can save the lives of children seriously poisoned. But no one knew if it could prevent brain damage in moderately poisoned children.
To find out, epidemiologist Walter Rogan of the National Institute of Sciences of Environmental Health in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, colleagues enlisted medical centers four cities that regularly treat children poisoned lead. The double-blind trial, eventually included 780 2 years, 75% were African American, who had been poisoned, mostly dust from deteriorating lead paint in their urban homes. The research team removed the lead paint and cleaned houses. Then they gave the children either succimer or placebo pills for several months. The children were tested three years later, when they were 5 -. The youngest age at which cognitive deficits can be measured reliably
Although drug therapy reduced blood lead values significantly compared to placebo treated children showed no differences in IQ, memory, conceptual thinking, or hyperactive behavior of untreated children. The researchers will test again the differences after the children enter primary school, but so far "there is not even a hint" of a difference, said Rogan.
The document is "very important because it shows that you can treat children up to the kazoo with a chelating agent and you get nowhere," says pediatrician John Rosen, who heads the main program to children's Hospital of Montefiore in the Bronx, new York. Together with other studies, the new results underline the need to remove or replace the lead-based paint, which was banned in 1976 in the United States, but still coats the walls of 25 million homes. "This is an entirely preventable disease and healing is decontamination," Rosen said.
Related Sites
Page the treatment of children exposed to lead host (TLC) clinical trial of lead poisoning prevention program
Childhood Centers for
general information about lead poisoning and housing policy of the national advocacy group Center for Disease Control and Prevention Lead-Safe Housing
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