Study: Lead Levels In Water Harming D.C. Children [View All]

[babylonsister]

High Lead Levels Found in D.C. Kids
Numbers Rose During Water Crisis

By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 27, 2009; Page A01


A new study concludes that hundreds of young children in the District experienced potentially damaging amounts of lead in their blood when lead levels were dramatically rising in the city's tap water.

In some high-risk neighborhoods, the number of toddlers and infants with blood-lead concentrations that can cause irreversible IQ loss and developmental delays more than doubled after harmful levels of lead began leaching into the city's drinking water in 2001, according to the findings. The peer-reviewed study, obtained by The Washington Post, is to be published soon in Environmental Science and Technology, a journal on advances in chemical and environmental research.

Authors of the study, at Virginia Tech and Children's National Medical Center, said their findings raise concern about the 42,000 D.C. children, now ages 4 to 9, who were in the womb or younger than 2 during the water crisis. Those children might be at risk of future health and behavioral problems linked to lead, the report said.

The study, based on a detailed analysis of thousands of children's blood tests from 2000 to 2003, contradicts the public assurances issued by federal and D.C. health officials starting in 2004. At the time, although officials acknowledged that the amount of lead in city water were at record-breaking levels, they said repeatedly that they found no measurable impact on the general public's health.

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