SUNS4371 Wednesday 10 February 1999

Peru: Children affected by lead poisoning

Lima, Feb. 8 (IPS/Abraham Lama) -- Hundreds of children under nine, living in the poorer neighborhoods of this capital of Peru, are suffering from lead poisoning, according to medical researchers.

Studies conducted by the Health Ministry and the Mayor University of San Marcos among children in the Peruvian capital revealed cases of lead levels higher than 10 micrograms per deciliter of blood - the permissible limit set by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

The main source of that contamination is the use of leaded gasoline. Other industrial and domestic factors also contribute. These should be identified and eradicated, the researchers said.

Plumbosis, the contamination of lead in the blood, affects the intellectual and physical performance of its victims and is considered particularly serious for children because it impairs their ability to learn and can cause irreversible damage.

Also called lead poisoning, or "saturnism," because in some cases the excessive accumulation of lead in the blood tinges the skin the "color" of Saturn, is an illness known since antiquity, and by the 2nd century
B.C. it was known that it diminished mental faculties.

The symptoms of lead poisoning, apart from reduction of mental faculties (which can pass unnoticed), are headache, gastric upset and general weakness. Lead is a toxic metal widely used in industry and is frequently found in diverse materials at home, like paints, old water pipes or pencil points.

In 1987, it was discovered in Australia that a lead-based paint used in the making of cradles, whose rails were sucked on by children, was a factor in the high incidence of lead poisoning that was detected.

In this century, the United States conducted investigations into the effect of contamination from lead-based paints, and in 1943, the scientist H. Byers presented a report about behavioral disorders and mental deficiencies in children who had acute lead intoxication.

According to some investigations, the risk to infants exposed to lead is higher than for adults, as children absorb 50% of the lead, while for their elders, the rate is about 20 per cent.

Lead poisoning is considered an occupational hazard for those who work with batteries and paints, in refineries and, in the old days of printing, typographers and linotypists were the most frequent victims.

In Peru, until now the investigations into lead poisoning were limited to detecting the presence of the mineral in the air, where it is released by the combustion of gasoline.

"The consumption of leaded gasoline will be totally eliminated in 2004," according to a recently-approved legal order, and the Health Ministry is preparing a booklet about industrial procedures to reduce other risk factors.

In Lima, there is a single station to measure substances and gases in the air, located on Abancay Avenue, the zone considered most contaminated in the Peruvian capital, whose registry indicates indices of up to 1.13 micrograms of lead per cubic meter.

The international ranges of lead permissible in the air are not homogenous, and the scientific and ecological communities dispute the point, but the WHO established 0.5 micrograms per cubic meter, an index that has been proposed for the Peruvian Health Ministry.

At the end of 1998, the first two large investigations into human absorption were undertaken, with blood measurements of a population of 1,662 children, who were graduates of public schools in Lima and Callao.

In the investigation undertaken by the Support Center of Environmental Management of the Pharmaceutical and Biochemics Faculty of San Marcos, the highest rate of lead contamination cases were found in Comas, an
area situated in the "northern cone" of Lima.

The most serious individual case in that neighborhood was a 12-year-old child, who had graduated from the Presentacion de Maria school, and whose lead level registered at 27.9 micrograms per deciliter.

In measurements carried out by the General Department of Environmental Health of the Ministry of Health, the highest level, 26.7 micrograms per deciliter, was detected in a student in the Barrio Nuevo neighborhood of Callao. And in a school, in Ate, out of 50 samples taken, 25 alumni had indices of 10.1 to 15.8 micrograms per deci-liter.

Carmen Gastanaga, the director of Laboratories and Evaluation of Environmental Risks of the Health Ministry, said that the lack of specific preparation impedes many doctors from detecting lead poisoning
at the time, "so the symptoms are first attributed to other ailments."

In recent days, a similar investigation has been initiated among pregnant mothers, in women who recently gave birth and in children from one to four years old.

Gastanaga noted that in March, a group of experts from the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia will arrive in Peru to collaborate in the evaluation and management of the data contained in the blood
samples from the women and children.