What can a parent do once a child has been diagnosed with elevated blood levels of lead? Experts say a number of things may help – and the solutions are not always medical.
Dr. Alan Woolf, a professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, director of the Program of Environmental Medicine and an expert on lead poisoning, says many pediatricians and nurse practitioners will start a child on iron drops, to discourage the body from absorbing lead.
A doctor’s visit showed that Matthew had blood lead levels of 4.6 micrograms per deciliter and Maureen 3.7. Months later, the levels had risen to 17 for Matthew and 18 for Maureen. At the time, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considered lead levels of 10 or higher to be “of concern,” though experts commonly say there’s no safe level of lead exposure in young children.
The biological effects of heat on the human body are universal and indisputable. Hyperthermia – too much heat over a certain amount of time – can lead to heat exhaustion, heat stroke, and even death.
And like other social problems today –such as the lack of affordable housing or access to healthy foods – not everyone suffers equally when it comes to the effects of heat. Those with diabetes, heart disease, other comorbidities, the elderly, people of color, and the poor, suffer at higher rates.
In an age of racial-justice reckoning and political attention on social inequities, environmental justice advocates are hoping to strengthen laws and build community support.
But in New Hampshire, environmental justice statutes that protect vulnerable groups of people burdened by the effects of development, or those lacking environmental benefits such as greenspace or clean air, do not exist.
