Kids at risk of lead poisoning: study

One child develops lead poisoning every nine days in the Queensland mining town of
Mt Isa, researchers say.
The statistic is in a new report published in the Medical Journal of Australia and
comes amid legal action against Xstrata that alleges its activities have left
children brain damaged.
The report's co-author, Macquarie University associate professor Mark Taylor, says
there's an obvious public health risk in the city.
"The evidence is clear. There is a single primary source of environmental lead in Mt
Isa: the historic and ongoing mining and smelting activity," he writes in the
report.
"A purported lack of knowledge of the lead source is no longer a tenable response."
Prof Taylor says children exposed to high lead levels could be irreversibly robbed
of five per cent of their IQ.
" ... there's an effect on their behavioural patterns, ADHD, school scores and
lifetime outcomes," he told AAP.
He said blood tests carried out by Queensland Health in 2008 showed 11.3 per cent of
children aged 1-4 years had lead levels higher than current guidelines, which were
too lenient in any case.
He said families had for too long been fed a line that Mt Isa was naturally
mineralised with lead.
"We've shown that's not true ... it doesn't occur naturally, it's from emissions,"
he said.
"These people have been misled ... and misadvised that all you need to do is wash
and wipe."
He said no studies had been done on older children living in Mt Isa and how lead
levels had affected their development.
Premier Anna Bligh told reporters in Brisbane on Monday that lead was a serious
problem but defended the government's actions.
"I want the children of Mt Isa to be safe and to be protected from the lead that is
generated by the Xstrata operations," she said.
"That's why we've tested every single child in Mt Isa, twice in the last two years.
"We've seen those children with unacceptably high levels of lead reduced from 7.5
per cent to five per cent. I must stress this is a minority of children."
The premier said parents had to protect their children from poisoning with good
hygiene and cleaning measures.
"When you live right next to the mine there are unfortunately some risks associated
with that," she said.
Slater & Gordon lawyer Damian Scattini is representing seven Mt Isa families whose
children have allegedly suffered brain damage and poisoning due to lead.
He said Xstrata and the state government were in denial about the issue and safety
guidelines were weak compared to American standards.
"You have levels in one house of 15,000 parts per million of lead whereas the upper
level by the government's standard is 400," he said.
"All you have to do to put to lie this business of 'we don't know where it's coming
from' is stand on a hill in Mt Isa."
He said six out of the seven families filing civil actions had left the town and
many others had followed.
Xstrata spokesman Steve de Kruijff said the company had always acted responsibly.
"Mt Isa has one of the most intensive air quality monitoring systems of any city in
Australia which directs our smelters to shut down whenever emissions may potentially
impact the community," he said in a statement.
The company is one third of the way through its Lead Pathways Study. The first phase
looked at land contamination and was completed in July 2009 while the second and
third phases examining air and water contamination will report back in 2011.