News Release

Let's not forget about lead -- even small doses are dangerous

Peer-Reviewed Publication

The Lancet_DELETED

A Comment in this week's Lancet looks at the findings of a report by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), which concludes there is no known safe exposure to lead. The Comment is by Dr Philippe Grandjean, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark and Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA.

Grandjean says that EFSA's findings mean that all current European Union rules for lead concentrations in drinking water, food, and air, which are based on WHO limits, will require downward revision. He points out that the lead industry was willing to control its pollution but only on the basis of indisputable facts, and there was a substantial delay in the emergence of convincing evidence. He says: "We now know that lead exposure increases the risk of diminished intelligence, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), school failure, and criminal behaviour…EFSA also emphasises that lead is associated with ailments that are common in elderly people, such as hypertension, renal dysfunction, and neurocognitive decline, possibly at exposure levels only slightly above those that affect brain development in children."

He concludes: "Regulatory strategies need to be revised in view of new scientific knowledge, but the insights we have gained should also be applied to a wider perspective beyond lead as a single toxicant. Before the ESFA report, absence of evidence was often considered to be evidence of absence of adverse effects. So, a chemical hazard was innocent until proven otherwise. Although we now know better, a whole generation of children paid the price for us to obtain insights into lead pollution. Future risk assessments should not ignore risks of low-level toxicity in susceptible populations because convincing evidence is not available."

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Philippe Grandjean, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark and Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA. T +1-617-384-8907 E pgrandjean@health.sdu.dk

For full Comment see: http://press.thelancet.com/leadcom.pdf

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