(Barbara Kelly)

We who have worked in the childhood lead poisoning prevention and environmental health fields can sometimes feels as if we’ve ‘seen it all’ when it comes to the possibilities for potential harm to children from lead.  But, never say ‘never’!

The Washington Post recently ran an article in their Health Section,

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/23/AR2009032301764.html

This article tells of another little-known place where our children could be placed at risk, though there is no agreement as to how great that risk is.  Still.  Who would have realized that there is potential danger in the ink in children’s books – books that were printed prior to 1978 when lead was phased out of printer’s ink – that could pose even the remotest chance of danger?

Libraries are ridding their shelves of some of our – and our children’s — old favorites while other experts, such as Ellen Silbergeld, a MacArthur Scholar and Professor of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, offers a more reassuring note, “On the scale of concerns to have about lead, this is very clearly not a high priority.  Silbergeld is considered one of the leading experts on lead poisoning.  She goes on to say, ‘It doesn’t take a tremendous amount of intelligence to figure out what the highest risk sources of lead are.  This is a way of distracting attention from … failure to protect children from the clear and present dangers of lead …this is just absurd.’  She cited poorly made jewelry and toys as cause for much more alarm.

Parents who routinely frequent second-hand book stores and yard sales for well-remembered and much-loved books for their children remain confused and wary.

David Rosner, co-director of the Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health at Columbia University had this to say, ‘At present, there’s a whole body of science that says there’s no threshold, there’s no level of exposure that’s safe … The only long-term answer is to say, ‘If we know there’s lead there, keep it away from kids.’

Good Moms and Dads will probably continue to search for the best deals and the reliable ‘old books’ sales, but they will do it now, I’m afraid, with a little more reluctance than before.