By Gabriela Knutson SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) — National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week has brought a spur of activity to Syracuse this week. First, the week kicked off with the “Make Lead History” Fundraiser, and yesterday the CNY Community Foundation invested 2 million dollars into ending children’s lead poisoning in Syracuse.
The city clearly needs it. The Onondaga County Health Department reports that 11.1 percent of Syracuse children have blood lead levels above 5 micrograms per decilitre (mcg/dL). This number is the highest level of lead there can be in a child’s body before it becomes hazardous. 11.1 percent of Syracuse children exceed that number.
In one of Syracuse’s most critical regions, in which Delaware Elementary School resides, the percentage of children with a blood lead level higher than 5 mcg/dL is 20.1 to 30 percent. Some of the parents at the elementary school have had personal experiences with lead poisoning.
“My oldest daughter had lead [poisoning], and it … would have affected her
learning, if she didn’t get it dealt with,” says Norma Bushey, a mother of student at Delaware.
“My daughter had [lead poisoning], but I thank god that it wasn’t like high-high-high,” says Kelline Ortiz.
Not only did the Ortiz family experience lead poisoning, they also had to move out of their home due to the high levels of lead paint.
This is something that happens too often to Syracuse families that live in houses that were built before 1980. Lead paint has been banned in the Unites States since 1978, but 75 percent of the houses in Syracuse were built before the ban.
Onondaga County Health Department’s Coordinator of Lead Poisoning Control Program Debra Lewis explains that even when these old houses are painted over with new paint, the layer underneath can still put the children at risk, forcing some families to move out of the house completely.
“What is a major cause of lead poisoning is the continued deterioration on high impact and friction surfaces like windows, doors, porches, and floors,” says Lewis about new paint that gets chipped away over time, exposing the old lead paint. “That creates a very fine dust, that then gets onto children’s hands, and easily ingested into their mouths,”
Lewis urges parents to get their children’s blood lead levels tested often, and to educate their children about the harms of lead poisoning. She also explains simple everyday tasks that parents can do to help increase their children’s safety, which can be seen in the infographic below.
