Hearing of the Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works - Lead and Children's Health
Statement
Hearing of the Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works - Lead and Children's Health
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SEN. JOHN BARRASSO (R-WY): Thank you very much, Madame Chairman. This issue of child exposure to lead is a serious concern. I appreciate the progress that has been made by the EPA, as shown in Senator Inhofe's charts, but I'm sure as the witnesses will testify, child exposure is down, but we can do more. It's down from where it was a decade ago.
I really understand the importance of preventive medicine. We need to protect these children from lead exposure to prevent the long- term adverse effects that they have on health care.
Last year I served in the Wyoming state Senate and was on the Health Committee, and we came out with a warning -- actually, the Department of Health did a little over a year ago. The Department of Health warns of "unexpected" lead dangers, with a key word being unexpected.
The Wyoming Department of Health officials are asking parents to be aware of the dangers to children posed by items that may unexpectedly contain lead, and they talked about the recall of the 300,00 heart-shaped charm bracelets -- one like you passed around today, Madame Chairman -- that had been provided as a free gift to children with shoe purchases, and then a child -- young child died from acute lead poisoning after swallowing one of these charms, and it was because it contained lead.
Infants and children are especially vulnerable to lead poisoning. A child who swallows large amounts of lead may develop anemia, severe stomachache, muscle weakness, brain damage. Lead can affect the child's mental and physical growth, even at very low levels of exposure.
Now there has been, actually, a measurable change. And I can tell you this, Madame Chairman: When I was in medical school in the late '70s, when we studied X-rays, there would be something called lead lines on X-rays where growth had been delayed in a child.
And you could see an X-ray just above the knees on both sides -- both sides on the femurs -- you would see these little lines because there had been a period of time where the growth had been development delayed, and these were called lead lines. And we learned that in medical school 25 years ago or a little more.
But now, I haven't seen one of those lead lines on an X-ray for years, which says we are making progress and we're making measurable progress. We need to do more. Let's find solutions that are attainable and reasonable based on sound science, and I look forward to the testimony. Thank you, Madame Chairman.
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