The Hindu : A crusade against lead poisoning

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, May 04, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Karnataka-Bangalore

A crusade against lead poisoning

By Alladi Jayasri

BANGALORE May 3. It is a virtually unknown school, in a run-down neighbourhood in Neelasandra, but everything, including its name, is positive: Bright High School, with around 800 students, all from lower middle class families, has, over the past five years, made the transition from 50 per cent results to 100 per cent results.

``It is because we made sure that the lead levels in the bloodstream of these children were brought down considerably by spreading awareness, and encouraging children and parents to take precautions,'' Sumathi James, teacher, says.

The story begins with Sumathi James who signed on as a volunteer to monitor lead levels in school children in a programme of George Foundation and the National Referral Centre for Lead Absorption in India, St John's Hospital, in 1997.

Ms. James and other volunteers went to slums, schools, and factories, and the little mechanic shops, and places where little boys were made to work with used car batteries, and any place where people can come in contact with lead. She once surveyed 700 children on a day.

The results of this survey were alarming, as very high levels of blood lead was found in most children.

Lead from vehicular emission and lead in soil and water was finding its way into people's bloodstreams. This means, as T. Venkatesh, Director of the NRCLAI, points out, several deleterious effects on the health, both physical and mental, of the people. Lead in blood, it is well known, affects the brain and memory, not to mention the lungs and respiratory system.

Ms. James was very concerned about these findings, and decided to do something for the children in her school: 60 per cent of the children come from Muslim families where the use of surma or kohl as a cosmetic for the eyes is very common.

Lead is used extensively in making them. She assiduously worked towards dissuading them from using surma, and now, happy parents of successful students are smiling at the report cards of the children, proud to see the grades they bring home.

``The children do not even want to wear nail polish or lipstick even for fun,'' Ms. James said.

She is now hoping to get together the primary school teachers of 20-odd schools in her neighbourhood, for a course on how they can create awareness about lead poisoning in daily life.

Children nibble pencils, they play on the rods and bars and seesaw, and pick up all kinds of dirt on their fingers and hands. "I would like to tell teachers to look out for such things, and prevent them from playing with them,'' she says.

There are not many like Ms. James who is saddened to see that many big action programmes and initiatives ignore small institutions like hers.

Ms. James should know, for a few months ago, she kept calling the authorities until they came to clear a small garbage dump outside the school, where people were breezily burning plastic waste, without realising the effect it would have on the children studying in the classrooms.

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