The Hindu : A handy gadget to measure environmental lead level

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 02, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Karnataka-Bangalore

A handy gadget to measure environmental lead level

By Alladi Jayasri

BANGALORE Feb. 1. The visit of Scott Clark, Professor of Environmental Health at the University of Cincinnati, to Bangalore and other parts of the State to demonstrate a small instrument (the size of a brick) which can measure the presence of lead and 22 other elements in air, soil, dust swipes, and paint, is both heartening and alarming.

Prof. Clark, here to share American know-how and experience with the National Referral Centre for Lead Absorption in India (NRCLAI), St. John's Hospital, and with environment enforcement agencies, and various departments, has been talking of how the U.S. responded to the dangers of lead presence in daily life, and assess and address the magnitude of the problem in India.

The NRCLAI, a nodal agency for lead monitoring in Asia, is replicating the New York model to monitor and minimise the presence of lead. The NRCLAI Director, T.Venkatesh, says this is part of a project to prepare a "lead map of India", that helps measure how much lead is going into a city, and how much out.

In New York, lead levels in children are monitored every decade beginning from the Seventies, and they have come down steadily. "After 100 years of using lead in everything from paints to food packaging, lead is now out of most products that touches the ordinary citizen," Prof. Clark told The Hindu.

Since then occupational health and environmental health have been addressed on a war footing in the U.S. This has meant looking at the problem from all sides, coming with a healthcare regime, technology to measure not just lead, but even arsenic and mercury, and constantly upgrading know-how and administering the appropriate antidote to evils like lead-poisoning. Dr. Clark said elimination of lead and other elements from the air, soil, water or chemicals is a tough call, but it has been addressed with earnestness, since the end of the Second World War. "Paints in the U.S. no longer contain lead, and only old buildings or vehicles have lead content. It makes the people who use them vulnerable," he said. But covering the surfaces, and keeping clean the surface where lead cannot be avoided, and taking all precautions, setting up a protocol for industry, healthcare, and enforcement agencies to follow have helped virtually eliminate lead and other harmful elements from the environment.

The situation in India is grim. In the course of preparing the lead map, Dr. Venkatesh and his team have come up with an alarming picture: in India, over 50 per cent of children living in many major Indian cities have elevated blood levels of over 10 micrograms per decilitre.

In Bangalore, lead-laden air is concentrated in industrial areas, and the "backyard smelter centres" where the unorganised sector is engaged in recycling lead. High levels of lead in blood can damage the heart, kidneys, liver, the circulatory system, and most importantly, the central nervous system. The last often means reduced IQ levels and learning ability in young adults.

The "brick-sized instrument" that Prof. Clark is demonstrating to various groups could be just what the doctor ordered for India, even if it comes at a price of $ 10,000. It instantly gives exact measurements of the levels of 23 elements in air, soil, etc., so that no time is wasted in applying remedies.

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