“If you’re human, or an animal of any kind, you are at risk for lead poisoning,” says Tamara Rubin, owner of Lead Safe Mama, LLC, whose mission became educating people on the danger of lead poisoning after her own sons were acutely poisoned when they were very young. Unfortunately, there are many barriers to the awareness of lead poisoning. For one thing, there is what Tamara calls “generational amnesia,” wherein the impact of lead has not been continuously communicated, so many people don’t think it’s a problem any longer. Or, they think it only affects children, and moreover, only children who eat paint chips. Another major factor is that many companies who benefit from the use of lead also control large swaths of the media, and won’t allow information that might affect their sales to be known to the public. 

 

It’s alarming to hear Tamara discuss how much lead contamination there is and where it can be found. Lead paint is still used in many industrial settings including the machines that manufacture our food. It also exists in high levels in the many vintage and heirloom items that are so popular to incorporate into buildings and homes. It’s even in some of the supposedly healthy foods we eat. Still, there is plenty that moms can do to protect themselves and their children, from getting tested to creating a safe environment and shopping smarter. 

 

Join Sasha and Tamara as they discuss methods of eliminating lead that’s already in the body, the myriad ways in which we are exposed to lead in the first place, and why where you live affects not only how much lead you’re exposed to, but whether or not a doctor will test you for it. 

 

Quotes

 

• “My goal is to make science-based information freely available to parents everywhere so that they can make informed choices to protect their families.” (8:25-8:37 | Tamara)

• “You do have to worry about the paint applied to your home if your home was built before 1978.” (17:53-17:59 | Tamara)

• ‘It’s trendy to repurpose building materials so you might find bricks from a factory that was torn down in the 1800s being used as an aesthetic curiosity while in a new building.” (23:25-23:37 | Tamara)

• “I want moms to know that it’s not hopeless, that you’re going to do fine.”(54:41-54:47 | Tamara)

• “Unfortunately, pediatricians are racially profiling people and demographically profiling people, so you are more likely to be offered a blood lead test if you are a person of color, or if you are low income.” (56:42-56:57 | Tamara)

 

Stats

• “According to reports by UNICEF in partnership with Pure Earth, a global nonprofit, lead exposure is particularly dangerous to children under five whose bodies absorb lead much more efficiently than adults, and are at greatest risk of developing lifelong physical and cognitive damage.”(0:18-0:38 | Sasha)

• “Childhood lead exposure has also been linked to aggression, hyperactivity and other behavioral problems.” (0:38-0:45 | Sasha)

• “The report finds that one in three children, that’s around 800 million worldwide, have blood lead levels at or above five milligrams per deciliter, a level considered cause for intervention by the Center for Disease Control and Intervention.” (0:46-1:03 | Sasha)

• “The 1978 ban on lead paint limited lead to 600 parts per million in paint, and then later, the new legislation limited lead in paint to 900 parts per million, and paint today is lead-free.” (17:28-17:40 | Tamara)

• “It wasn’t until 2008 that we outlawed lead in toys.” (19:38-19:44 | Tamara)

• “There’s a study done by Dr. Rubido who found that even a blood lead level as low as 0.43 can have negative outcomes related to it, as well as conception issues and fertility issues.” (27:22-27:36 | Tamara)

• “It only takes a microscopic amount of lead to poison a human, so you don’t actually have to eat a chip’s worth of paint to be poisoned.” (34:12-34:19 | Tamara)

• “One sugar packet worth of lead dust distributed evenly across a football field is enough to contami