This is the headline of a story published by the Hill, a reasonably reliable n American news source. I’d like to quote a few parts of the article (Ignoring the link between lead poisoning and crime imperils black Americans | The Hill)

Why should we care about what’s happening in the US? Maybe because we might have a similar problem here, in places like Mt Isa and Townsville, where an unknown number of indigenous people have been affected by lead. We need to learn about what is happening in the US and think about the youth crime levels in our own lead cities.

The first quote is about Baltimore:

For more than a decade, Baltimore, which is 63 percent black, consistently has reported thousands of black children testing positive for lead poisoning, more than any other city in the state. Between 1993 and 2013, more than 65,000 children in Baltimore tested positive for dangerously high blood-lead levels.

Lack of funding from the federal government to address the threat of lead continues to have a detrimental impact on the safety of black residents. In 2015, the federal government slashed $35 million from the Office of Lead Hazard Control and Healthy Homes budget, which provides funding to state and local governments to help reduce the risk of lead poisoning. The cuts had a crippling effect in Baltimore’s ability to help its residents. As a result, Maryland’s Department of Environment and the federal Environmental Protection Agency found homes previously certified as “free of lead” were still contaminated or not tested at all. During that time, with less federal funding for lead prevention, Baltimore was left with just enough money to renovate only 230 homes out of thousands left as death traps.

Parts of America have a severe problem with older homes painted with lead paint, and the worst “lead” areas are near major highways where the areas were also severely contaminated with lead from leaded petrol. A large number of programs were set up with the intention of removing lead risk to children, things like a window exchange program because wooden windows with white lead paint were particularly attractive to young children, who licked the paint because it tasted sweet. There were also programs to remove interior lead paint, and other initiatives to remove lead hazards from children. Replacing lead pipes was also being done. Until 2015 when federal funding was slashed.

Despite the extensive evidence of the links between lead exposure and youth and later adult violence, and the overwhelming evidence of harmful neurological effects on children, the actions to reduce the outcomes of lead exposure essentially stopped.

In case you think it couldn’t happen here, ANY building constructed in Australia before 1970 is likely to have been painted with lead paint. There are suburbs near major highways in Sydney and Melbourne, that are so contaminated with lead it is unsafe to grow your own vegetables there.

Sydney University had glasshouses on top of buildings near a major highway. Following a hailstorm that damaged the glass, all the plants died, from lead poisoning. That’s actually quite a lot of lead which was deposited on top of the glass roofs of the glasshouse, until they were broken by hailstones

Were people affected? Probably, but as I’ve pointed out about the Borgias using lead to get rid of political rivals, lead is a slow and subtle poison.

A GP with a practice near a major highway in Sydney started getting blood lead tests done on his younger patients because he had become concerned with what lead might be doing. He was contacted by Medicare, who apparently threatened to rescind his provider number unless he stopped his frequent testing for lead.

There is NO wide-spread measurement of blood lead levels in children in Australia, with the possible exception of the lead cities.

Were you aware of the now closed Cockle Bay Smelter  located at the northern end of Lake Macquarie near Boolaroo in Newcastle? Despite likely contamination of the surrounding area with lead, there is a new Costco centre on the site with are new housing developments proposed for the area.

If you want more stories, you’ll find them at (https://lead.org.au/). The the web site for the The Lead Education and Abatement Design Group, who have been trying for years to raise government awareness of the hazards of lead. I guess they are proof to me that a reasonable statement of facts about the dangers of lead might fail. But luckily I’m too stupid to give up.

I pointed out that there were many programs introduced to reduce the risk of lead in the United States, and to a lesser extent in the UK. Disregarding the fact that much of that funding has ceased, would it surprise you to learn that we’ve never had similar programs in Australia, with the possible exception of some lead reduction activities in Broken Hill and Mt Isa.

So let’s skip back to The Hill article:

According to the National Bureau of Economics, high levels of lead can cause increased school suspensions, juvenile incarcerations and criminal behavior as adults, and the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) found a link between lead and criminal and antisocial behavior. The research concluded: “With the exception of rape, aggregate blood-lead levels were statistically significant predictors of violent crime.”

The Mayo Clinic reports that lead poisoning in children causes numerous symptoms, including developmental delay, learning difficulties and irritability. Lead testing in Chicago, another city plagued by violence in black neighborhoods, revealed during a three-year period that 75 percent of Chicago’s elementary school students had high levels of lead.

To a large extent, the government has ignored the correlation between violent crime and lead poisoning. This negligence likely has contributed to the poor academic performance of black students, high rates of crime and ramped drug use. Federal, state and local governments must take a stronger, more definitive approach to eliminating the risks associated with high levels of lead in children living in inner-city neighborhoods.

If we consider that a significant number of children in Mt Isa have raised blood lead levels AND the highest levels are seen predominantly in aboriginal and islander children, when we think about the youth crime problems there, can you see any parallels?

I’ll finish up quoting the last parts of the article:

To a large extent, the government has ignored the correlation between violent crime and lead poisoning. This negligence likely has contributed to the poor academic performance of black students, high rates of crime and ramped drug use. Federal, state and local governments must take a stronger, more definitive approach to eliminating the risks associated with high levels of lead in children living in inner-city neighborhoods.

If politicians are genuinely outraged by the saturation of criminal activity in black communities, they cannot simply “mentor” or incarcerate their way to building safer communities. Instead, it is without question a necessity to address the environmental threats that feed the stereotype of black people living in struggling communities as poor, violent and uneducated. Lead poisoning is just as much a crisis as the nation’s opioid crisis that is now getting response from the Oval Office.

Pointing out the “usual suspects” and triggers of violence in poor black neighborhoods is ill-served when we ignore environmental hazards that can have a negative impact on generations of families.

Let’s state that again. Lead poisoning is as important, probably more so than the opioid crisis in the US. But it gets a lot less attention because the effects of lead are much more subtle.

And yet our government, with the possible exception of our work safety agencies who are grappling with a problem they don’t understand, and perhaps parts of NSW Health, ignore the community health issues relating to lead exposure.

Does the term criminal negligence come to mind?

Why is it so hard to admit you’re wrong, and to learn from other people’s mistakes if you are in government?

Come on people, wake up!