Basic information about lead poisoning - Home Page for Lead Hazards
Lead levels in blood
Sources of lead poisoning
Lead paint surveys
Lead levels found in or due to plumbing
Lead sources & hazards in water, toys, and jewelry
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This series of articles describes the sources of lead in the environment (air, water, soil, food, buildings, paint, toys, jeweler, pottery, other products) and the levels and effects of lead in humans and in other animals. This website includes articles detailing how to find, test for, recognize, and reduce lead hazards in buildings and in our environment.
What is the Exposure Limit for Lead levels in blood?
There is no safe threshold for lead levels in blood for developing children. Any amount is considered a hazard, particularly to children. [Paraphrasing Ref. #2 below.]
How Does Lead Enter the Human Body?
Lead enters the body by ingestion (eating paint chips or for toddlers, lead dust off of building surfaces, or drinking water with high lead levels),
or by breathing lead contaminated dust such as during building renovations and paint stripping.
Also see the U.S. CPSC Document 426 at LEAD CONTAMINATION HAZARDS in the HOME.
What are the Sources of Lead in Buildings & of Lead in People's Bodies
While many articles and laws have identified on lead-based paint as an important lead hazard source in buildings, there are other sources of lead in the environment that affect people and the crops or animals they consume. Some of these include:
Airborne lead-containing soil & dust at highways and fields along highways - see Lead in Air - U.S. Lead Emissions Standards as well as lead-containing soils around buildings due to stripping of lead paint.
Lead Enviro-Scare: what is the environmental and home resale impact of lead paint or other lead in buildings
Airborne lead particles due to use of leaded gasoline in vehicles or other gasoline-driven motors and equipment - Lead in Air - U.S. Lead Emissions Standards. While the prohibition of use of leaded gasoline has reduced the addition of lead to the environment from these sources, soil and dust may already be contaminated in some areas.
Lead in drinking water from lead plumbing or from the water supply itself. Lead in water is introduced below in this article at Lead Plumbing Lead in Water. For details on how to test for and remove lead from drinking water, including advice about test procedures to avoid missing or over-stating a lead in water problem, see LEAD WATER PIPING HAZARDS & REMEDIES and LEAD IN DRINKING WATER, HOW to REDUCE - Call your local health department or water supplier to find out about testing your water. You cannot see, smell, or taste lead, and boiling your water will not get rid of lead. If you think your plumbing might have lead in it:
Drinking water -- Your home might have plumbing with lead or lead solder.
Use only cold water for drinking and cooking.
Run water for 15 to 30 seconds before drinking it, especially if you have not used your water for a few hours.
The job -- If you work with lead, you could bring it home on your hands or clothes. Shower and change clothes before coming home. Launder your clothes separately from the rest of your family's.
Food and liquids stored in lead crystal or lead-glazed pottery or porcelain.
Lead smelters or other industries that release lead into the air.
Hobbies that use lead, such as making pottery or stained glass, or refinishing furniture.
Folk remedies that contain lead, such as "greta" and "azarcon" used to treat an upset stomach.
What is the level of Risk from Lead Toys, Lead-containing Jewelry, & Other Sources of Lead?
Pottery, Ceramic, Porcelain, China. Some pottery products used lead in the glazing including dishes and cups - don't use these for food or drink.
Toys containing lead in metal (my old toy soldiers and cars) and toys painted with lead-based paint - see references below from the toy industry on lead in toys.
Jewelry containing lead or lead paste -- see references below for the CPSC SOP
Alternative medicine products sold within some cultural groups: litargirio - per the Brody article [Ref.4].
Unusual foods: salty fried grasshoppers from Mexico - per the Brody article (Ref.3).
Lead contamination on streets and in street water runoff, a residue from prior use of leaded gasoline
also see the U.S. CPSC Document 426 at reference #3 below.
A Summary of Lead Based Paint Hazards from the US CPSC
Since lead paint was banned in 1978, and since lead was
a very common additive in paints (for whiteness and flexibility), it's a reasonable guess that any older home built before (or perhaps slightly after)
1978 that has painted surfaces has some lead paint present -- unless all of the old paint was removed.
Painting over lead-containing painted surfaces
is not a fix as lead can leach through new coatings or be released during renovations. According to the Brody article [Ref. 4], the
National Safety Council says that leaded paint con be found in
homes built before 1940 - in about two thirds of these buildings
homes built between 1940 and 1960 - in about half of these homes
homes built between 1960 and 1978 - in a smaller number of these homes.
OPINION - DJF: Although lead-based paint was no longer sold after 1978, that does not mean that someone may not have had older lead-based paint and used it after 1978. So don't rule out the possibility of lead
in paint in or on buildings painted at least for a few years after 1978.
The principal hazards from lead-based paint indoors include
peeling paint chips and children who eat them - PICA
building demolition or renovation work that contaminates the interior with lead-containing dust from paint removal or demolition
sliding casement lead-painted window sashes up and down, which may produce lead-containing dust on the window sill where it is
picked up and ingested by toddlers whose stick fingers grasp the sill and then go into their mouth
Lead-based paint outdoors is a potential hazard as well. Renovations and paint stripping or sanding make a lot of lead paint dust
or lead paint chips which may not only form an immediate hazard to people present, but may also contaminate the soil and form a hazard
later for children who play there. Soil tests for lead are available.
A List of Choices of Methods for Lead Paint Surveys
X- Ray Florescence for lead paint surveys: Lead paint surveys for Buildings are provided by people who have both training and special equipment
for this purpose using X- Ray Florescence (XRF). A professional
uses a (very costly) X-ray inferometer which permits sampling of building surfaces by bouncing x-rays through the surface.
This equipment
can detect lead based paint which has been painted-over, and is quite accurate.
Standards may vary by state but for example in Maryland, paint with more than 0.7 milligrams per square centimeter of surface area sampled is considered to be lead paint.
A building survey for lead paint may cost about as much as
a professional home inspection. OPINION: any old house that has old paint on it almost certainly has lead paint present. I would not order
a "presence/absence" lead paint test. But in some circumstances it may be useful to order a "lead abatement" survey which surveys the building
interior and exterior, identifies the location of lead paint, and makes recommendations by specific area: leave alone, paint-over, or remove.
Chemical Swab spot tests for lead paint identification are available using sodium sulfide or other chemicals. OPINION: chemical swabs that some home inspectors use for "lead testing" are junk science and are so unreliable that they should not be used. We are
informed that chemical tests for lead in paint give both false positives and false negatives.
Laboratory analysis of paint scrapings: functional and accurate if proper lab procedures are used; however be sure that paint chips or scrapings are individually packaged and identified, and that the samples collected accurately represent important possible areas of lead reservoirs on the building being tested.
Forensic microscopy for lead paint identification: special procedures can identify lead paint from very small quantities using micro chemical techniques pioneered by Chamot and Mason.
While we have duplicated this process in our forensic laboratory, it is unlikely to be cost-justified for building surveys and is probably better
reserved for specialized building forensic cases.
What is the Level of Risk from Lead Plumbing & Lead in Water?
Lead may be in water from the actual water supply well (unusual) or may enter water from lead water supply mains or entry laterals from the street, or
from lead-solder used for copper pipe connections.
Sources of lead in water
The degree to which water picks up lead from these sources varies quite a bit, and
depends on the amount of actual lead
surface to which the water is being exposed and the contact time of water to lead. So water that sits in a lead water entry main overnight has
a pretty high lead content while water that enters a building after the lines have been flushed usually has a very low lead content.
Corrosivity of water affects lead levels
The chemistry
of the water and disinfectants added to it can affect the corrosivity level of water. More corrosive or "aggressive" water picks up more of whatever metals
it contacts. Since there are easy things you can do to reduce the amount of lead in drinking water a treatment system is not the only choice
for reducing this hazard.
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Lead Hazards in Buildings, Dust, Paint, Water: General Advice, Testing Procedures, Illnesses with additional links and resource references for Lead Hazards
"The voluntary standard established in the United States under ASTM F-963 and the European standard under EN-71 for soluble lead in toys (lead which may migrate from the toy and be ingested by the child) is 90 parts-per-million. At that level, any intentional use of lead in paints or other surface coatings containing lead would immediately put the toy over the permitted limit."
"Under federal law, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) enforces a standard for total lead of 600 ppm. Recently, the CPSC refused to lower the lead limit in paint and other similar surface coating materials to 100 ppm after finding that most paints sold in the United States were already at or below that level and, therefore, these materials did not present an unreasonable risk of injury warranting further government regulation."
"The lead-in-construction standard was intended to apply to any detectable concentration of lead in paint, as even small concentrations of lead can result in unacceptable employee exposures depending upon on the method of removal and other workplace conditions. Since these conditions can vary greatly, the lead-in-construction standard was written to require exposure monitoring or the use of historical or objective data to ensure that employee exposures do not exceed the action level. Historical data may be applied to all construction tasks involving lead. Objective data was intended to apply to all tasks other than those listed under paragraph (d)(2) of the standard.
"OSHA does not consider X-ray fluorescence (XRF) to be an acceptable method of analysis. As stated in your letter, XRF analyzers are generally considered accurate when concentrations of lead in paint exceed 1 mg/cm�. For the purposes of occupational health, these levels are considered substantial and may easily present an exposure hazard. Without having conducted monitoring, or without the benefit of historical or objective data, the employer has no assurance of the employee's exposure.
"
"Other regulatory agencies, such as Housing and Urban Development, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) have designated levels of lead in paint below which they consider the paint to be non-lead containing. The missions of these agencies differ from OSHA's, and for that reason, OSHA cannot recognize these levels as safe under workplace situations"
We recommend reviewing this position letter from OSHA. -- DF
How to Identify Lead Paint Hazards, Maryland Department of the Environment, outlines
when a lead inspection is necessary, who can perform a lead inspection, and the types of analysis used for lead inspections and testing. Maryland
DOE includes suggestions for do-it-yourself lead paint testing using paint chips or scrapings. If you follow this approach be sure your
samples accurately represent conditions at the whole building, inside and out -- DF.
Sample XRF Lead Survey Report, "Lead Paint Inspection and Visual
Assessment Single Family Dwelling, Murdock & Assoc., Mattoon, IL.
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