Statement from Dan Kass, Senior Vice President of Environmental, Climate and Urban Health, Vital Strategies, on International Lead Poisoning Prevention Week, Oct. 20-26, 2024:
Oct. 20, 2024 (New York)—“Despite being known as a potent toxin since ancient Rome, lead still lurks in everyday places—in our homes, foods, soil, cosmetics and other consumer products. Estimates of lives lost worldwide each year to lead exposure range from 1.5 million to a staggering 5.5 million, largely due to its devastating effects on cardiovascular health.
Let’s be clear: Lead should never have been added to paint, gasoline, food, cosmetics or alternative medicines. Lead pipes should never have been used to carry our drinking water. The failure to regulate these hazards has imposed a massive toll: generations exposed to cognitive and cardiovascular harm, alongside billions in preventable costs.
Even at low levels, lead robs children of intellectual potential, endangers pregnancies, and contributes to social harms. But it doesn’t stop there: The chronic effects of lead in adulthood are even more severe. Lead accumulates in bones, re-entering the bloodstream during pregnancy and aging. It’s passed from mother to unborn child, fueling a vicious cycle. And while we’ve long known lead’s effects on hypertension, kidney function and circulatory systems, we’re only now grasping its catastrophic cardiovascular disease burden.
Global studies now estimate that lifetime lead exposure is one of the leading causes of cardiovascular deaths. Whether current, recent, or from childhood, lead exposure increases the risk of early death from heart disease. The sheer magnitude of this crisis is alarming, yet lead poisoning remains shockingly under-recognized as a public health crisis.
There is no safe level of lead exposure. There are, however, clear ways to prevent it. This International Lead Poisoning Prevention Week, we call on governments and civil society organizations to confront this silent killer and join us in building a lead-free future. Countries must commit to measuring the burden of lead, identifying the leading sources of its exposure, and regulating and enforcing lead at its sources.”
About Vital Strategies’ Work to Prevent Childhood Lead Poisoning
Vital Strategies works with governments in India, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Colombia and Peru to prioritize lead poisoning prevention efforts and reduce the number of exposed children. Our work includes designing and implementing surveillance programs for lead poisoning, assessing policy gaps, and raising understanding of lead poisoning via targeted strategic communication. In addition, we develop clinical training and guidance on evaluating childhood exposure to lead and best practices for managing acute lead poisoning.
Learn more: https://www.vitalstrategies.org/programs/childhood-lead-poisoning-prevention/
About Vital Strategies
Vital Strategies believes every person should be protected by an equitable and effective public health system. We work with governments, communities and organizations around the world to reimagine public health so that health is supported in all the places we live, work and play. The result is millions of people living longer, healthier lives.
Visit: https://www.vitalstrategies.org/ or follow @VitalStrat on Twitter
Media Contact
Ally Davis, adavis@vitalstrategies.org