Re: [CPEO-MEF] It's all about perchlorate!

[CPEO Moderator <cpeo@cpeo.org>]

The following response was posted anonymously.
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To All:  Whether you live near any base or not, your young children
should be screened at least for lead.  I do not live near a base, but
the house I lived in when my oldest child was born was built in 1929.
Shortly after he started crawling on his own, we had him screened for
lead in order, we thought, to get a baseline.  He had no symptoms of any
problems, but we discovered that his blood lead level was a very
dangerous 60+ (I forget the units, but "safe" at the time was thought to
be around 10).  At the time, this was considered to be just below the
level at which hospitalization and chelation therapy is required.

As I write this, my son is about to graduate from Yale, where he
performed brilliantly.  Had we remained unaware of the dangerous lead
levels in his blood, we would not have been able to ensure that all
possible sources of contamination within the home were removed or
encapsulated, and the potential of this wonderful and brilliant young
man would have been gravely compromised.

Lead levels in general have declined enormously since lead additives
were removed from gasoline, but if you live in a house that was built
prior to the mid-1960s there is a risk of exposure, and in general the
older the house the higher the risk.  I strongly suspect that these
risks exceed by several orders of magnitude any risks that might be
associated with living near a current or former military installation,
unless you are living right on top of a former range.

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