MANILA, Philippines — Environmental health experts said there is an “urgent need” to boost efforts to ban the production, importation, and sale of lead paint, as they highlighted the need to protect children’s brain development from lead and other toxic chemicals.
During a recent webinar hosted by EcoWaste Coalition with International Pollutants Elimination Network (IPEN), speakers Dr. Sara Brosche and Dr. Bruce Lanphear noted the importance of concerted, decisive, and urgent action to prevent exposure to environmental contaminants linked with learning and developmental disabilities among children.
The webinar, attended by 100 teleconference attendees and 400 Facebook live streaming viewers from 15 countries, coincided with the observance of the International Lead Poisoning Prevention Week, an annual occasion that aims to increase awareness about the health effects of lead exposure and to call for action toward the phaseout of lead-containing paint.
Brosche, IPEN’s Science Adviser and Global Lead Paint Elimination Campaign Manager, argued that the majority of countries do not have strong regulations on lead paint.
“There is an urgent need to scale up efforts to ban the production, importation, distribution, and sale of lead-added paints as the majority of countries still do not have strong and legally binding lead paint regulations,” she said.
“Lead paint harms children and is most likely available on the market if there is no enforced regulation. Governments do not need to wait,” she further said, adding that data on lead paint from almost 60 countries justify that regulations should be adopted and enforced.
For Brosche, it is possible for manufacturers to phase out lead from their paint production as she pitched for a multi-stakeholder approach to eliminating lead paint.
Meanwhile, Lanphear said exceedingly low levels of exposure to toxic chemicals like lead and mercury can have a big impact on children’s development. “Little things matter,” he said.
Lanphear is president of the International Society for Children’s Health and the Environment (ISCHE) and a clinical scientist and health science professor who has studied for over 20 years the impact of brain toxins and the effects of toxic chemicals on public health.
“The chemical industry argues that the effect of toxins on children is subtle and of little consequence. That’s misleading. Little shifts in children’s IQ scores have a big impact on a number of children who are challenged or who are gifted,” he explained.
According to Lanphear, there is no safe level for many of the most widely disseminated and well-studied toxic substances, including lead, mercury, organophosphate pesticides, brominated flame retardant chemicals and air pollutants, which can be hazardous even at very low levels.
“This contrasts with the way we regulate toxic chemicals today. We assume for non-carcinogens that there are safe levels or thresholds. But what if there isn’t?” he added.
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