The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Jonathon Naylor Editor In an effort to obtain more reliable findings, tests to measure lead levels in area youth have been bumped up a year to 2012. The Flin Flon Soils Study on local pollution, released in June 2010, recommended that area youth be tested for lead in the fall of 2011, two years after an initial round of tests. But the decision has since been quietly made to reschedule the follow-up tests for the fall of next year. Elliot Sigal, a scientist involved with the 2010 study and the lead testing, said the extra year should give officials a better idea of whether lead-reducing measures are working. He said it's his understanding a risk-management plan involving lead will soon be uploaded onto the Soils Study website. Sigal said the sense was that to gauge lead levels this fall would simply be too soon to determine the effectiveness of the plan. When the follow-up tests are conducted in the fall of 2012, he said, the goal will be to again test 202 youth as was done in 2009. Re-test Sigal hopes to re-test children and adolescents involved in the original tests, but some of them will no longer be eligible since the study involves those aged 15 and under. Just as they did in 2009, scientists will attempt to test every youth living in the western part of Flin Flon, nearest the former smelter complex. Soil samples collected from west Flin Flon contained the highest lead levels of anywhere in the community. It is also an area rife with old homes, which are more likely to have lead-based paint. Regardless of how many participants from west Flin Flon are involved, youth from other parts of the community will also be tested, Sigal said. Through an HBMS-funded community health project, measures aimed at reducing lead and other metal levels in young people have already begun. Part of that effort was this summer's introduction of Mighty Bubble, a superhero who encourages kids to regularly and properly wash their hands. See 'Super...' on pg. 7 Continued from pg. 1 The Mighty Bubble campaign includes a website, complete with a downloadable song and comic book, and appearances at community functions by the caped crusader of cleanliness himself. There is also a campaign focused on limiting exposure to lead-based paint, which could be a factor behind elevated lead levels detected in some local children. "What we're hoping is that the follow-up (lead) study shows that the message has been effective," said Sigal. Sigal is not ruling out further tests beyond 2012 if concerns still linger. "Potentially, I would say yes," he said. "It will depend on the results. Hopefully the results will show the trend we want to see and the (government health officials involved with the study) will be satisfied by that. But the next step would depend on the results." Of the 202 youth randomly tested for lead in 2009, 30 had elevated lead levels. Those who lived in west Flin Flon were more likely to fall into that category. Some research has linked high lead levels to poorer performance on school exams by children and incidence of miscarriage and kidney damage, among other problems, in adults. Debate But there remains debate over how much lead is necessary, and for how long, to impact human health. Nonetheless, an emerging scientific consensus appears to be that when it comes to this particular element, there is no safe level for humans. That was a statement echoed last year by Dr. Murray Lee, the principle investigator of the 2009 lead tests. "On a population level, the goal is generally to have lead be as low as possible," he said.8/22/2011
