Announcer: The views and opinions expressed in To The Point are those of the host of the program and its guests.

They do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of WGTE public media.

Doni: Lead exposure in children is often difficult to detect.

Most displaye no obvious immediate symptoms.

Nonetheless, we have known since the 1970s that exposure to lead ca seriously harm a child's health.

Damage the brain and nervous system lead to learning and behavior problems and slow growth and development.

Why then?

After years of addressing this issue, do the number of exposures continue to increase and the outcomes of this exposure worsen?

Gloria Smith, a public health nurse with the Lucas County Health Department and a long time educator and advocate for more attention to this issue, is here to share her thoughts.

I am Doni Miller, and welcome... To The Point.

Connect with us on our social media pages.

You know that.

You can email me at doni_miller@wgte.org, for this episode and any other that you might like to see.

Please go to wgte.org/to the point.

I am excited today.

I was excited about this show.

I think we cove wonderful topics and today is no exception.

We are talking about lead with one lead poisoning.

Actually, the incidence of lead poisoning your got.

You will be surprised.

Where you might find this, deadly chemical.

And we're talking about ways that we have improved our detection and our treatment and our education, around this issue as well.

We're talking to Gloria Smith.

Gloria is an advocate.

She's a public health nurse, a long time proponent of, education around this issue.

Glori Smith is our guest this morning.

Thank you for being with us today and appreciate it.

Gloria: And thank you.

Downey, for having me.

I'm really excited to be here.

Doni: So this is my pleasure.

And one of the reasons I'm so excited about this, conversation is it's one that we don't pay consistent attention to, but it is around us all the time.

Would you explain to folks before we get started exactly what this issue of lead poisoning is all about?

Gloria The issue with lead poisoning.

And I'm going to start off right here, Donnie.

At any given time in our city and Lucas County, there are 3400 childre currently with lead poisoning.

This could be at any time.

I also would like to say why it continues to be an issue in our city and county.

There are 24 zip codes that ar considered high risk for lead.

Of course, there are certai ZIP codes that are a little bit higher in concentrated in certain areas.

I also want to say this I'd like to kind of dispel some myths.

First of all, when we speak about our our zip codes, I think that our community is under the impressio that lead poisoning only affect poor white, brown and white children.

That is not true.

We are seeing, families that are affected with lead poisoned children all over our county.

So I just kind of want to share that and not isolate it to, specific and central city.

Correct.

Because it has more to do with the age of the house, doesn't it?

Absolutely.

And I was going to get into that.

I think that people will be really surprised to know, where this lead is coming from since it was outlawed, outlawed in 1978.

I have t I want to just kind of go back because what I'm going to talk about and what I'm going to share today, today is actually based upon real life experiences and what we're seeing at the health department.

Yeah.

I am, as Doni mentioned, a public health nurse.

And I also do lead case management for all of the children in Lucas County that have been affected with lead poisoning.

I work with a wonderful team.

I work with, two lead investigators.

We, of course, have a supervisor and myself and how I program.

I don't think, our public is aware of the part that we play in that, Toledo.

Lucas County Health Department is a mandated authority of Ohio Department of Health.

And what that means is we are required to address the children that have lead poisoning in our area.

So what we do essentially is, we initiate investigation, we go into the homes and we actually go in as a team.

Our lead investigator, Gators, they focus on the property and the environment, and I focus on the child.

Doni: So I want to talk about the kids for just a second.

Yes.

Because the, the houses that are most at risk for having lead in them are those built before 1970.

Gloria: Those homes are we look at homes that are built before 1978.

It does not mean that a home that is later one, could not contain old leaded paint.

But we concentrate on homes that are built before 1978, and it is the lead poisoning in children.

As I mentioned earlier, can result in brain damage.

Yes.

Damage to IQ.

Yeah.

And I think that if we understand that lead is actually a heavy metal, and if you have a metal, a heavy metal that's flowing through our bloodstream, it is going to affect our every, every organ in the body.

You know, the brain, it lowers IQ.

We se attention, deficits, behaviors, grove delay, growth delays.

And of course it affects the nervous system.

So if you can just think about a heavy metal that is flowing through the body is going to affect every system, every system.

Doni: And it i how do kids get lead poisoning?

I always thought erroneously so that they had to eat the the chips.

I think lots of people Gloria I think people do do do assume that not that our children do not maybe eat a paint chip or two.

But I want to also emphasize this, the kind of, make it a little bit more impactful.

If you can imagine a couple grains of sugar that much lead dust is enoug to be toxic in a child's body.

Doni: You are kidding.

Gloria: I am not kidding.

And I just kind of want to point out other exposures.

And then we'll get back to the homes.

Okay, we see children, that are exposed through, their parents or guardians.

The occupation you know, family members that may work in factories, family members that may do construction work or auto detailing or auto repair, people that work in battery plants, we see kids are poisone also based upon someone's hobby.

Fishing.

You know, the lead sinkers, we see, children that are also lead poisoned, which can also increase their lead level based upon their own behavior.

You know, if you've had a child that, is handling or eating objects that are not edible, and but what we find with all of those exposures and even items that are imported, we continue to import items from other countries and some of those items from other countries can also be harmful.

Spices, packaged spices, canned goods have been soldered with lead.

We and we track, a lot of records.

We have track record that point to children's toys, baby cribs, t shirts that have been silk screened.

Led has always been used.

They put led into paint and it helps that paint adhere to the product.

So hints for lead poisoning children.

We see items like, children's toys, costume jewelry.

Doni: How do you, how do you.

And, and and, I read that you can track it in the house from the dirt outside.

Yeah, absolutely.

So how do you with all of that possible exposure, how do we get a handle?

How we get a handle on it?

Gloria I think it starts with awareness and being aware.

Being aware to all of those places that can be considered lead sources.

You know, some I did mention one of the big things, the biggest things, 98 about 98% of all of our children that we've opened cases on, it has pointed directly to a home.

So, so most of the children are poisoned in their homes.

And when you mention the first the, the, the front porches and tracking in is not just the dirt that they're tracking in.

You know, we see children, if they're in older homes, there may be older windows.

That is a source when you're opening and closing windows, when you're opening and closing doors that still have the old door frames, they're creating lead dust.

Lots of our families live in homes that have the big porches, and if those porches have been painted and painted over time and you get down to that lead paint, the leaded paint and the deteriorating paint which turns the dust, they're tracking the dust into their homes.

We have also found families that have pets in there rooting in the soil, because there is there is, a certain amount of lead in our soil they're tracking that lead into the homes.

Doni: So how does a parent know if their child has been affected by lead?

Although most of the research says there's sometimes homes are no obvious, they are never any obvious reasons.

Gloria: I mean, there's no I'm going to I'm sorry.

There are no obvious behaviors.

That's what's so scary.

Yeah.

The only way a parent would know if their their child has been affected is by having them tested.

And I will say this in the state of Ohio, it is mandated that any child that is on Medicaid or a medicaid product, it is mandated by the state of Ohio that those children are tested at age one and two.

But if you continu to live in an older structure, or the children may be exposed to, occupational hazard, or they move to another home, we encourage you to encourage your physicians to have your children tested.

So that's how you know.

And that is the only way, you know, is by testing your children.

And speaking of testing, I have I need to say this.

Doni: I' going to ask you to hold that.

Okay?

Don't lose that.

I don't look, let you forget.

Okay?

All right.

We will be right back.

Please stay with us.

Doni: Do connect with us on our social media pages.

We'd really like that.

And you can email me at doni_miller@wgte.org.

And for this episod and any other additional extras, go to wgte.org/to the point.

We've been speaking with public health nurse registered nurse Gloria Smith, who is a longtim advocate and longtime educator around the perils of lead as it relates to our children.

But we were talking about testing as we went to break.

Gloria: Yeah.

We were saying that the only way you would know if your child has been exposed to lead is by having them test it.

What is unfortunate is that we're using our children have lead detectors, and we spring into action after the child has been poisoned.

So those are some issues that we're trying to, to address.

And it actually comes with prevention, because you can live in an older home if you know how to do it in a safe manner, you know what to look for prior to renting a property, what to look for.

Even if you are self paying or buying a home, you know, you need to hav those homes inspected for lead.

It is not a common, thing that, landlords or people that are selling homes automatically test their homes for lead.

They do not.

So we're doing some things right now to kind of address that, to even tag the homes that the health department have inspected.

And we found lead in it.

And what we're finding is those homes are actually being sold and rented unbeknownst to us, and they have lead in them.

So I think that if they're tagged with with, you know, by other agencies in our community, we can prevent that.

And I also think that if, if individuals are better educate and have those homes, apartments tested prior to movin your family in, that's a start.

Doni: Yeah, it's more than jus the peeling paint that you see that, for instance, my house was built in the early 1900s, and when I moved in there was lea paint everywhere, peeling paint.

But it's more than just that.

Gloria: Yes.

And you know what?

Every all peeling paint doesn't contain lead, okay?

And all intact paint can contain and so it's best just to have it, tested.

There is you can't play a gam and a guessing game with that.

You have to have it tested.

Doni: So, so let me ask you, let me ask you, Gloria.

Doni: So this has been an issue for years.

I mean, the issue of lead, the difficulties with lea was first raised in the 1950s, and then in the 1970s, there was far more aggressive approaches to lead.

And, the, the knowledge of what lead actually does to kids and, and adults.

There, there is the opportunity for a little delay or don't we keep throwing money at this?

It's not getting any better.

The exposures keep going up.

The outcomes are terrible.

Is feels like we're losing this battle.

Do you have thoughts about why that might be?

Gloria: You know what?

Currently I am feeling very hopeful right now.

I be I'm I'm beginning to see a change i how people view lead poisoning.

So we're making some strides in it.

I'll give you one example.

I think here in our community, we're under the assumption that if we get all of these children tested, that it's going to eradicate lead poisoning.

It is not Lucas County in the city of Toledo.

They do a very good job in testing their children.

And we know that to be fact, because all of the results come in to the health department for us to address all of those children at all those levels.

So we do a really good job with testing our children.

What we know to work is the education preventing the lead poisoning in the first place, and also kno what to look for in the process.

So I think all of our efforts should really go towards educatin and not just educating families, but educating, the general public.

The health care providers need to, you know, we can't do this.

Our own our our our own, our own.

So what I'm saying and what we're moving towards is educating providers and the providers office, because indeed they are testing the children.

They do a wonderful job here in our community, whether it is in a, one of our, community health clinics, in our, big pediatric offices and family practice is they're doing a wonderful, wonderful job with testing.

But here we need to collectively begin to educate parents.

You know, it takes five minutes.

You educate a family.

You know, one good question.

Even for a provider's office to ask that.

Mom, have you seen paint chips in your windowsills?

You know, we can provide the community with cleaning kits, teach people how to clean those areas and keep those children safe within their environment.

We know that it works because we do it daily.

And being that, you know, our city is struggles with affordable and safe housing.

Yeah, sometimes we have to teach our families how to live within that and live safely.

Doni: You know, when you think about the opportunity we have through tha five minutes worth of education to avoid brain damage, damage to the nervous system, damaging a child's IQ or damaging their ability just to be a child.

There's no argument against that.

Gloria: There is no argument.

And I don't think it takes a rocket science to figure this out.

I think that if we all work collectively, whether you are in health care, whether you're in education, our politicians, our lawmakers, I think if we work collectively, we can get a handle on this and eradicate this lead poisoning.

Doni: So what about the parent who says, oh, I clean every weekend, and if my child is exposed to anything or if I'm exposed t anything, it's a very little bit is there any safe level of lead exposure?

Gloria: Absolutely not.

None.

Absolutely not.

You know, I see a child that may have a lead level of 3.5 micrograms per deciliter.

That child is no better off than a child that may have an 85.

And we do see that now, we do follow the mandates, Ohio Department of Health and CDC and, we are required to address any child's lea level that is at 3.5 or above.

And you know what?

When I first took this job, we didn't have to address the child's lead level until it was ten.

So they've kind of laud that standard.

And we're we're happy about that because we can captur more children at a lower lead.

Let let before it climbs to a 30 of 40 and 80.

And you know what.

And we have seen, issues with children that have had a lead level of five.

So there is definitely no safe level at all.

We've got to keep in mind it's a heavy metal.

Doni: Wow.

So you mentioned earlier the opportunity for parents to have kits.

Cleaning kits.

Yes.

What are those kits like and where do they get them?

Gloria: We have the at the health department in our with our lead program and also the city of Toledo.

Which kind of brings me to this.

I had mentioned that the healthy part of me cannot do this alone.

And, I've got to, mention the Toledo Lead Prevention Coalition.

They're grassroots organization that started many, many years ago, and they were actually instrumenta to keeping that lead prevention, forever on everyone's mind.

And they were also instrumental in, getting lead laws passed in our city.

We, were really close with the City of Toledo's safe lead program, and they're also doing some wonderful things with educating, getting lead contractors training.

So we're really, really pleased with that.

They have a wonderful website too.

They that we should mention to frequently asked questions, resources on the website.

Yes, yes.

And we also have a safe website as well.

So whatever we talk about today, do visit those left, those websites.

And when I spoke about, not on institution can do this alone.

And we currently, collaborate with fair housing, with ABLE, with LMA, and also with the city of Toledo and other health care organizations.

Doni: And and all of those all of those are great advocates for, this issue in this town.

And again, no, I don' I don't want to leave you today, without reminding people that they can get their lead testing kit from the health department.

Yes.

Are they free or is.

Gloria: No, they are free, you know.

Yeah.

You come in, you know, we ask some questions.

We want to als make sure that your home is at, you know, that you have a home that is we know fo sure that there led in your home or there is potential for lea us to accumulate in your home.

So you can always contact the health department or the city of Toledo with the the cleaning kits.

Doni: Yeah.

And and I want to say it again because I think it's worth people hearing.

Again, this is not an issue that's isolated to underserved neighborhoods, to poor neighborhoods.

It has to do with the age of your house, not the location of your house.

Absolutely.

And other things as well.

Not just the age of your house but as you've taught us today, it has to do i can do, have to do with the job that you're holding?

Yes.

The hobbies that you have.

Gloria: Yes.

Yeah.

And, you know, those kind of things are really minimal.

You know, when we're saying most of our cases are contributed to the old the old housing stock now understand this.

Older homes that are properly maintained are not dangerous.

Okay.

You know so is not just every old home.

They're homes that have not been properly maintained.

Doni: Yes There's so much to talk about.

And as always, not enough time.

But I want to thank you for being with us, and I hope you come back so we can talk more about landlords and rental property and all of those other things that we didn't have time to talk.

Gloria: I would love that.

Doni: Thank you so much, Gloria, and thank you all for spendin this part of your day with us.

And I look forward to seeing you next time.

On... To The Point.

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They do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of WGTE public media.

To The Point is supporte in part by American Rescue Plan Act fund allocated by the City of Toledo and the Lucas County Commissioners and administered by the Arts Commission.

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