Environmental Health Risk Assessment: Lead Poisoning - PowerPoint Presentation Example

Environmental Health Risk Assessment: Lead Poisoning The environment in which human beings have to survive has an enormous influence on their health, life style and well-being. There is a direct relationship between environmental safety and life span of an individual, that is, greater the environmental pollution, lesser would be the life span of people existing in that environment. David Suzuki proposed that, “Our choices at all levels—individual, community, corporate and government—affect nature. And that affects us". Our environment can be broken down into three fundamental sets of components, these include, physical components, chemical components and biological components. These components when brought together form our environment as we know it. Physical components deal with energy and shifting of energy from one form to another, chemical components deal with matter and all natural and man-made substances where as biological components deal with living things. In the present day, environmental risks and hazards are stemming from all three of these components including radioactive material, toxic chemical waste or contaminations within the body that lead to health hazards. This essay talks about one of the chemical components that lead to adverse health and has cost the lives of millions of people throughout the world. Hazardous Material: Lead is a malleable, dense, and low-melting metal that can be easily spotted in our daily lives and in the products that we use. Being extremely “toxic” the direct exposure to such metal could cause a variety of health hazards. If lead exists in the human blood stream for more than desired amount, it can cause adverse effects on the central nervous system, cardiac diseases and renal failure. Lead toxicity has resulted in complications in reproduction system. Lead has long been used in plumbing industry due to its capability to resist corrosion by water. It is also diluted in paints and makes a roofing material that can survive for ages despite of unpredictable weather conditions. Earlier in 1921 “tetraethyl lead”, a lead compound was mixed with gasoline because it prevented the car engines from ‘knocking’. However, this prevention came at the cost of air pollution leading to various health hazards. Lead is very dangerous for human beings if inhaled or ingested. It is capable of poisoning the internals of an individual leading to serious damages as mentioned above. Widely considered favorite material to be used in enamel and glass industry, lead is incorporated in the manufacture of picture tubes used in television. “Video display terminals” of computers have it in considerable amount. One benefit associated with lead is that it can prevent entry of radiations therefore the inside body of a light bulb constitutes lead glass. Frequent use of lead is in manufacturing of solder and bearings. Oil refineries and rubber processing industries also utilize lead in considerable quantities. Exposure and affects: Lead can be exposed in a number of ways causing it difficult for individuals to adopt any precautionary measure against its harmful affects. Presence of lead has been detected in contaminated water, hair dyes, cosmetics, daily household dirt, common soil, ceramics etc. But the most wide scale negative consequences result when lead based paint is used on walls and respective surroundings. Labor force carrying work activities in lead mines have the tendency to become prime victims of such poisoning. Water seeped through battered plumbing lines and fixtures might carry lead components that are injurious to health. Tinned food, when kept for prolonged periods, develops poisonous lead compounds. The risks associated with lead contact are more prevalent in children and infants in comparison to adults as the rate of lead absorption is phenomenal. It has been estimated that young children are likely to absorb lead almost forty to fifty percent through oral means. The absorption level in grown-ups is ten percent less. The diagnosis of lead poisoning can be made through blood sample test. In blood specimen, lead amount is measured in mg/dL i.e. “micrograms per deciliter”. If the test outcomes reveal more than 10 mg/dL of lead in the blood then the patient is diagnosed to be suffering from lead poisoning. Acute or chronic stages of lead poisoning can both be identified through this method. Cases of mild lead poisoning depict symptoms of pain in abdomen, hyperactivity, attention deficit disorder, anemia and mental illnesses. Serious implications include neurological ailments due to high accumulation of lead within the body. People suffering from lead poisoning report seizures, involuntary muscle actions, convulsive movements and these complications continue to increase in number from the disease initiation stage. Affects on the vital body organs like kidney and liver are devastating as they try to purify internal human system by excreting lead toxins from the body. Malfunctioning of reproductive organs and heart diseases are also observed. Nutrition deficits direct further way to accumulation of toxic lead in the body. Children who belong to lower socio economic status are unable to consume calcium and iron in sufficient amounts therefore their metabolic rate is low making them more vulnerable to the toxic effects of lead. Adult exposure of lead has been associated with their working patterns. Chemical and textile industries making use of lead in one way or the other are likely to result in the inhalation of this toxin by factory workers through incoming dust or by improper handling of this element. Children might get in contact through toys being manufactured using lead paint. Such paint when chipped off from walls escort to the entry of lead in the air mixing with already existing dust particles. Eroded pipelines are also a major source of lead contamination. Sometimes jewelry items are prepared using lead compounds without considering its harmful reaction when it comes in direct contact with human skin. Chemical Structure of Lead: The following is the atomic structure of lead Cases of Lead Poisoning: Lead poisoning has cost millions of lives since centuries. In China, there has been a massive relocation of almost fifteen hundred inhabitants who are being moved away from the most wide scale smelting hub in Jiyuan, a place that exists in the Henan province, to some other locality in order to avoid the harmful effects of lead. This massive movement was triggered since the identification of nearly hundred children having lead in abundance in their blood stream who used to live near the vicinity of the biggest smelter plant of China, being the property of Yuguang Gold. The case of Arthur Stayner is one of the most notable cases of lead poisoning. In Salt Lake City, Arthur was among the prominent figures being referred to as the father of industry dealing with the plantation of sugar beets in Utah. He became a victim of lead poisoning when a lead pellet got implanted in his heel leading to prolonged irritation and blood infection due to lead. Another example of lead poisoning is the epidemic that plagued the state of Zamfara of Nigeria in the year 2010. It has been estimated that mortality rate reached to a considerable extent in October, 2010 as approximately four hundred children were diagnosed of lead’s excessive presence in their blood. Lead’s harmful effects are not just limited to humans but animals and plants also have to bear the consequences of lead toxicity depending on their kind of species. In animals the negative impact of lead is quite similar to that experienced by humans e.g. they also suffer from abdominal pain, behavioral alterations in the form of more aggressive movements, peripheral neuropathy etc. The remedies and research on lead toxicity is mostly derived from studies carried out on animals. The prescribed cure through chelating agents are first tested on animals in order to retrieve information about the patho-physiology of lead like in what manner is it absorbed or utilized by the body and what is the appropriate amount that must be present in humans. Pet animals together with horses and cows are determined to be susceptible to lead poisoning. For pets, the root causes of lead toxicity could result from the same materials that pose a threat to human sustainability like the paints and blinds having lead component. Similarly pet dogs in homes suffering from lead toxicity are likely to transfer this disease to children by direct contact. Conclusion: In conclusion it can be said that lead poisoning is considered one of the most massive threat to our environment and health of our present and future generation. It has cost the lives of millions of people throughout history and yet the use of lead has not been completely outlawed. It is the need of the hour to create more and more organizations that advocate outlawing the use of lead because it is still being extensively extracted and used in various products used by people in their daily lives. Discarding of lead-based paints and gasoline has been a positive step towards the decreased use of this toxic material however a lot of work is still to be done to completely discard lead usage and to replace it with something useful to society and our environment. Calcium supplements and addition of milk in daily meals will help to eradicate lead impact on “high risk” population. It is important that people are given information sessions and are made aware of the hazards of using things that include lead so that an informed choice can be made by the consumers to opt for less harmful products. It is only through the unified attempts of producers as well as consumers that we can move towards a lead free environment. Work Cited Woolf, A. D., Goldman, R., Bellinger, D.C. Update on the clinical management of childhood lead poisoning. Pediatr Clin North Am. 54 (2007): 271-294. Print Read More