Fewer children have high lead levels

CHICAGO - In a stunning improvement in children's health, far fewer children have high lead levels than 20 years ago, according to new government research.

Federal researchers credited the improvement on aggressive efforts to reduce children's exposure to lead in old house paint, soil, water, and other sources.

Lead can interfere with the developing nervous system and cause permanent problems with learning, memory, and behavior. Children in poor neighborhoods have generally been more at risk because they tend to live in older housing and in industrial areas.

Researchers found that just 1.4 percent of young children had elevated lead levels in their blood in 2004, the latest data available. That compares with almost 9 percent in 1988.

"It has been a remarkable decline," said Mary Jean Brown of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a coauthor of the study. "It's a public health success story."

The 84 percent drop extends a trend that began in the 1970s when efforts began to remove lead from gasoline.

The study was being released today in the March edition of the journal Pediatrics. It is based on nearly 5,000 children, ages 1 to 5, who were part of a periodic government health survey.

The government considers levels of at least 10 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood to be elevated, although research has shown that levels less than that can still cause problems including attention and reading difficulties.

There is no known "safe" level, the study authors noted.

By 2004, racial disparities among children with blood-lead levels higher than 10 micrograms had mostly disappeared: About equal numbers of white, black, and Mexican-American children had levels in that range.

However, disparities at lower levels remained. For example, almost 18 percent of white children had levels of less than 1 microgram per deciliter, versus 11 percent of Mexican-Americans and 4 percent of blacks.