Friday, December 30, 2016

Flint is not alone

Last year, the city of Flint, Michigan, was in the news because of lead in its drinking water. 5 percent of the children screened there had high blood lead levels. Reuters has done a study of other areas in this country. In fact, Reuters found almost 3,000 areas with poisoning rates at least double those in Flint. More than 1,100 of these communities had a rate of elevated blood tests at least four times higher.

Some examples:
In parts of Cleveland, half of children tested had elevated lead levels, a rate 10 times higher than in Flint.
In some areas of Baltimore, the rates of lead poisoning reached 40 percent.
In one census tract near Notre Dame 31.3 percent of children tested since 2005 showed lead levels above the current federal threshold. 
In Milwaukee, 11.5 percent of children tested had high levels.


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