Lead in the environment - origins, pathways and sinks.

1. Lead is a natural constituent of the environment. 2.

Tracer studies of ingestion of dust by urban children.

It has been known for many years that the eating of leaded paint is the prime cause of lead poisoning and elevated blood leads of children living in deteriorated housing. Recently, there has been speculation that children may eat dirt and dust contaminated with lead exhausted from cars and that this amount of ingested lead is sufficient to contribute significantly to the childhood lead problem. This study used a naturally occurring radioactive tracer (lead-210) to determine the relative amounts of dust and other lead-containing materials (e.

New information on lead in dirt and dust as related to the childhood lead problem.

It has been known for many years that the eating of leaded paint is the prime cause of lead poisoning and elevated blood leads of children living in deteriorated housing. Recently, there has been speculation that children may eat dirt and dust contaminated with lead exhausted from cars and that this amount of ingested lead is sufficient to contribute significantly to the childhood lead problem. This paper reports on a twopart study conducted to evaluate the validity of the dirt-and-dust hypotheses.