Childhood lead exposure costing countries $977 B yearly

MANILA, Philippines - Childhood lead exposure is costing low and middle income countries $977 billion annually due to reduced intelligence quotients (IQs) and earning losses, according to an environmental group.

Citing data from a study of medical experts from New York University, Von Hernandez, EcoWaste Coalition president, said the economic cost of childhood lead exposure is estimated to have reached over $15 billion in the Philippines, the second highest in Southeast Asia.

“Childhood lead exposure could already be costing the country $15,019,373,494 in lost lifetime economic productivity per year due to lead-attributable IQ loss,” he said.

“The estimated $15-billion shortfalls in economic productivity due to early exposure to lead, a chemical poison that can permanently damage the brain, should jolt government and industry decision makers to swiftly act towards eliminating all major sources of childhood lead

poisoning, starting with the low hanging fruits.”

The World Health Organization (WHO) has identified other major sources of childhood lead exposure such as lead solder in food cans, lead in electronic waste, lead released by incineration of lead-containing waste, lead in the food chain via contaminated soil and lead in petrol, which has been phased out in the Philippines and most of the world.

“The consequences of brain injury from exposure to lead in early life are loss of intelligence, shortening of attention span and disruption of behavior,” the WHO said.

“Because the human brain has little capacity for repair, these effects are untreatable and irreversible. They cause diminution in brain function and reduction in achievement that last throughout life.”

The EcoWaste Coalition asked decision makers to draw up a national program to systematically arrest childhood lead exposure at source, including systematic screening, surveillance and prevention of lead poisoning.

“Despite a decline in blood lead concentration worldwide, lead exposure still represents a major contributor to children intellectual disability in many low and middle income countries. This, in turn, translates into significant earning losses over a lifetime, which we estimated at 1.20 percent of the world GDP. Economic losses due to lead exposures in children will continue unless measures to prevent lead exposure are implemented in all countries,” the study said.

“Without adequate preventive measures, the cost of inaction is represented by substantial economic losses and health consequences for society as a whole for generations to come.”

Using a regression model, the authors calculated how much blood lead levels in children under 5 years of age would lower IQ points and then computed how much of their earnings would drop due to early childhood lead exposure.

The authors limited their cost estimates to the neuro-developmental impact of lead, which is assessed as decrements in IQ points, and excluded costs of mild mental retardation, costs of lead exposure later in life such as heart diseases, and costs of criminality and violence due to lack of data in developing regions.

Authors of the study are Teresa Attina and Leonardo Trasande of the NYU School of Medicine.

The study was published online in Environmental Health Perspectives last June 25. It  is the first study to gauge the economic cost of children’s exposure to lead in the developing regions of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.