Lead-based paint is a major source of lead poisoning for children and can also affect adults. In children, lead poisoning can cause irreversible brain damage and can impair mental functioning.

It can retard mental and physical development and reduce attention span. It can also retard fatal development even at extremely low levels of lead. In adults, it can cause irritability, poor muscle coordination, and nerve damage to the sense organs and nerves controlling the body.

Lead poisoning may also cause problems with reproduction (such as a decreased sperm count). It may also increase blood pressure. Thus, young children, foetuses, infants, and adults with high blood pressure are the most vulnerable to the effects of lead.

MOST AT RISK FROM LEAD? Anyone can be poisoned by lead, but those most at risk are: Children under the age of four -because: their brain and nervous system are still developing and are more easily damaged; they actually absorb 5O% of the lead that they take into their bodies compared with 10% for adults and; toddlers under four have more hand to mouth activity and therefore ingest more lead contaminated dust. In some older urban suburbs up to 50% of children under five years have too much lead in their blood.

 

Pregnant women: Pregnant women may be at greater risk due to changes in their bodies during pregnancy. Also, there is no barrier to lead in the placenta and therefore no protection for the unborn child. Women of childbearing age: The human body mistakes lead for calcium and stores lead in our bones. During pregnancy a woman’s hormones may mobilise calcium for the growth of the baby and also mobilise any lead that she has laid down on her bones anytime throughout her life. Lead has a half – life in the bone for almost 30 years. Men: Very small amounts of lead can affect libido, fertility and blood pressure. This hypertension (high blood pressure) increases the risk of heart attack and stroke.

In Sydney, the levels of lead which are barely measurable have been shown to affect body systems. The 1993 Australian National Goal is to have all Australians below 10m g/dL. That is equivalent to one teaspoon of lead in a large backyard swimming pool! One chip of old lead paint the size of your fingernail, eaten by a child, is enough to raise their lead levels dangerously high. In other words not much lead is too much lead for good health.

You or your children could have elevated blood lead levels and not know it because even though serious, long-term damage is occurring, patients usually do not show symptoms until levels are very high. Low levels of lead can cause brain damage, learning difficulties, behavioural problems, kidney damage, hearing impairment, growth retardation and many other affects, but these are often difficult to recognise until the damage is done. High levels of lead can cause miscarriage, birth defects, coma and death. Symptoms, when they do occur are often subtle and are attributed to other causes. In children these can be irritability, tiredness or decreased play activity, loss of appetite, abdominal pain, muscle aches, vomiting, diarrhoea, constipation and headaches. Adults can also suffer loss of libido, infertility and elevated blood pressure.

Australia Wide Painters Employees and sub-contractors who are based in Sydney follow strict safety standards in accordance with our Occupational Health and Safety and Environmental Management Procedures. We use a range of Elevated Work platforms and access equipments for carrying out lead removal work in Sydney safely. Our Personnel are fully licensed for all the tasks we undertake. All our employees are site safety induced and have induction cards.

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