The report says much housing infrastructure was built before the use of new lead pipes was banned in 1986. Lead can affect intelligence, behavior and learning, experts say.
A worker holds coiled copper pipe as it is installed at a home during a service to replace lead infrastructure in 2023 in Chicago. The research, published Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, estimated that 68 percent of children under the age of 6 in Chicago are exposed to lead-contaminated drinking water. Of that group, 19 percent primarily use unfiltered tap water, which was associated with a greater increase in blood lead levels.
“The extent of lead contamination of tap water in Chicago is disheartening — it’s not something we should be seeing in 2024,” lead author Benjamin Huynh, assistant professor of environmental health and engineering at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said in aThe study suggested that residential blocks with predominantly Black and Hispanic populations were less likely to be tested for lead, but also disproportionately exposed to contaminated water.
Researchers used artificial intelligence to extrapolate on 38,385 tap water tests collected from January 2016 to September 2023, provided by the Chicago Department of Water Management. High levels of lead exposure can cause severe brain and central nervous system damage, leading to intellectual disabilities, behavioral disorders, coma, convulsions and death,at lower levels, the effects of lead consumption in children may be decreased intelligence, behavioral difficulties and learning problems, the WHO says, along with various physical effects.
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