“Lead is the number-one environmental health threat to our children.” So says the Environmental Protection Agency of the United States. Those of us who have been around for a while remember the lead paint scare. After lead paint was outlawed, it took a while to remove or paint over the toxic covering. But that didn’t by any means end the ways lead can get into our bodies.

Of the five heavy metals that cause health concerns when ingested, lead, cadmium, mercury, aluminum, and beryllium, the first three cause the greatest risks. They do not help our bodies in any known way. Lead can be ingested in a wide variety of ways. Here are some: car batteries, cigarette smoke, cosmetics, hair dyes, pottery, lead solder, toothpastes,  metal polish, some colored inks, and many others.

One major way of ingesting these poisons is through drinking water. Old houses might still have lead pipes. Though copper replaced lead a long time ago, not all houses have been upgraded. Old well casings and storage tanks might also contain lead. City water is fed by wells or rivers and they inevitably contain some level of lead. The author checked his own city water system and found the level of lead in the water he receives is 2.5 parts per billion. Levels as high as 12 ppb are still within the limits. However, the last lead test on the water was done two years before the report was issued.

Concern over lead poisoning in city water systems only increases when one reads a report from the Washington Post. Their examination of 65 of the 3,000 largest utilities found that Portland, Maine, New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, and Providence, R.I. are “manipulating the results of tests used to detect lead in water, violating federal law and putting millions of Americans at risk.” The report further states that more than 250 major cities currently exceed the EPA’s lead standards, and many are using deceptive means in reporting of the problems.

Though lead has no known advantage to the body, it does cause known problems.  “Each year in the U.S., lead in drinking water contributes to 480,000 cases of learning disorders in children and 560,000 cases of hypertension in adult males.” We cannot totally rid ourselves of ingesting lead, but we can minimize the problem as much as possible.

Here is an edited list of some of the negative impact of lead on the human body: depression, dyslexia, emotional instability, encephalitis, epilepsy, fatigue, gout, hallucinations, headaches, hostility, hyperactivity, hypertension, hypothyroid, impotence, immune suppression, decreased IQ, indigestion, infertility, insomnia, irritability, joint pain, kidney disorders, learning disability, liver dysfunction, loss of will, memory loss (long term), menstrual problems, mood swings, muscle aches, muscle weakness, muscular dystrophy, and multiple sclerosis.

There is more to that list. Summing it up, the concern about lead poisoning center on kidney problems and nervous system damage. Though these are not the only problems, as you can see, they certainly are serious enough by themselves.

The next question is, what do we do about it? How can we protect our children from any possibility of the crippling effects of lead poisoning? First, check your house for lead paint and your water system for lead pipes. Second, filter your drinking and cooking water. A good activated carbon filter like the Black Berkey or their shower filter will remove 95% of the lead present in the water. That is a giant first step in providing safe water for yourself and your family.