Home is where the lead is.
In Tijuana it hides in the colorful, lead-glazed pottery children eat on, in the folk remedies they take for childhood illness, in the fumes from leaded gasoline, and in the water they drink. Science has long accepted that young children are more susceptible to low levels of lead exposure than older kids and adults. As the brain grows and organizes itself in the early years, lead takes its insidious toll, causing learning disabilities, behavior problems, hyperactivity, developmental delays and other serious physical and mental problems. Whether Tijuana children are absorbing unhealthy amounts of lead from home and environmental sources is the focus of a two-year study by UCI researchers Dr. Dean Baker, director of UCI s Center for Occupational and Environmental Health, and Jonathan Ericson, a professor in the School of Social Ecology . The data they re obtaining from blood tests of some 1,600 Mexican children will help officials target areas for abatement efforts inside the home and around the city.