MENTAL HEALING SUGGESTED LEAD-HARMED KIDS IMPROVE IN TESTS

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 7, 1993                   TAG: 9304070142
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHICAGO                                LENGTH: Medium
MENTAL HEALING SUGGESTED LEAD-HARMED KIDS IMPROVE IN TESTS
Children with moderate lead poisoning scored better on intelligence tests after the amount of lead in their blood was reduced, researchers said Tuesday.
While the findings offer hope that the effects of lead poisoning can be reversed, they do not establish a cause-and-effect connection, the research team said in today's Journal of the American Medical Association.
"The relationship we see here is consistent with the idea that there is some reversibility," said chief author Holly A. Ruff, a developmental psychologist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.
The six-month study of 154 children is the first to find a relationship between a reduction in blood lead levels and increased intelligence scores, Ruff said.
The research is complex and open to interpretation, but it "does indicate a need for further work," said Dr. Sue Binder, chief of the lead poisoning prevention branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
Another group of researchers concluded that removing lead-contaminated soil does not reduce blood lead levels enough to justify its cost in most cases.
The CDC estimates that 3 million U.S. children have lead concentrations above the danger level of 10 micrograms per deciliter of blood.
The most common source of lead poisoning is peeling or chipping paint in buildings built before 1960. Soil near heavily traveled major highways may be contaminated by the exhaust from cars burning leaded gasoline.
Sixty-one of the tested children, ages 13 to 87 months, were treated at least once during the period with edetate calcium disodium, a drug that helps the body eliminate lead. Sixty of them received iron supplements to correct an iron deficiency.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB