Lead poisoning costs world's children 765 million IQ points a year: Study

Low-level lead poisoning remains pervasive in the U.S. and world populations despite decades of efforts to end the use of lead in infrastructure, according to a study by researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.

The results, published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that exposure to lead, even at levels once considered safe, is a factor in 5.5 million deaths from cardiovascular disease a year. In children, for whom lead exposure is a major contributor to problems with cognitive development, researchers found it continues to cost the collective equivalent of 765 million IQ points a year.

In addition to developmental and cardiovascular problems, low-level lead poisoning is associated with hypertension and chronic kidney failure in adults.

“The global burden of disease from lead exposure is staggering,” Ana Navas-Acien, chair of environmental health sciences at the Mailman School, said in a statement. “In contrast to the decline in the rate of coronary heart disease in industrialized countries, the rate has increased over the past 30 years in industrializing countries. One in three children worldwide — more than 600 million children — have lead poisoning.”

The study comes as the Biden administration has stepped up efforts to replace the U.S.’s remaining lead pipes, requiring water systems to replace all water lines containing lead over the next decade, as well as finalizing a new federal standard last week that established a “zero tolerance” baseline for any amount of lead paint dust detected in a building.

“Too often our children, the most vulnerable residents of already overburdened communities, are the most profoundly impacted by the toxic legacy of lead-based paint,” Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement announcing the final standard last week. “EPA is getting the lead out of communities nationwide."