Author: Dr. Sandra Cottingham

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

LANDLORDS LOOK-OUT AS TENANTS LEARN ABOUT LEAD EXPOSURE

Many are looking to city officials for better enforcement of rulings that make landlords responsible for lead disclosure and removal. Meanwhile, lead exposed tenants are landing big court settlements.

In past years, there has been no shortage of people around with their head in the sand on the issue of lead exposure. However that complacency came with both misinformation about the dangerous impact of lead, and a high price to pay in terms of who has been impacted and how. Today, with all of the information available there is a new awareness about lead and rightly, a new respect for it.

Lead has the ability to steal one’s life potential in a single exposure. It spares none – from the unborn (our most susceptible) to the aging. Usually, it takes years before the effects of accumulated, low-level exposure is realized. It becomes obvious when a child enters school that he or she is slow to learn, or can’t concentrate. Or when an aging parent begins to lose cognitive function. Unfortunately, it has taken too many of us too long to connect these with lead.

But now that we have, the spot light is turning on those individuals who own the buildings that contain one of the most prevalent and devastating sources of lead around: old paint.

We are hardly talking about a slap on the wrist for less than diligent landlords. Last year’s Matias case awarded 8.5 million dollars in compensation to a 15 year old who had been lead exposed in a rental apartment over a two year period, 8 years earlier. The child’s cognitive damage included nothing that teachers don’t see everyday: a diagnosed learning disability with attention, memory and behavior deficits. The apartment owner was found negligent in the trial.

Lawsuits are before the courts where exposure was ten and twenty years ago. More and more lawyers are advertising their services specifically to those who have been lead exposed. Estimates of the number of school-aged children who have learning and behavioral challenges linked to lead are moving beyond 30%, while the number of those with IQ’s in the mentally handicapped range is predicted to double in the next decade.

Why the staggering numbers? According to special educator, and lead expert/author, Dr. Sandra Cottingham, the amount of lead it takes to permanently damage the developing brain of an unborn child is surprisingly small. Her new book entitled, LEAD BABIES describes the amount as equal to just three granules of table sugar. In landlord terms: just a single square inch of lead based paint is enough to cause measureable damage to 500 children.

Cottingham’s advice for landlords is to properly test all paint layers of rental units, especially if built before 1978. She stresses the importance of following lead abatement guidelines very carefully and providing a safe, lead-free home for renters. Finally, she recommends that landlords protect themselves against liability by ensuring there is no lead on the premises.

The alternative to removing lead paint is to complete a lead disclosure form and provide a potential tenant with the regionally designated lead hazard pamphlet. As the courts are showing, it is the landlord’s responsibility to make tenants fully aware of the health risks their unit poses.

More information about lead's impact and what individuals can do to protect themselves is available at www.nomoreleadbabies.com

LEAD BABIES
Breaking the cycle of learning disabilities, declining IQ, ADHD, behavior problems, and autism

Authors: Joanna Cerazy M.Ed. and Sandra Cottingham Ph.D
Publisher: Kunati Inc (USA & Canada) 1-866-356-2442
www.kunati.com
Distribution: Independent Publishers Group (IPG)
ISBN: 978-1-60164-192-2

Friday, July 3, 2009

LEAD BABIES LAUNCH an Overwhelming Success!

Sunday afternoon at Indigo books this past weekend exceeded even the staff's expectations in attendance and book sales. My co-author and I signed books steadily for 2 busy hours. Friends, family, educators - moms, dads, grandparents, and simply interested individuals enjoyed cold punch and hors d'euvres against the backdrop of a live cellist playing. Our thanks goes to the Grandview Corners Indigo staff who made sure that every detail was perfect.

LEAD BABIES
Breaking the cycle of learning disabilities, declining IQ, ADHD, behavior problems, and autism

Authors: Joanna Cerazy M.Ed. and Sandra Cottingham Ph.D
www.nomoreleadbabies.com
Publisher: Kunati Inc (USA & Canada) 1-866-356-2442
www.kunati.com
Distribution: Independent Publishers Group (IPG)
ISBN: 978-1-60164-192-2

Lead In Children's Bicycles OK Rules Consumer Product Safety Commission

Guidelines allowing lead in children's products concern lead activists, led by Dr. Sandra Cottingham

Published on July 02, 2009

by Sandra Cottingham

(OfficialWire)

VANCOUVER B.C. CANADA

The Consumer Product Safety Commission handed down its decision today: bicycle manufacturers have been granted a two-year stay of enforcement against a new lead limit law, effective until July 1, 2011.

The lead law is part of the Consumer Product Safety Information Act, which came into effect last August. The Act was designed to ensure that products used by and for children do not contain lead. Or rather, it puts limits on the amount of lead that can be used in these products.

The Bicycle Product Suppliers Association justified continued use of small bicycle components such as the levers used in brakes, by showing that the amounts of lead children get from other sources such as water and food are higher than their intake as a result of exposure to bicycle component parts.

Author of a new book on lead, Dr. Sandra Cottingham, says this scenario is absurd for two reasons. First she points to the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s allowable limits and reduction plan. The allowable limit is 600 parts per million, with a plan to gradually decrease it to 100 parts per million by 2011. “There is definitive and indisputable research that shows that there is no safe level of lead. While lead poisoning is and always has been a serious issue, it is low level toxic exposure that is causing the permanent and widespread cognitive damage that is the biggest threat and doing the most damage.”

But Cottingham has an even bigger concern and she calls the rationale behind the stay – that forcing some children’s products off the market would create safety concerns - a red herring:

“The Commission recognizes that correctly sizing the bicycle to the rider is an important safety consideration and includes this recommendation in its bicycle safety messages. Children who cannot comfortably reach the pedals or who have to use the more complicated braking and gear shift mechanisms found on adult bicycles are at greater risk of injury than children riding properly sized and equipped bicycles.”

"The issue is lead, not bicycle safety," Cottingham reminds us. The Commission acknowledged that there are health concerns associated with lead, but the “lead poisoning and elevated blood lead levels” they refer to don’t speak to the matter meaningfully according to Dr. Cottingham. She explains that lead does the worst of its damage in-utero – while the brain of an unborn child is in its earliest stages of development. Therefore, a mother’s lifelong accumulation of lead – a tiny bit at a time over her life, stored in her bones, is released during pregnancy at the detriment of the fetal brain. Up until a baby is about 2 years of age, until the blood brain barrier is formed, a baby is critically vulnerable to lead damage. The resulting damage is permanent and debilitating, leaving school age children with learning and behavior problems that will carry forward and impact their earning potential as adults. Sterility for men and women is another serious lead exposure outcome of epidemic proportion.

So where did all the lead that has accumulated in a teenager or adult’s bones and tissues come from? From food, drinking water, dust, soil – from one’s surroundings, explains Cottingham who devoted a book to explaining the prevalence of low level lead sources. She refers us to the weights used in car wheels – a major source of lead. Then to the impact on employees handling lead in a manufacturing plant that can be devastating not only to the worker, but to his family, as lead travels home, contaminates the family car, the laundry, and adds to the heavy metal toxicity of the home. She explains how lead deposited on roadways becomes airborne and travels long distances. “It never breaks down or dissolves. It never becomes less toxic.”

The lead components in children’s bikes will not cause lead “poisoning” unless a child somehow gets their hands on a valve stem or spoke nipple and accidentally swallows it. And if Cottingham is right, the bikes’ contribution to the larger problem of low-level lead exposure seems to have been missed completely. Consumers are simply not being given accurate information about the risks that the lead poses,” she insists.

Cottingham’s recommendation – “Don’t wait for government regulation when it comes to issues related to toxic exposure. Your best defense is to become a lead-savvy consumer and take the simple steps needed to lead-proof your home. Cottingham’s book entitled, LEAD BABIES, Breaking the cycle of learning disabilities, declining IQ, ADHD, behavior problems, and autism” provides readers with the information and tools required. It is a practical and easy to follow guide to ensuring you and your family are lead-safe. You can visit www.nomoreleadbabies.com for more information, or pick up a copy at your local library.

The stay applies to bikes manufactured before Feb. 10, 2009.

Lead Babies

Breaking the Cycle of Learning Disabilities, Declining IQ, ADHD, Behavior Problems, and Autism

Joanna Cerazy, MEd (Author), Sandra Cottingham, PhD (Author)

This groundbreaking study reveals the continuing danger that lead contamination presents to health—particularly in the earliest stages of life. Disclosure about the lead content in house paint, gasoline, canned food, and tap water revolutionized the manufacturing of those products a generation ago, but lead-based products are still produced and pose a health hazard as lead remains in the environment years after its initial use. The deleterious effects of lead on early cognitive development are well documented, but the data in this reference regarding in utero lead transfer contains critical new information that shows the effects on infants and families. Week-by-week brain development in unborn and newborn children is demonstrated, explaining lead’s damage potential at each stage and how that household sources and surroundings—including soil, plumbing, imported canned goods, and house dust—are outlined and simple precautions that can reduce or minimize exposure are discussed. With an awareness that has allowed a generation of injured children to be born, and empowers the reader to break this destructive cycle.

Authors

Joanna Cerazy, MEd, is a special education consultant and has taught both regular and special education classes in primary, elementary, and secondary schools. Sandra Cottingham, PhD, is a special education consultant with 20 years of classroom experience. She is an instructor in the department of counseling psychology and special education at the University of British Columbia and an associate of the Taos Institute. They both live in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Lead Babies

Childrens: Parenting & Family Care, Health

256 pages, Cloth, 5.5 x 8.5
Kunati Books
$24.95 (CAN $25.95)
9781601641922
(1601641923)

Contact

Persona Corporation
Derek Armstrong
derekarmstrong@mac.com
Tel: (647) 477-8179

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Pair of Surrey educators try to get the lead out

By Alex Browne - Peace Arch News

Published: June 25, 2009 3:00 PM

School days – especially for elementary age children – are not the way many adults remember them.

Learning disabilities, declining IQ levels, attention deficit disorder, autism and behaviour problems – such as violence and delinquency – have become epidemic among children over the last few decades.

Joanna Cerazy and Sandra Cottingham are two Surrey school district special-education specialists – Cerazy as a hands-on worker with a caseload, Cottingham as a district level consultant – who have seen the increase in children with such problems. And it’s become clear it’s a problem not just affecting children in their own school district, but worldwide.

Rather than continue to find ways to cope with symptoms, the two colleagues decided instead to question why.

What they found was a mass of evidence and research to suggest exposure to lead in our environment – passed on to unborn children – is the primary cause of the upswing.

Their just-released book, Lead Babies (Kunati Books), is being launched this weekend at Grandview Corners.

Cerazy, a South Surrey resident, said that in more than 20 years in education, starting in her native Poland, she has seen the incidence of developmental problems rise to almost one in every six children.

“We wanted to know what’s going on,” she said. “We started researching various toxins and realized that lead was causing it – that even a low level of lead exposure can cause very serious problems.”

While the toxic effects of lead have been known for years, Lead Babies gathers together the latest research concerning in utero transfer of lead from mother to baby, showing that lead – from a multitude of apparently harmless sources – can pass into the brain and other organs of unborn children.

As sobering as the message is, there is hope to reverse the trend.

The authors assert the aim of Lead Babies is to take a positive approach, provide practical information that will allow parents to lead-proof their homes and protect their children from the beginning of pregnancy through the early childhood years.

“We didn’t want to scare the heck out of people, we wanted to empower them,” said Cottingham, a North Delta resident.

“We’re saying we can do this for another generation, or if we’re really aware of it, we can break the cycle. We’re saying here’s the process we need to go through to lead-proof our homes. It’s not that scary, it’s not that difficult. It’s doable.”

Cottingham said they didn’t set out to write a book on lead.

“We wondered what would happen if we took research from a lot of different disciplines, from toxicology to neurology, and put together all the pieces of the puzzle,” she said.

There is a well-known tendency for different scientific research disciplines to co-exist in isolation, Cottingham said, but when she and Cerazy started correlating data from many of them, a clear pattern emerged.

“The answer kept coming up lead – and the heavy metals in general,” she said

There is, for example, a section in the book on mercury – which has been linked with autistic behaviours.

“But there’s a significant increase in the toxic effect of mercury when there is lead in people’s systems. There’s a synergistic effect. It’s a missing piece of the puzzle, one you might not see if you’re only looking at mercury. But lead is such a key piece.”

The lead industry is still flourishing, Cerazy and Cottingham report. Lead is an important component in many cosmetics, and is a key ingredient in plastics that are required to be bendable, including toys. It can even be found in some kinds of imported candy.

While some have been lulled by the notion that there are “acceptable levels” of lead, the authors say their research indicates that there is no such thing as a “safe” level where lead is concerned.

“I demonstrate to people by showing them three granules of table sugar,” said Cottingham.

“That’s the equivalent amount of lead it takes to cause brain damage in a child.”

Again, Cottingham emphasizes that the book is intended to present practical solutions, not induce panic.

And judging by hits on the authors’ website, the book is already generating a large amount of interest internationally, a fact she finds heartening.

“I really think we can break this cycle,” she said.

Cerazy and Cottingham will be on-hand at Indigo Books at Grandview Corners this Sunday (June 28) from 2 to 4 p.m. to launch their book and discuss their findings.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

BIG NEWS IN AUTISM RESEARCH!

Just published by the American Association for the Promotion of Research...

The Frequency of Polymorphisms affecting Lead and Mercury Toxicity among Children with Autism

Biochemistry and Biotechnology

Read the article here... http://aapr.us/aapr/?p=571

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Lead Testing begins in Staten Island… 30 years after the fact.

“Nearly 30 years after a bad address led to a toxic Port Richmond industrial site being overlooked for decades, the federal Environmental Protection Agency this week will begin tests to see how much lead contamination from the old Jewett White Lead plant on Richmond Terrace has seeped into the neighborhood” reports Staten Island Real-Time news.

A school gymnasium full of residents were told that an inspector had once come looking for a site called “Shore Road”, and not realizing the name had been changed to “Richmond Terrace”, abandoned the search for the reported lead hazard site. It reads a bit like a movie script with Julia Roberts about to arrive on the scene.

There have been early reports that the surface soil at the site is 30 x safe limits. However, as Cerazy and Cottingham point out in their newly released book, LEAD BABIES, there is no such thing a “safe level” when it comes to lead. “Its so toxic to a developing brain – either through a child’s direct contact with lead, or in-utero exposure where a mother’s life-long accumulation of lead stored in her bones head straight for baby, that even trace amounts cause permanent damage.”

Residents are being advised to wash their homegrown vegetables well. But better advice would be to get backyard soil tested to see if it is safe to allow children and pets yard access. Testing the water, instead of using it to wash the vegetables, seems like a more logical response.

As random soil testing throughout the adjacent neighborhood gets underway, the broader region is also a concern. A nearby park will need to be re-landscaped before it is deemed safe for children.

Residents and homeowners are justifiably angry that this cleanup has been left for decades. The question is, how much lead has accumulated in the bones and brain tissues of residents in the years that have passed. Of course the children’s safety is of paramount concern, but as Cerazy and Cottingham make so clear in their book, “lead poisoning” at age 10 is a completely different issue than being born with a severe learning disability, ADHD or with a mental handicap because your mother’s lead crossed the placenta and permanently damaged your brain. Given the studies that are emerging one after another, showing that bone lead and delinquent or criminal behavior are causally linked, there needs to be as much focus on getting the lead out of the systems of the teenagers and young adults, as there does protective measures for children (and pets).

LEAD BABIES

Breaking the cycle of learning disabilities, declining IQ, ADHD, behavior problems, and autism

Authors: Joanna Cerazy M.Ed. and Sandra Cottingham Ph.D
www.nomoreleadbabies.com
Publisher: Kunati Inc (USA & Canada) 1-866-356-2442
www.kunati.com
Distribution: Independent Publishers Group (IPG)
ISBN: 978-1-60164-192-2

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Toymaker Giant fined for allowing lead paint. What does this ruling mean for families?

Toymaker giant, Mattel and its subsidiary Fisher-Price, has been fined 2.3 million by the United States’ Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) for allowing toys containing lead into the United States. This is a clear message to both toymakers and consumers, that the “CPSC is committed to the safety of children, to reducing their exposure to lead, and to the implementation of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act.”

And there is a ban on lead paint for a good reason. Not enough of us have a real understanding of what lead does to babies and children, and just how little it takes to do damage. They are simply not aware of what it means to a child when there is lead paint on a Barbie doll, or a toy car.

An amount of lead equivalent to three tiny granules of sugar – the kind you put in your tea, is all it takes to cause permanent damage. There is simply no safe level of lead exposure, and the younger the child, the more susceptible they are to it.

In older children, lead lowers IQ and adds to an accumulating lead load that is resulting in concerning behavior problems in the teen years. When lead reaches the developing brain of an unborn child or a child under two, the result is lowered intelligence, learning disabilities, ADHD and behavior disorders later in life. It’s the explanation of why there is a growing epidemic of individuals with learning and behavior challenges – a factor that is not only stressing the resources of schools, but also safety and productivity in the workplace. Add the related issue of crime and its costs, also an issue that researchers are certain is lead exposure related, and you have a very significant burden that taxpayers must shoulder.

Canadian authors, Cerazy and Cottingham say this news about Mattel’s fine is a positive step for consumers, but this is not a message that we can sit back and rest easy. In fact, they insist, the message is the opposite. It is up to individuals to make their homes lead-safe. A list of recalled products or government intervention in bad manufacturing practice is simply not enough.

“Consumers need a good understanding of the science attached to our biological susceptibility. And insight into the demand our society has created for lead’s continuing use and production so we know where to look for lead.” Cerazy and Cottingham maintain that creating a lead-safe home is not complicated or expensive, but that it takes more than removing a few Barbies or toy cars from the toy box. Their new book, “Lead Babies” ties science to real life, and then guides readers through a practical three-step process to identify and remove lead from their homes.

Visit www.nomoreleadbabies.com for more information about the book entitled, “LEAD BABIES; Breaking the cycle of learning disabilities, declining IQ, ADHD, behavior problems, and autism”.

LEAD BABIES; Breaking the cycle of learning disabilities, declining IQ, ADHD, behavior problems, and autism