Health officials returned to a bilingual school in South Toledo to test incoming students for lead poisoning.
The medical professionals were on hand Thursday at the open house for Escuela SMART Academy, a Toledo Public Schools bilingual magnet school at 617 Western Ave. The school draws families from throughout the Toledo area and as far away as Fostoria.
“The incidents were extremely high [last year], and that’s why we are back,” said Marilynne Wood, who is a member of the executive board of Toledo Lead Poisoning Prevention Coalition and who serves as the principal investigator of a lead research project conducted through the University of Toledo.
“We are concerned about the rates there, what we are seeing, and we wanted to come back and have that opportunity again to talk to families,” she said.
Medical students working with the CommunityCare Clinic, which is a free medical clinic run by students from the University of Toledo Health Science Campus, were on hand to assist with the testing.
The Health Science campus is the former Medical College of Ohio.
The initial screen involved a finger poke to determine if a presence of lead exists.
If it is positive and the lead level is elevated above 3.5 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood, which is the accepted threshold set by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a venous blood draw is taken to provide analysis of the amount of lead in their bloodstream.
Of the 38 students screened through the finger poke at the open house, 17 had lead levels elevated above 3.5 micrograms and went on to have a blood draw. The results of those tests will not be known for another week, Ms. Wood said. Last year more than 50 percent of the 97 children screened with a finger poke at the school had lead levels that were elevated above 3.5 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood.
Typically, only a finger poke screening occurs at a school lead testing site, but phlebotomists from Mercy Health St. Vincent Medical Center were on hand at the Escuela SMART open house to provide the blood draw.
Having them there made it easier for parents who didn’t need to travel to a doctor’s office or lab for that service, said Dr. Richard Paat, who oversees the clinic and was on hand at the Escuela SMART Academy open house.
“This makes it a one-stop shop,” Mr. Paat said.
The dangers of lead poisoning, especially for children in Toledo, made it imperative for the clinic to get involved in testing, he said.
“This is important for the kids — for the development of the kids and how well they are going to do in the future as juveniles and adults,” Dr. Paat said. “And also for the families because if you can find somebody that is positive here, then the other kids might get screened in the family also.”
The clinic paid the approximately $1,000 in costs associated with the tests, and Mercy Health provided the laboratory screenings, Dr. Paat said.
There is no safe blood lead level in children, according to the CDC. Lead exposure can cause damage to the brain and nervous system, slow growth and development, and affect learning and behavior problems, and hearing and speech problems. It can also cause lower IQ, decrease ability to pay attention, and lead to underperformance in school.
Lead paint was banned in 1978 but is still found in many homes, especially in Toledo, where 92 percent of the city’s owner-occupied housing stock was built before 1980.
Lead does not biodegrade and is found at industrial sites, in soil, and in wildlife, said Shannon Walsh, a life scientist with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 5, who presented information at the open house. More than 50 parents were on hand to hear the presentations, which were provided both in Spanish and English.
“It’s probably more of a problem than we think about because it is so ubiquitous,” Ms. Walsh said. “Some of these kids just get labeled as troublemakers in school. Some of them get the services that they need, but we don’t always know it’s because of this thing that you’re exposed to in this course of your daily life.”
Once ingested, lead quickly enters the bloodstream and is stored in the bones. Symptoms may include irritability, loss of appetite, weight loss, sluggishness, fatigue, abdominal pain, vomiting, constipation, and seizures.
Health damage can be long-term. If a child is poisoned, it is imperative to increase a child’s iron, vitamin C, and calcium intake because those nutrients prevent the available lead from binding to the body's cells. Essentially, the body will absorb the food rich in calcium, vitamin C, and iron and reject the lead.
Approximately 290 pre-kindergarten through sixth-grade students are enrolled at Escuela SMART Academy, with more coming daily. Any type of resource the school can provide families, especially as it relates to overall health, is important to do, said principal Natasha Allen.
“Whatever we can do to help them, we want to be able to do it,” Ms. Allen said “Just to know the impacts that having high lead levels can cause a child. I don’t think a lot of parents know. A lot of parents probably don’t realize that it can cause some difficulties in education for their child.”
In addition to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Community Care Clinic, the city of Toledo, Mercy Health, Nationwide Children’s Hospital-Toledo, the Toledo Lead Poisoning Prevention Coalition, and the Toledo-Lucas County Health Department also supported the testing event, Ms. Wood said.
“It’s wonderful what we can do when we team up and offer [so much] to our families in the city,” Ms. Wood said. “But I still think the results are appalling.”
Toledo’s lead law
For seven years, Toledo’s attempt to implement a lead law that would require rental property owners to have their properties inspected and deemed “lead safe” has not been able to withstand legal challenges.
In the latest version, owners of residential rentals with four or fewer dwellings built before 1978 are required to have their properties inspected for lead paint while also obtaining lead-safe certificates from the Toledo-Lucas County Health Department.
In addition, a local lead inspector must complete the inspections by visually examining properties’ interiors and exteriors and collecting dust wipes to test for compliance with U.S. EPA standards.
Potential fines for violations could reach $10,000 annually. Lead-law violations would be handled in housing court as first-degree misdemeanors, similar to other building nuisances.
In June, Judge Gary Cook, of Lucas County Common Pleas Court, denied Toledo landlord and manager Charmarlyn Strong’s motion for a preliminary injunction, which she filed in March. But the city is still not enforcing the lead law as further litigation continues, said Monica Smith, the lead safe coordinator for Toledo, who was also on hand at the open house.
Approximately 3,400 properties have obtained lead-safe certificates, and property owners continue to work toward that certification despite challenges to the law, she said.
“Fingers crossed. We feel like we’re in a good position. We’re confident,” Ms. Smith said.
First Published August 18, 2023, 7:23 p.m.
