Lead Harms Children's Kidneys

Even small levels of lead exposure may damage children's kidneys.
The Los Angeles Times (3/8, Worth) reports that, according to a study published in January in the Archives of Internal Medicine, "even small levels of lead exposure may be damaging to children's kidneys." After examining "the records of 769 healthy youth ages 12 to 20 with average blood lead levels of 1.5 micrograms per deciliter (well below the 10 microgram 'threshold' of concern per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)," investigators discovered that "children with levels of just 2.9 micrograms per deciliters had worse kidney function than those with lower levels." In fact, "with each doubling of lead levels, the filtration capacity dropped."
Donor compensation seen as long-run solution to kidney shortage. In an op-ed in the Washington Post (3/8), Sally Satel, MD, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and Mark J. Perry, a professor of economics at the University of Michigan-Flint, wrote, "There are more than 83,000 Americans with renal failure on the national waiting list for kidneys." Unfortunately, "according to the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), the nonprofit entity overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services, which maintains the national waiting list, the number of transplant operations has been basically flat since 2004," even though the number of people waiting to receive a kidney is increasing. Satel and Perry concluded that "the most promising long-run solution to the kidney shortage is a system of donor compensation."