https://futurism.com/neoscope/half-american-kids-lead-blood-doctors-say Bad Blood Yesterday / by Dan Robitzski Half of American Kids Have Lead in Their Blood, Doctors Say "These findings confirm that we still have a long way to go to end childhood lead poisoning in the United States." Yesterday / Dan Robitzski [svg] Getty / Futurism Image by Getty / Futurism Studies Half of the children in the U.S. appear to have the toxic heavy metal lead in their blood, according to alarming new research. After analyzing blood tests conducted on 1.14 million children younger than the age of six, scientists saw observable levels of the toxic metal in about half, according to a massive study published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics on Monday. And that number, compared to previous generations, is on the rise. The scientists found that most of the affected kids -- who had gotten a blood test for one reason or another between 2018 and 2020 -- didn't have enormous amounts of lead in their bloodstreams, and only two percent had a "high" level. But as the researchers note in their paper, there's no such thing as a safe amount of lead to have in your system. "The broad picture is: kids have lead in the U.S.," Children's Hospital at Montefiore lead poisoning prevention and treatment program director Morri Markowitz told Bloomberg. "For lead there's no too low. We want zero." Advertisement Advertisement Lead can cause permanent damage to children's nervous system, leading to problems like learning disabilities as well as speech and hearing problems for life. While the researchers suspected their work would turn up higher numbers of kids with lead exposure than previous studies, they told Bloomberg that they were surprised by just how big of a problem it was. Many of the cases, they also found, were linked to poverty -- especially old housing in underserved communities. "These findings confirm that we still have a long way to go to end childhood lead poisoning in the United States," two Harvard researchers, a neurologist and an environmental health expert, wrote in an editorial about the research also published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics, and "underscore the urgent need to eliminate all sources of lead exposure." Futurism Readers: Find out how much you could save by switching to solar power at UnderstandSolar.com. By signing up through this link, Futurism.com may receive a small commission. Advertisement Advertisement Share This Article read_more READ MORE: Lead Contamination Found in Blood of Half of Young Kids in U.S. [Bloomberg] related More on lead poisoning: Scientists Warn That More Electronics May Result in More Lead Poisoning Image by Getty / Futurism Advertisement Advertisement Read This Next 9.27.21 Developments COVID Patients Tell Doctor Coronavirus Is Fake, Then All Die 9.25.21 Treatments Scientists Say They're Almost Ready With a Pill to Treat COVID 9.25.21 Developments Man Punches Nurse for Giving His Wife the COVID Vaccine "Without His Consent" 9.23.21 Mental Health Scientists Use AR to Make Arachnophobes See Huge Spiders 9.20.21 Studies Scientists May Have Discovered the Cause of Alzheimer's Disease Advertisement Advertisement The Latest 9.24.21 Robotics/Prosthetics MIT Establishes New Initiative to Meld Humans and Machines "The world profoundly needs relief from the disabilities imposed by today's nonexistent or broken technologies." By Dan Robitzski / Read More >> 9.23.21 Developments Several People in ICU After Attending "COVID Party" "It's just unbelievable." By Victor Tangermann / Read More >> 9.23.21 Devices Scientists Working on Toilet That Identifies You by Your Butthole Many users "wouldn't, for very good reasons, like cameras pointing up their bottoms." By Victor Tangermann / Read More >> Keep up. Subscribe to our daily newsletter to keep in touch with the subjects shaping our future. [ ]I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its User Agreement and Privacy Policy Subscribe Advertisement Advertisement +Social+Newsletter TopicsAbout UsContact Us Copyright (c), Camden Media Inc All Rights Reserved. See our User Agreement, Privacy Policy and Data Use Policy. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with prior written permission of Futurism. Fonts by Typekit and Monotype.