Low level lead exposure to children is an ongoing issue in the lead mining city of Mt Isa, Queensland, though it appear that airborne lead levels have been controlled for some years.
It is interesting to see the US National Toxicology Program (NTP); Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction (CERHR); Evaluation of the Health Effects of Low-Level Lead Exposure becoming more active in this low level lead exposures, with a call for comment in the US Federal Register Vol. 75, No. 162, Monday, August 23, 2010.
This follows an evaluation by the NTP Board of Scientific Counsellors in 2007 a subsequent meeting in May 2010.
I suspect that as lead is a non-essential element in our bodies – a homologue of elements like calcium, the closer low level exposures are investigated, the lower the detectable threshold of health effects will be revealed, particularly neurological effects.
