Since Downwinders was asked to help Frisco residents relocate a 50-year old lead smelter last year, there's been one study after another linking lead exposure to a variety of new health effects. This month it's gout.
"Even relatively low levels of lead in the blood may be linked to an increased risk of gout, a painful form of arthritis, researchers reported Monday.
"All of this suggests there's no such thing as 'safe' or 'acceptable' lead levels," said study leader Dr. Eswar Krishnan, of Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, California.
No one is going to be doing a health survey in Frisco anytime soon looking for increased rates of gout, or liver damage, or cancer, or lower IQ levels. Once a facility like the Exide lead smelter puts poisons into the air, they cannot be recalled, nor the damage they create. Because we don't know all the damage their poisons can create. But that doesn't keep companies or governments from approving the release of them into the air. Years later, studies are done and we all learn about a new kind of damage they can leave. But the damage cannot be removed, or mitigaged or even compensated, because there's no direct connection to Exide left to identify.
And that's why we must make sure we know what's being released into the air for us and our families to breathe before we're exposed to it.
