The result of what is the world's largest study of its kind have shown that lead pollution is silently turning Indian city kids stupid. The study conducted on 22,000 children below the age of 12 in Bangalore, Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, Hyderabad and Vellore earlier this year to examine the effects of lead poisoning revealed that 51.4 percent children have more than 100 micrograms of lead per litre of blood, which has resulted in reducing their IQ by nearly six percent.
Said Stephen Null, director of Friends of Lead Free Children (FLFC), the American non-profit organisation that conducted the study: "Lead poisoning grinds down a genius to the level of average intelligence, and an average child becomes disabled. Children can never hope to achieve their full potential, as long as they live in a lead-polluted atmosphere."
Besides the brain, lead particles from car exhausts poison children's liver, lungs, bones and soft tissues. Seven sources of lead poisoning have been identified: gasoline additives, food-can soldering, lead-based paints, ceramic glazes, drinking water systems, cosmetics and cooking utensils. By far, the biggest culprit is gasoline; only a small percentage of gasoline sold in India is of the unleaded variety.
"Some lead sources are typically Indian," said T. Venkatesh, a leading Indian biochemist assisting the FLFC, "The kalaai [lead oxide coat on the bottom of bronze, brass, copper and aluminum cooking vessels], the paints on our pencils, which children chew, the paint on clay images of gods and goddesses we immerse in our rivers and lakes round the year. Some traditional hair dyes and cosmetics also contain lead."