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LEAD POISONING
Lead poisoning in children was the subject of an
investigation by medical research workers at the Hospital
for Sick Children Great Ormond Street who confirmed
that there was a definite connection between mental
retardation in young children and lead poisoning Nearly
half of 122 mentally abnormal or retarded children
examined had taken in lead earlier and the lead content
of their blood was greater than that of healthy children.
This gave added importance to the need to ensure that
toys designed for young children should not contain lead.
Two cases of lead poisoning were brought to the
notice of the Public Health Department during the year
The first concerned a boy aged 2 years who was removed to
hospital. It was stated that he had gnawed wooden window
ledges in his home thereby removing a fair quantity of
paint. Samples of paint were scraped from the two
window ledges concerned and submitted for analysis. One
sample contained one per cent of lead and the other 5. 5
per cent , A plastic toy elephant, which the child had
go chewed, proved on examination to be free of any
significant quantity of lead. The British Standard Code
of Safety Requirements for children's play things
recommends that paint for toys should not contain more
than 1.1 per cent of lead. It would seem likely in this
case that paint from one of the window ledges may have
been the cause of the child's illness.
The other case was a girl aged 2 years and 9 months
who was reported by Evelina Children's Hospital to be
suffering from lead poisoning. Enquiries revealed that
some plastic toys had been chewed by the child and these
were submitted for analysis. One of them, a plastic toy
dog on wheels - was found to contain 650 parts per
million of lead in the substance and could have been the
causative agent. It was believed that this toy had been
purchased the previous Christmas from a stall in a market
place but efforts to trade its origin were unsuccessful.
The British Plastics Federation have stated that no
plastic toys containing lead are made in this country,
and the Home Office has recommended that imported plastic
toys should not contain more than 250 parts per million
of lead in their plastic