The silent danger of lead

The corridor between Simara and Birganj is Nepal’s prominent industrial area. Proximity to the Indian border, and location astride the main highway to Kathmandu also makes it an important trade route.

However, these very attributes also bring out many problems, including health risk. Pollution of the waterways by factories is one hazard, the toxic effluents leaching into the soil contaminating groundwater. 

The other less visible but insidious health hazard on both sides of the border is from lead poisoning. Neither in India nor in Nepal is there much awareness in government or the public about the long term impact of lead in the environment.  

The solution to this problem should also be crossborder, but like with every other transboundary issue there is very little discussion between the two governments about it.

International Lead Prevention Week (21-26 October) is as good a time as any to look into the issue. Worldwide, lead exposure risk has reduced after leaded gasoline phase-out because it was discovered that lead in the environment caused a reduction of IQ and cardiovascular disease in people.

In Nepal, however, research by the group CEPHED (Center for Public Health and Environmental Development) in Kathmandu has shown that lead is still present in paint, lead chromate used in colour dyes specially during Tihar, and in cooking utensils. Nepal is already at the bottom in terms of average intelligence of the population, according to the World Population Review. 

Another Rapid Market Survey by the group Pure Earth that analysed hundreds of household items in Nepal found that 14 types of ceramic, aluminium or plastic kitchen ware had levels of lead above safe limits. Recycled aluminium cookware that leach lead is said to be the best-known of the three sources.

Here in the Tarai, there is evidence that lead content in the kajal traditional eye-liners used daily by women is high enough to be a health hazard.

The frightening thing is that despite the known risk, there have been no studies in the borderlands between India and Nepal about the lead content in the bloodstream of the population, especially of women and children.

There are some extrapolated global statistics that suggest one third of urban Nepalis have blood lead levels that are higher than the safe threshold. Even Amarnath Thakur of the Mangalam Diagnostic Centre in Birganj says there are no reliable figures on lead contamination.

There was a paper published in the Journal of Pathology of Nepal in 2016 that said the blood lead level among school-going children was ‘alarmingly high’.

“There has not been enough definitive research, but the condition is probably not very good, especially among children,” says paediatrician Sailash Thakur, who thinks it is largely because of the proximity of the industrial corridor.

In Kathmandu, two out of every three children could grow into adults with limited mental and intellectual capacity because of high blood lead content.

“Imagine what this will do to our country,” said paediatrician Imran Ansari at Patan Hospital told Nepali Times in 2018. A 2013 survey of school children in Kathmandu Valley calculated that every extra 10 µg/dl concentration of lead in the blood resulted in a drop in IQ of 2.35 points.

Here in Birganj, children and pregnant women are exposed to high lead content, but there is little awareness, no strategy to tackle it, and no action on the part of local, provincial or federal governments.

Awareness is especially necessary just before festivals like Diwali, Chhath, or Holi when spices, vermilion and other colour powders are used with high lead chromate content, as well as heavy metals like cadmium and strontium that are highly toxic.

The paint industry uses lead to make the products shinier, to reduce rust and to make paint dry faster. Even though the companies say that they voluntarily no longer use lead, there is little monitoring whether they do or not.

One research in the Tarai found groundwater contaminated with lead and arsenic, but municipalities here have never heard of either.

It has been ten years since the Ministry of Forests and Environment issued a gazette notice fixing the maximum lead concentration in paint to 90 ppm (parts per million). But that regulation seems to exist only on paper, and the government has abandoned its primary responsibility of safeguarding the health of people.

Lead poisoning is not like other types of toxic ingestion, children and adults can be exposed to it through the ambient air and once it enters the bloodstream the lead then affects the brain and other organs over the long term. Children have been found to be especially vulnerable.

Lead poisoning can even expose the foetus if the mother is exposed to it, and the damage it does is much more serious than what it would do to an adult.

There are many sources of contamination: carelessly disposed lead acid batteries, inverter batteries, e-waste, leaded paint, water coming out of older leader pipes. But the general public is mostly unaware of these risks. 

Lead poisoning is a hidden danger, and if the federal government does not care, it should be the Madhes Province that does by spreading public awareness, monitoring sources of lead, and providing safe alternatives.  Cooperation with local governments across the open porous border in India would also be essential.