Working title- Lead in the Lehigh Valley?
Longline- Lead poisoning in children is a serious issue in PA.
Lead poisoning has had a lot of attention in the media in the past two years. Places like Flint Michigan have been in the headlines for severe water quality issues involving lead. Lead can have significant health impacts especially in children. Even at low levels lead poisoning can interfere with growth, harm hearing, make learning difficult and delay development.
The threat of lead poisoning does not only exist in Michigan or in drinking water. The leading cause of lead poisoning is lead dust from lead-based paint. Lead paint was commonly used in housed until 1978.
In Pennsylvania, this type of lead poisoning has become an issue. Over 13,000 children were found to have lead levels high enough to cause the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concern. Allentown, in particular has some of the highest rates of lead poisoning in PA. I think this could be an interesting story to uncover further and bring attention to through documentary!
If you want to learn more about this issue here just one recent article that addresses the issues in PA and Allentown! http://www.mcall.com/business/mc-lehigh-valley-lead-exposure-flint-20160204-story.html
Lauren, this sounds super interesting. I appreciate the research you did and I look forward to hearing about and seeing your exploration with this topic.