Parents on how lead poisoning upended their lives: 'It's been a rollercoaster of feelings'

Lead poisoning is a hot topic right now due to the nationwide recall of WanaBana apple cinnamon fruit puree linked to dozens of cases of lead poisoning. The case, which is still under investigation, follows an announcement from the Food and Drug Administration in January that it would lower the acceptable amount of lead in baby food products. But lead exposure isn’t a new thing.

In case you’re not familiar with it, lead is a naturally occurring metal that can lead to poor health. People are usually exposed to lead by accidentally eating lead in paint chips, ingesting contaminated food and water, or breathing in lead dust, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Children under the age of 6 are especially vulnerable to lead poisoning since young children absorb 4 to 5 times as much ingested lead as adults from a given source, according to the World Health Organization.

Children who live in low-income households and those who live in housing built before 1978 are at the greatest risk of lead exposure, according to the CDC. Houses built before 1978 — which is when the use of lead in paint was banned — and houses in low-income areas are more likely to contain lead-based paint and have pipes, faucets and plumbing fixtures that contain lead. Lead poisoning also disproportionally affects Black people.

There is no safe blood lead level (BLL) — even low levels have been linked to developmental delays, behavioral issues and neurological damage — but the CDC recommends that children have BLLs that are no higher than 3.5 μg/dL, a decrease from 2021 when the recommended limit was set at 5 μg/dL.

“In the general population, rates of lead poisoning are low,” Dr. Danelle Fisher, pediatrician and chair of pediatrics at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, Calif., tells Yahoo Life. This, she says, can explain why many parents aren’t aware that this is a potential issue for their children.

However, lead poisoning can and does happen: CDC data shows that about 500,000 children in the U.S. have BLLs that are at or above the recommended limit. But certain groups are affected more than others. “Typically, lower socioeconomic groups may see higher levels of lead poisoning,” Fisher says. “Sometimes we see clusters and certain environments lend themselves more to lead poisoning than others.” But people who simply live in an older home can have issues, Fisher points out.

“The tricky thing with lead poisoning is that kids may have no symptoms,” Dr. Jamie Alan, associate professor of pharmacology and toxicology at Michigan State University, tells Yahoo Life. “Some short-term impacts include irritability, low energy, headache, sleep problems and weight loss. Longer-term impacts may include behavioral problems or learning problems.”

Lead poisoning is complicated and scary. Here are the stories of four families who have experienced it, including one who is still trying to reduce her child’s lead levels.

"As soon as I read the FDA announcement I knew that was the source of my son's lead poisoning."

Speaking to the Washington Post in November, Maryland parents Sarah and Ricky Callahan shared how a routine blood test performed during their young son Rudy's well-child visit this year revealed that the toddler's levels were alarmingly high — nearly six times what is considered minimum risk threshold for lead poisoning in their state. The couple spent months trying in vain to pinpoint how their little boy had been exposed to lead, investigating and ruling out his toys, the family home and other potential sources like water and soil. Then they heard that Rudy's favorite apple cinnamon fruit puree pouches, sold under the WanaBana, Weis and Schnucks brands, had been recalled. A pouch found in their cupboard matched the contaminated lot numbers included in the recall.

"As soon as I read the FDA announcement I knew that was the source of my son's lead poisoning," Sarah, who filed a complaint, told the Washington Post. According to the Callahans, Rudy was eating as many as six pouches per day.

"We took a lot of precautions when picking out his food and ... were giving him things which we thought were healthy," added Ricky. The now-16-month-old has not had a pouch since September, and his lead levels have dropped since being switched to a whole food diet.

But Rudy's parents still worry about the long-term effects of his lead poisoning. The little boys has speech delays, and an early intervention plan they've set up includes home visits every two weeks from a specialist who monitors how he's developing.

"I am just concerned about his future," said Sarah. "I want the best for my son."

“Your child has acute lead poisoning.”

Tamara Rubin’s sons were 7 months old and 3 years old when they were acutely poisoned with lead in 2005. “We hired a contractor to paint the exterior of our home,” the environmental activist and director of misLEAD: America's Secret Epidemic, tells Yahoo Life. “He told us he was trained and certified in lead-safe practices. He lied to us.”

The contractor used an open torch to burn the lead paint off of Rubin's home, she says, and told her that it was safe for the family to stay in the home while he worked. “The lead fumes permeated our home and neighborhood,” she says. “My infant and toddler inhaled the fumes.”

Rubin says her sons, Avi, then 7 months, and AJ, then 3, became “violently ill,” with symptoms such as vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, headaches, lack of appetite, speech regression and irritability — and this went on for several months before her doctor took the symptoms seriously. Rubin, who at first didn’t suspect that lead poisoning may be to blame, says her children’s doctor kept assuring her that she shouldn’t worry. “I was told, ‘Keep them hydrated. As long as they don’t have a fever, they're fine,’” she recalls. “I didn't think about lead poisoning. There was no public consciousness of it at the time.”

It was only after her AJ “woke up head to toe covered in feces because he had explosive diarrhea at night” that Rubin insisted her children be tested. “I said, ‘Test them for everything,’” she remembers telling the doctor. “They ran every single test they could — vision, feces, urine, blood, anything that they could do,” she says. “The only thing that came back positive was lead exposure.”

Rubin was told that her Avi didn’t need to get tested for lead, but she insisted. The same day as Avi was tested, she says she received a chilling call from the doctor. “We were told, ‘You have to move out of your home immediately. Your child has acute lead poisoning and you need to leave your home with just the clothes on your back,’” she says.

Avi had a BLL of 16 — greater than four times more than the limit established today. That was three months after he was acutely poisoned, leading Rubin to believe his levels were “likely much, much higher” before that.“We rented a hotel room for 10 days while we tried to figure out what the source was,” she says. “We still didn't know it was the paint job — we found that out over time.”

Rubin says Avi, who will turn 18 this month, has permanent brain damage and “health conditions that we have to manage every day.” He also has severe plaque psoriasis, a skin disease that causes a rash with itchy, scaly patches, and a visual memory in the fourth percentile. “He's had to develop ways to learn that are work-arounds,” she says. “Life is challenging for him every day.”

AJ, who is now 20, has “fairly severe dyslexia, GI issues and extreme allergies, including food allergies,” Rubin says.

Because of her experience, Rubin became a lead poisoning advocate and founded Lead Safe Mama, a website and online community to help parents make informed choices about lead exposure. “I now travel the country helping families,” she says. Rubin emphasizes that profiling who is at-risk for lead exposure that’s supported by the CDC “isn't useful.”

“It doesn't matter what your ethnicity is, socioeconomic status is, what your cultural background is ... everyone in the U.S. should get a blood level test for their children — preferably pre-crawling and post-crawling, if only to have a baseline to know if their kid is not poisoned,” she says.

“I learned that we were living in a highly leaded home.”

Tatiana Brenizer discovered that her son Gavin was being exposed to unsafe levels of lead almost by accident. "We had moved into a 100-year-old home during the pandemic,” she tells Yahoo Life. Soon after, she listened to a podcast about how lead inspections were compromised due to the pandemic, and that families could be in danger.

“It was not something I had ever considered — that, if you live in an old home, you should be aware of lead dangers,” she says. Brenizer bought lead test swabs and checked the window sills of the house. “Sure enough, they tested bright red, which means lead,” she says. Brenizer also tested the bathtub, which was leaded, along with other areas of the house. “I learned that we were living in a highly leaded home,” she says. Gavin was 3 years old at the time.

Brenizer and her husband, Ryan, “began the long process of remediation,” including cleaning the home and implementing strict measures to keep Gavin protected from lead exposure. Gavin wasn’t allowed to play in the yard, which had five times the legal limit of lead for outdoors after contractors scattered dust over the yard when replacing the leaded windows — so he went to playgrounds instead. The family also had to take off their shoes before entering the house so they wouldn’t bring the high levels of lead detected on the driveway into the home.

When Brenizer looked back at Gavin’s medical records, she learned that her son had elevated lead levels when the couple previously lived in Brooklyn — she was just never informed of it.

The couple has since moved. “The whole reason we moved to this home was because we were trying to escape living in an environment where Gavin was consistently exposed to lead,” Brenizer says. “We just wanted a property where lead was no longer a concern for us.” Brenizer admits it was exhausting to try to keep her son safe from lead in their previous home, but she wants other parents to know that it’s possible. “You can keep your child safe from lead,” she says. “It’s not always too late.”

“The health department came and found lead all over our home.”

Susanna Vaughan first discovered that her son Erik was exposed to unsafe levels of lead when he was a year old. “We went for his one-year well-child checkup and one of the questions was if we lived in a home that was built prior to 1978,” she tells Yahoo Life. “We live in a home that was built in the 1880s, so it was recommended that we do a lead test.”

The results showed that her son had “concerningly high” levels of lead: Erik's BLL was 11. “Unfortunately for us, that happened in February 2020 and, of course, the world shut down in March,” she says. “We weren’t even able to get a home lead assessment done until August 2020.”

Vaughan did her own research and was connected with her local health department, which also gave her some information. "We quickly realized that probably the first thing we needed to do was replace the windows because it was an old home," she says. "But we couldn't do that because all construction was shut down due to COVID." Erik was retested during that time and his BLL was up to 17. "That really freaked us out," she says.

Eventually, construction work resumed and Vaughan was able to replace her home's windows. "The health department came and found lead all over our home — the interior trim, exterior of the home, floors, half the toys he played with, our dishes — that really shocked us," she says. That, Vaughan says, "started us on our journey of fighting it."

Erik's lead levels eventually went down to five, but they couldn't lower them for a year (he was being tested every three to six months). She switched pediatricians, and her new doctor informed her that the CDC had lowered the acceptable BLL for lead to 3.5.

Vaughan tried to get her local health department to visit her home to test it for lead again and was shut down. So, she came across Rubin online and had her test her home. "My home is full of vintage things — I love vintage things," Vaughan says. Rubin tested them and found lead in vintage and modern enamelware, baking dishes, old muffin tins and even Erik's sandbox.

“It’s been a roller coaster of feelings,” Vaughan says. “Initially, I didn’t take it seriously and my pediatrician didn’t take it seriously either. I was like, ‘I know he’s not eating paint, so ... .’ I felt like we were on track when we replaced the windows. It wasn’t until I did more research that I learned how dangerous this is.”

Vaughan says her family has spent up to $40,000 for lead remediation work and had to take out a home equity loan to pay for it. She also struggles to have people understand her concerns about lead exposure. “The amount of pressure we get from people who think we’re overreacting is ridiculous,” she says.

Vaughan says Erik has been having behavioral issues, particularly anger management, and sensory issues, such as wearing long-sleeved shirts year-round, even in the summer when he’s hot and sweaty. “We have no idea how badly this is going to affect him long-term,” she says. “We are only just starting to see symptoms that are coming out now.”

This article was originally published on Feb. 10, 2023 and has been updated.