Monday, September 15, 2008 

(315)  798-5800

Picente Announces Primary Lead Prevention Outreach That Targets Children

            Oneida County Executive Anthony J. Picente, Jr. today announced a series of puppet shows designed to teach pre-school and elementary school children about the dangers of lead poisoning.  These shows will be staged throughout September as part of Oneida County ’s Lead Primary Prevention Program.

     The first of four shows performed by the Dancing Bear Puppet Theatre will be held on September 16^th beginning at 10:00 am in the Boonville Elementary School auditorium. 

    “The debilitating effects of lead poisoning and the impact it has on our community can best be abated if we educate our families about the hazards of lead,” Picente said.  “These shows will provide a vehicle to both entertain our audience and deliver a message that children can relate to and take home with them.”

     Through the stories played out by the puppets, children and their parents are taught to recognize and avoid lead hazards, the importance of hand washing and healthy eating habits.  Staff from the Oneida County Health Department’s Lead Poisoning Primary Prevention Program will be on hand to distribute materials and answer questions on how to create and maintain a ‘lead safe’ home environment for young children and their families. 

       Oneida County is one of eight counties in the state to be selected by the New York State Department of Health to conduct a pilot lead poisoning prevention program.  The venues for this series of shows were determined by identifying ‘at risk’ housing stock based on the percentage of housing built before 1970.

     “While the City of Utica is the primary target of our current efforts, I recognize the dangers posed by lead in other parts of the County and the need to extend these initiatives to those areas,” Picente said.    

     For more information on lead poisoning prevention contact the Oneida County Health Department at 266-6147 or log onto our web site at www.ocgov.net.

Lead Poisoning Hurts Children For Life

The Oneida County Health Department’s Lead Primary Prevention Program as part of its NYS Department of Health’s Lead Primary Prevention grant will present a puppet show on “Keeping Teddy Safe From Lead Poisoning” by Dancing Bear Puppet Theatre on September 16, 2008, at 10:00 a.m. at Boonville Elementary.  Children will learn about how to avoid contact with lead-based paint hazards in their homes, good nutrition, and healthy habits such as frequent hand washing. Educational materials on ways families may protect their children from lead in their homes and how to work safely in homes with old paint using lead safe work practices will be provided to the parents.

Each year children throughout Oneida County are lead poisoned primarily from lead-based paint hazards in their homes built before 1978, when lead-based paints were banned. In the Boonville area, based on Census 2000 data, 72% of housing stock was built before 1978. Lead poisoning may cause damage to children’s developing brains, hearing problems, learning problems, ADD, ADHD, loss of I.Q. points, and behavior problems including aggression. Children who are lead poisoned are more likely to have trouble with reading and math in school and have higher rates of school failure and juvenile delinquency.

Annually 13% of lead poisonings occur when families or contractors who are not familiar with lead-based paint hazards attempt to renovate without using lead safe work practices. Chipping and peeling paint on walls, doors, and trim, and lead dust that builds up in older windows can quickly contaminate a home with lead and poison the children and adults living in it.

The dry scraping, dry sanding, heating or burning of lead-based paints can add large amounts of lead dust to the home environment. The amount of lead dust that would fit in the size of just one sugar packet is enough to contaminate an entire home and its furnishing with lead, and poison the family.

Children often do not show signs of lead poisoning until the levels are very high and the only way to be certain your child is not lead poisoned is by having a simple blood test. All children should be tested by their medical provider for lead at ages one and again around their second birthday. If they live in a home built before 1978 that has chipping and peeling paint or older windows they may need to be tested more frequently, up to age six. Lead testing rates in Oneida County continue to lag with only 52% of one year olds and 45% of two year olds being tested.  If they do not have a medical provider or lack insurance coverage for lead testing, they may call the Oneida County Health Department at 266-6147 to make an appointment for lead testing for children under age six. Testing is conducted by appointment only on Thursdays from 9-11 AM at our clinic at 406 Elizabeth Street in Utica .

There is a wealth of lead educational materials on the Oneida County website including a FREE one hour online course on lead hazards. Information on toy recalls, and materials on lead safe work practices in PDF format in multiple languages that may be downloaded or printed on your home computer or at your local library branch are also available. The website is www.ocgov.net Lead Recalls and Information. For more information on lead safe work practice classes contact the Oneida County Health Department at 266-6147.