On Monday January 11, I had the opportunity in the Legislative Committee dealing with the Annual Report of the Manitoba Advocate for Children and Youth, to ask questions about the possibility of children in the care of Child and Family Services having high lead levels due to exposure to lead. My questions and the responses of Ms Ainsley Krone Deputy Manitoba Advocate for Children and Youth are below - from Hansard.
Hon. Jon Gerrard (River Heights): I have a
question which I'd like to bring up. In the report of the Manitoba Advocate for
Children and Youth, there's a section here on where there are service gaps, and
clearly, it's important to identify areas where there may be service gaps.
And I want to
refer to a report that was done in Pennsylvania which showed that children who
were in foster care, when they were tested before they entered care, had rather
high levels of lead in their blood such that nearly 90 per cent of these
children had levels of lead which were above or equal to 10 micrograms
per decilitre. And that's a–quite a high level–five micrograms per
decilitre is now considered high, so that's double.
And what–one of
the things that was interesting was that the children who are taken into care,
when they were compared with their siblings, the children taken into care had
much higher levels of lead than their siblings. And we know that lead
exposure, lead toxicity, can be associated with a variety of behavioural
problems. We know that, sometimes, this can be a factor which is passed on from
the mother because the lead exposure in the mother, the lead crosses the fetal
barrier.
And in another
article by a Dr. Hauptman, who's from Boston Children's Hospital, done with
people from Harvard Medical School, they write that their aim is to develop a
multipronged approach– [After an
interruption by the chair on relevance]
Mr. Gerrard: This is relevant because of the association of lead with
many of the issues which may bring children into care and because what we're
looking at in the report is children coming into care. And where there are gaps
in the service and what is being suggested is that there be a much better
assessment of blood lead levels, and where the children who are taken into care
have higher blood lead levels, that these be addressed in a variety of ways to
bring the lead levels down. And I just wondered whether you would comment on
this and whether there's any work on this in Manitoba.
Ms. Krone: That is a fascinating question. Unfortunately, I'm going to
probably disappoint you in saying that I don't know much about lead levels for
children coming into the system. But I think that what I could comment on is
that I think it's really important, you know, for the full scope of
understanding in terms of why young people are being identified by that system,
by the CFS system, by the justice system, by whichever system they happen to be
interacting with, I think that we need to always assume that there are probably
more things going on than what's on the surface and that it's really important
to ensure that, you know, service providers that have the responsibility to
provide services that are holistic and that respond to all of the needs of a
young person need to be shored up.
And so if that,
you know, as you're speaking to, like, additional medical pieces, I'm not sure,
but, you know, I would probably defer back to you as a medical professional. So
I'm sorry I can't be more helpful with respect to lead levels in blood.
Mr. Chairperson: With the time almost 3 o'clock, I just
want to put it back to–what's the will of the committee at this point?
Mr. Gerrard: Could we sit for 10 more minutes?
Mr. Chairperson: Is that–it's been suggested we sit for 10
more minutes. Is that the will of the committee? [Agreed]
Mr. Gerrard: So I think the concern here is in part that there are parts
of Winnipeg where a report at the end of last year done by Intrinsik showed
that–or predicted, based on various models that they were looking at, that
there will be high levels of lead in children.
And so this is particularly
relevant to the circumstance of Winnipeg where we have had lead smelters, where
we have had scrap metal recycling and machines to look after that. And I would
just ask that this is something that you take a careful look at and see if
there is a gap here that should be addressed.
I will send you separately, and I can send to other members, a series of recommendations that are being made, were being made, just in the last couple of years from Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
Links to the articles and reports referenced above are below:
Chung et al article on high lead levels in children in care: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11331731/
Hauptman and Woolf article on recommendations for action in relation to lead exposure and children in the care of Child and Family Services.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28969453/
Manitoba Liberal Caucus report on Lead and Crime in Manitoba. The report includes a section dealing with lead and children in the care of Child and Family Services.
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