{"id":3624,"date":"2019-10-27T17:17:12","date_gmt":"2019-10-27T11:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esdo.org\/?p=3624"},"modified":"2019-10-27T17:17:14","modified_gmt":"2019-10-27T11:17:14","slug":"enact-law-to-protect-children-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esdo.org\/old\/enact-law-to-protect-children-health\/","title":{"rendered":"Enact Law to Protect Children Health"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Activists\n& Experts Urged to Ban Lead Paint<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dhaka, 27<\/strong>th<\/strong><\/sup> October, 2019:\u00a0<\/strong> Activists and experts urged the Government to ban lead paint and enact a law to protect children health and environment. They said, it\u2019s an urgent need for the country to take serious regulatory steps. To observe the \u201cInternational Lead Poisoning Prevention Week of Action 2019\u201d, Environment & Social Development Organization-ESDO organized a round table meeting. The meeting was held at ESDO\u2019s head office on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bangladesh\nhas recently established a limit of 90 parts-per-million (ppm) for lead in\ndecorative paints.  This threshold is\nwidely agreed upon as an international standard to protect people, especially\nchildren, from lead hazards.  At least 73\nnations now have similar legal limits on the production, importation, or sale\nof paint with lead.  However, studies\nindicate that many paints sold in low- and middle-income countries still\ncontain lead at concentrations hundreds or thousands of times above this limit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lead\nis a powerful neurotoxicant with no known safe level of exposure.  It is particularly dangerous for children,\nwhose brains are still developing.  Lead\nexposure leads to reduced IQ, attention and behavioral problems, and school\nunderperformance, as well as other effects like anemia and kidney damage.  A 2013 study estimated that the national GDP\nof Bangladesh is reduced by nearly 6% because of IQ loss due to childhood lead\nexposure.  Across the Asia Pacific\nregion, the annual economic cost of childhood lead exposure is thought to be\nabout $700 billion, or nearly 2% of regional GDP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ESDO\nChairperson and former Secretary Syed Marghub Murshed, Prof.\nDr. Md. Abul Hashem, former Chairperson and\nProfessor of the department of Chemistry, Jahangirnagar University, and Secretary General of ESDO Dr. Shahriar Hossain, Executive\nDirector of ESDO Siddika Sultana, other experts from different sectors and team\nmembers of ESDO along with journalists from electronic and print media were\npresent on this meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Syed Marghub Morshed said, \u201cThere is no known level of lead\nexposure that is considered safe. Decorative paint for household use has been\nidentified as the main source of children\u2019s lead exposure from paints. Government should take action\nfor further regulation as still lead containing paints are available in the\nmarket place.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prof. Dr. Md. Abul Hashem said, \u201cLead-based paint is a dangerous source of lead. Infants,\nchildren and pregnant women are at higher risk. Children can ingest lead\nbecause of their frequent hand-to-mouth activity and tendency to mouth or chew\nobjects. Children absorb and retain more lead into their bodies compared to\nadults. For pregnant women, even low levels of lead can affect the growth of\nthe developing baby\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although\nESDO has applauded the 90 ppm standard, it notes that further regulation and\ntesting is required to enforce this important limit. \u201cFurther regulation and\nvery strong enforcement are still necessary, especially when we consider that\nlead-contaminated paint has been found so commonly in our <\/p>\n\n\n\n

country,\u201d\nexplained Dr Shahriar Hossain, ESDO Secretary-General.  He pointed out that ESDO studies of paints\nsold in Dhaka and Chittagong in 2013 and 2015 found lead concentrations in\nyellow paints averaging about 40,000 ppm, hundreds of times higher than the new\n90 ppm standard. In 2013, ESDO found no paints that fell below the 90 ppm\nstandard.  In 2015, nine paint samples\n(out of 49 tested) were below 90 ppm, but 17 samples were above 10,000\nppm.  Dr Hossain notes that the lack of\nnew data since the 2015 study demonstrates that much more monitoring and\nenforcement is required in Bangladesh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elite\nPaint, based in Dhaka, is the only manufacturer to have achieved Lead Safe\nCertification for its products to date. \n\u201cFor all other brands, consumers have no way to know how much lead might\nbe in the paint they buy,\u201d pointed out ESDO Executive Director Siddika\nSultana.  \u201cThat\u2019s why it\u2019s critical that\nthe Government of Bangladesh take immediate steps to regulate and test\npaints.  The trust of the nation is\nplaced with them to protect our children from this very dangerous neurotoxin.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Background Information:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ESDO has been working since 2008 to raise awareness about lead and to advocate for the 90 ppm standard and subsequent regulation and adoption of a standard of lead limit. ESDO conducted research and published national reports on the lead content of different paint brands of Bangladesh and collaborated with Bangladesh Paint Manufacturers\u2019 Association (BPMA) in 2013. A draft regulatory framework and guideline for complete lead paint elimination was prepared by ESDO and submitted to the Department of Environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more\nInformation:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shazia Jannat<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jr. Program\nAssociate, ESDO <\/p>\n\n\n\n

E-mail: shazia@esdo.org<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mobile:\n01557019412<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Activists & Experts Urged to Ban Lead Paint Dhaka, 27th October, 2019:\u00a0 Activists and experts urged the Government to ban lead paint and enact a law to protect children health and environment. They said, it\u2019s an urgent need for the country to take serious regulatory steps. To observe the \u201cInternational Lead Poisoning Prevention Week of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3626,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-press_release"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esdo.org\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esdo.org\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esdo.org\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esdo.org\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esdo.org\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3624"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/esdo.org\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3627,"href":"https:\/\/esdo.org\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3624\/revisions\/3627"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esdo.org\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esdo.org\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esdo.org\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esdo.org\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}