Nearly 11 percent of children in Tijuana, Mexico, have high lead levels in their blood, according to a three-year study by researchers from the University of California at Irvine. Most of the children contracted the lead poisoning by eating from lead-glazed cookware or being exposed to contaminated soil. Only about 0.1 percent of the lead poisoning cases are critical enough to require medical intervention; the rest could be improved if lead sources were removed from children’s environments, the study found. Researchers were glad to find that the percentage of children with high lead levels wasn’t greater; similar testing in Mexico City found that 27 percent of kids had unhealthful levels of lead in their bloodstreams. The study was funded in part by the EPA and the Centers for Disease Control because nearly 30 percent of the children living in Tijuana eventually relocate to the U.S.
