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Press Release |
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August
8, 2001 A referral centre, jointly set up by St. John's National Academy of Health Sciences [SJNAHS] and The George Foundation [TGF], is launched to serve as a centre for conducting blood tests for lead confirmation and to create awareness among people at the national level. Dr. Abraham M George, TGF, said the centre in addition to offering referral and confirmatory lead testing service from blood samples received from anywhere in India, would disseminate relevant information on lead poisoning to government authorities, NGOs, clinicians treating lead poisoning cases and other institutions concerned and create awareness among the general public through education, documentation and media communication. Dr. George is also a member of the National Committee for Prevention of Lead Poisoning in India formed by the Ministry of Environment and Forests. The committee comprises members of the Pollution Control Board. He said prior to the national lead study conducted under the 'Project Lead Free' by TGF in 1996-1999, only isolated incidents of lead poisoning were documented and very little was known about the problem in India. The study concluded that over 50 per cent of the children below the age of 12 years in major Indian cities suffered from elevated levels of lead above 10mcg/dL. Dr. N Venkatesh,
department of biochemistry, St. John's Medical College said that lead
based ill-effects from industrialisation ranging from headache, blood
pressure, weakness, disturbed cognitive function were epidemic in nature.
According to him, so far, there has been no simple, sensitive, accurate,
reliable and economically feasible blood lead testing methodology, a need,
which NRCLPI proposes to fulfil. |