Lead: Silently Poisoning America

Phillip Leveque has spent his live as a Combat Infantryman, Physician, Toxicologist and Pharmacologist.

Frontal radiograph of both knees of a child with lead poisoning show dense metaphyseal bands involving not only distal femurs and proximal tibias but proximal fibulas as well. Courtesy: LearningRadiology.com

(MOLALLA, Ore.) - Great numbers of our population are being slowly and silently poisoned by an insidious, hidden enemy; lead. The poisoning can resemble intestinal flu with nausea, abdominal cramps and pain, vomiting, diarrhea of constipation.

If larger amounts are ingested it can cause nerve pain and damage and muscle weakness. Severe blood cell destruction can occur, anemia and even shock can be produced.

These signs and symptoms are not the worst that can happen. Lead levels can slowly build in on the body. Insidiously through the flu stage to far more serious effects.

The intestinal cramps can become so severe to become completely disabling. The toxicity on the verves and muscles can cause weakness, palsy and even permanent paralysis.

The blood cell damage can result in serous anemia which may affect all other body systems. The damage to the kidneys may be severe and can cause loss of body phosphate and severe gout.

The worst of these effects of the lead poisoning is the damage to the brain or central nervous system. This is by far the most serious effect and is manifest mostly in children. For a child, the effects are seriously disastrous.

A wide variety of brain function abnormalities ensue with increased pressure within the head being one. The death rate is high and mental retardation, seizures and cerebral palsy are frequent results.

If we were being poisoned by lead as an act of war it would certainly be called genocide by chemical warfare. Lead is poisoning and weakening us as a race and is destroying many of our children.

We must have the means and weapons to fight this disaster. The means to fight is through established government agencies.

Will our government condemn thousands of children to damaged brains so they can never function as normal persons? Considering that this was originally written 25 years ago and read before the Oregon state Legislature, it appears the answer may be yes.

More information on the history of Leveque can be found in his book, General Patton's Dogface Soldier of Phil Leveque about his experiences in WWII. Order the book by mail by following this link: salem-news.com/pages/Dogface_soldier.

If you are a World War Two history fan, you don't want to miss it.

Watch for Dr. Phil Leveque's video question and answer segments about medical marijuana with Bonnie King.

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My daughter had lead poisoning as a toddler. Her father would share his lemonade with her - it was made with tea, in a ceramic pitcher that he had been using for decades. Turns out, the acid tea/lemon combination ate away the glaze, and allowed the lead in the clay to seep into the drink. It took us a year to pinpoint that - and we found that it had been manufactured in 1976, at a time when enough was known about lead to outlaw it from products that come in contact with food - but it wasn't against the law! The lead level in the pitcher (we sent it to a lab for analysis) was 6,000 times the allowable level for drinking water. My husband had been getting slowly poisoned for years, but the problems for my daughter were much worse. She has severe behavioral problems, and we wonder if the lead poisoning at such an early age played a part in that.

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