Windblown Lead Carbonate as the Main Source of Lead in Blood of Children from a Seaside Community: An Example of Local Birds as “Canaries in the Mine”

Abstract

The death of the birds acted as a sentinel event; otherwise, the exposure of the community, arising from such a toxic form of Pb, could have been tragic. Isotopic data and mineralogic and particle size analyses indicate that, apart from the recognized pathway of Pb exposure by hand-to-mouth activity in children, the inhalation pathway could have been a significant contributor to PbB for some of the very young children and in some parents.