The New Straits Times, January 23, 2000
The first stage of the nationwide traffic operation, Ops Statik IV, ended this week and the number of fatal crashes is alarming. The occasional pictures of mangled remains of vehicles during the festive season, remained vivid in our minds. But death associated with motor vehicles can occurred in many other insidious ways.
It has been observed that large populations around major cities, especially in developing countries, are gradually being suffocated by obnoxious vehicle fumes.
In raising this viewpoint, the United Nations Conference on Human Settlements held in Istanbul in 1996, singled out lead and particulate emissions as having negative impact on human health.
But the dangers usually go unnoticed or is not dramatic enough to whip up public protests.
The World Bank recommends a worldwide phasing out leaded petrol to reduce lead poisoning.
It is encouraging to note in the recently released Malaysia Environmental Quality Report 1998 that lead levels in the air is lower following from the Government's move to introduce unleaded petrol and to cap the level of lead in petrol.
But still, motor vehicles were pointed out as the main polluters. Some are so poorly maintained they continues to belch odious fumes.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in a statement published some ten years ago, said: "Simple enumeration of children with overt intoxication, encephalophathy, or death from lead exposure does not reflect the full spectrum of lead's biologic effects and damage.
Among lead's most insidious effects is its poisoning of the developing nervous system as measured by a decrease in the IQs of children with even low-level lead exposure."
The message is direct and succinct. The long-term effects are severe: learning disabilities, decreased growth, hyperactivity, impaired hearing, and even brain damage.
More scary still is that until any of these symptoms become manifest, the child can be deceivingly healthy and appear normal.
Lead can also be passed quite readily from the mother's body to her baby. A number of reports have implicated lead to reproductive abnormalities, including miscarriages and stillbirths.
Suffice to say, there is virtually no safe lead level for children, given how vulnerable they are to its effects. Moreover lead cannot be easily detected through taste, smell or sight.
Its potential sources are ubiquitous. It can be in the dust, paint, or soil. In can be carried into houses by pets, dusty shoes and clothings, or laced in food and drinking water.
Greater use of fossil fuels has also been identified as one of the main causes of pollution with high lead content.
Last month, a British toddler has fallen seriously ill with lead poisoning and was put on a life-support machine. Apparently the 21-month old had chewed on painted woodwork around her home.
According to the attending expert, "Children only need to take in a couple of flakes of lead-ladened paint to put themselves at risk."
Closer to home, in 1995, we had a national scare when some brands of colour pencils, crayons and water colours were found to have toxic levels of lead, putting our children at risk.
Even traditional medicines can be adultered with lead. Tests on 2,700 samples of traditional medicines conducted by the National Pharmaceutical Control Bureau, between the period of 1993 to 1995, indicated that about 12 percent failed to comply with the limit test for lead.
Since then it is requirement to register all traditional medicinal products marketed in this country as a step to weed out such contaminated items.
There is still to little local data available to make any meaningful, nationwide judgement.
Studies conducted by the National Poison Centre in various States since 1996 indicated a good proportion of the preschool children sampled were indeed exposed to lead as measured by its presence in their blood.
And up to 7 percent of them could be facing greater risks if remained unchecked.
Follow up studies showed their siblings and other members of the family also showed a relatively high degree of exposure.
It is imperative to bear in mind that lead does not break down naturally. Continued exposure will have a cumulative effect. It can remain embedded in the body's bones for decades.
Thus, unlike road fatalities, because of its subtle nature, death due to lead poisoning may be unheard of by most. The toll due to lead poisoning is more on the children rather the adults.
Lead poisoning results in senseless loss of life which is avoidable and preventable. For others, they could be maimed for life.
Lead-poisoned children could be robbed of a meaningful life.
For a young and vibrant nation like Malaysia, this is just too high a price to pay and too valuable a resource to lose. It is time to seriously contemplate launching a nationwide "Ops Plumbum".
