[Development of a system for the early diagnosis and prevention of children's health changes caused by exposure to heavy metals].

At the moment, the making a diagnosis of an environment-induced disease in Russia is not routine and this is not relied on a rather evidence basis. Nevertheless, the choice of exposure methods from educational and preventive to therapeutic depends on the intensity and pattern of exposure to ecotoxicants and on the magnitude of appropriate specific changes. Epidemiological surveys of 5-7-year-old children from 3 towns of Russia have revealed that 8.3-24.5% of the children have moderate excesses of the allowable levels of lead in blood; 4.6-12.8% have excess hair magnesium levels, and 5.9-33.8% have excess hair copper levels. The real damage to the children's neuropsychic health manifests as a significant reduction in the memory and academic achievement indices, the parameters of fine and gross motor coordination, speech expressiveness, and in the rate of minor successive movements. The prevalence of environment-dependent neuropsychic malformations is 3-7%, as calculated with reference to all the children examined. The children aged 5-7 years are shown not to be in need of therapeutic measures in all the towns compared. At the same time, 61.1-83.2% of the children need neuropsychic health-promoting measures. For this, it is expedient to use informational and educational technologies. About 4.3-17.8 and 11.5 - 21.1% need primary and secondary preventive measures against environment-dependent neuropsychic changes. The authors present approaches to developing measures to promote neuropsychic health and to prevent neuropsychic malformations. There is evidence that primary prevention is more effective for the pediatric population. There is no question that multivariate analysis of the problems associated with childhood neuropsychic development, including environmental, behavioral, sociomedical components, is of importance. These approaches may be realized at the municipal level and taken as the basis for preparing national guidelines for the promotion of health and for the prevention of environment-dependent conditions in children.

[Experience in the study of the effects of lead on the health status of children in Belovo]. / Opyt izucheniia vozdeistviia svintsa na sostoianie zdorov'ia detei g. Belovo.

Lead releases in Belovo town containing metallurgy enterprise had reached 120 tons/year earlier, but in recent years have decreased to 9 tons/year. Reduction of the production induced decrease of lead levels in the ambient air from 0.7-2.3 mg/m3 in 1994 to 0.001-0.24 mg/m3. Lead concentration in the soil ranges from 30 to 3000 mg/kg. Lead levels were measured in serum of 91 children, in hair of 67 ones and in teeth of 15 children. Serum lead levels in children aged 7-8 years varied from 0.5 to 39 mg/dl, with an average of 9.9 mg/dl (SD is 5.2 mg/dl), geometric mean is 8.5 mg/dl and error of geometric mean is 3.3. 46% of the children had serum lead levels exceeding the normal one (10 mg/dl). Average lead level in the hair equaled 4.5 mg/g (SD is 4.9 mg/g). The children living in towns with higher environmental lead levels demonstrated more frequent anxiety and changes in higher psychic functions. The major points influencing the serum lead level are proximity to highway, dietary load of goods grown near the residence, mother's smoking. Biokinetic model describing lead transfer into the blood helped to evaluate various modes of the enterprise functioning and efficiency of some environmental protection measures. The most efficient are measures aimed to lower dietary intake of lead, less efficiency is associated with measures reducing lead levels in air, dust and soil.

[Detection of lead in environmental objects and biologic materials during monitoring]. / Opredelenie svintsa v ob"ektakh okruzhaiushchei sredy i biologicheskikh substratakh pri provedenii monitoringa.

The authors specified methods to detect lead in biologic materials. The quality control covered use of Russian and foreign standard samples, the results proved to agree. Lead was detected by AAS technique (direct and flow-type variants with preliminary concentration of lead) and ELRA method. The authors determined measurement limits sufficient for analysis of complex biologic materials. The measurement range for lead varied from 0.002 mg/kg (plants) to 3,000 mg/kg (soil); the range of serum lead levels was < 0.5-39 mg/dl.