URGENT: There is every reason to do a blood lead test on Thomas Matthew Crooks and no reason not to
I’ve just submitted the following suggestion to the Allegheny County Medical Examiner at the Pittsburgh Coroner’s Office at https://www.alleghenycounty.us/Government/Police-and-Emergency-Services/Medical-Examiner-ACOME/Contact-ACOME
I invite you to add your own thoughts both at the above online form and on social media.
Cheers
Grandma Lead, aka Elizabeth O’Brien, Australia
Dear Pittsburgh Coroner’s Office Medical Examiner,
I’ve been a lead-safety advocate solely focussed on researching lead poisoning/contamination prevention solutions for 33 years since the discovery of the lead poisoning of my three sons, and I’ve received a United Nations Award and worked with the United Nations to help achieve the end of leaded gasoline globally and was the person who advocated successfully for the World Health Organisation (WHO) and UN to set up the Lead Poisoning Prevention Week of Action which has been run annually (in late October) since 2013.
I put it to you that there is every reason to do a posthumous blood lead test, and even bone lead XRF (x-ray fluorescence) testing if possible, on Thomas Matthew Crooks before he is cremated or interred, and no reason not to.
There are multiple publications supporting my reasoning but for the sake of brevity, I refer you to an article I wrote 30 years ago: “Lead Bullets Wound at Both Ends of the Barrel” at https://lead.org.au/lanv2n3/lanv2n3-17.html ; and a journal article published earlier this year by US researchers Christian Hoover, MPH; Alan J. Fossa, MPH, PhD; Megan L. Ranney, MD, MPH; Gabrielle Groth Hoover, PhD; Aaron J. Specht, PhD; David Hemenway, PhD; and Joseph M. Braun, PhD – “Firearm-Related Lead Exposure and Child Lead Levels in the United States, 2012-2018” at https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(24)00078-7/abstract – which includes: “child blood lead was positively associated with household firearm ownership and older housing” and “More research is needed to… identify modifiable pathways of exposure at the individual level.” I began a desktop research project over a decade ago for interventions to stop the lead poisoning of shooters, see: “Info Pack – Lead-safety for shooters and workers at shooting ranges” at https://lead.org.au/lanv14n1/LANv14n1_LSWP_Launch_in_ILPP_Week_of_Action.pdf (2013).
Given the accuracy of Thomas Crooks’ shooting and his age at death of 20, I would guess that he was a child when he took up shooting (and may have grown up with firearms and shooters in his home) so I also refer you to research showing the effects of lead exposure on decision-making (executive functioning) and gun-violence. See: “Neuroradiology (Degenerative Brain Disease: Imaging): Functional MRI Studies Examining Executive Functioning in Adults with Childhood Lead Exposure” at http://archive.rsna.org/2009/8012324.html (2009) and “Study Links Childhood Lead Exposure To Later Gun Violence” at https://leadsafeworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/LANv20n2-18.pdf (2019).
If Thomas Crooks does have an elevated blood lead level (and a high body burden of lead based on XRF bone lead testing), it could trigger a public health response – simple things like banning lead ammunition – aimed at protecting all shooters from lead exposure/poisoning (past, present and future), which could in turn reduce gun violence (and rates of dementia, heart attacks, strokes, osteoporosis, etc etc etc) in the United States.
The final reason to do this lead testing is that the public deserves to understand what would, in the words of Melania Trump, create a “monster” and to find one possible solution to help “us remember that when the time comes to look beyond the left and the right, beyond the red and the blue, we all come from families with the passion to fight for a better life together, while we are here in this earthly realm.”
Yours Sincerely
Elizabeth O’Brien, BSc (Sydney), Grad. Dip Health Education
Winner of the United Nations Association of Australia (UNAA) Award for Outstanding Service to the Environment
Lead Scientist and Lead Advisor,
The LEAD Group Inc. (environmental health charity)
Manager, Lead Safe World Project (LSWP)
www.leadsafeworld.com – launched 26th October 2013 during the WHO Inaugural International Lead Poisoning Prevention Week of Action (20th-26th October 2013)
PO Box 161, Summer Hill, New South Wales, Australia