Initial Steps to Prevent Lead Exposure and Poisoning from the Model National Lead Safety Policy Proposal created by The LEAD Group – introduction
Initial Steps to Prevent Lead Exposure and Lead Poisoning
There is a clear role in global and regional lead-safety policy development, and guidance in development of national lead-safety policy for bodies such as the World Bank, the World Health Organisation (WHO), United Nations Environment Programme, and the World Medical Association (WMA), WHO Regional Offices, and for multilateral bodies such as the G7, and the OECD. The US government has a special role to play in assisting national governments to develop lead-safety policy because of their history of creating lead laws and consequently significantly reducing blood lead levels since 1970, see Figure 4 (below).
Figure 4: Selected Lead Control Measures, United States, 1970-2012 (Dignam et al 2019)
The initial step in any national lead policy is to require that all of the following, and more, have a role to play.
Prime Ministers and Opposition Leaders, Ministers and Shadow Ministers, including but not limited to:
- Ageing and Health
- Agriculture
- Alcohol, Drug and Gaming
- Aviation
- Building, Construction and Demolition
- Child Poverty Reduction
- Children and Youth
- Climate Change
- Commerce and Consumer Affairs
- Consumer Protection
- Defence
- Economic and Regional Development
- Education
- Environment, Water and Conservation
- Fair Trading
- Fisheries
- Housing
- Indigenous Peoples
- Industry
- International Trade and Export Growth
- Justice and Corrections
- Marine Environments
- Medical Research
- Mining and Manufacturing
- Police
- Revenue
- Science and Innovation
- Shooters and Hunters
- Social and Gender Equity
- Social, Environmental and Intergenerational Justice
- Telecommunications
- The Arts
- Transport
- Workplace Relations and Safety
