# Lead In Blood



## Dean CRCNA (Feb 4, 2010)

On this message board and on others, every now and then a contractor will mention that he got his blood checked for lead and no ... or very little lead was found.

I feel the conclusion they are trying to make is that there are "no worries". Thus, I would like to make a few points from my own personal studies and test.

1. You have good blood test and cheap blood test. Certain cheap blood test will not register lead in blood under 10mcg/dl.

2. As many have mentioned, the lead gets out of your blood usually within 30 to 60 days.

3. The reality is we all have lead in our blood. It may be 2 mcg/dl or 5 mcg/dl on average, depending on where you live. But no "good" blood test will reveal zero.

4. If you are a painter and have disturbed lead based paint recently ... you will show higher lead in your blood. If you are not showing higher levels ... it is because it wasn't lead based paint you disturbed or you were wearing a PPE.

I've used portable air sampling pumps and even with 1 mg/cm2 (smallest amount of lead in paint to be classified lead based paint) the vast majority of times you will go over the action level of OSHA. You will get elevated lead blood levels if no PPE is used. 

Once again, if you have zero lead in your blood ... it is a cheap a_ _ blood test. If you have 1 to 5 mcg/dl you have not disturbed any "actual" lead based paint within the past 30 to 60 days.

I'm making this pretty cut and dry and there are a ton of variables and exceptions, but to put it in "general all purpose statement" ... the above works.

They call lead poisoning "painters colic" for a reason.


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