© 2003 American Public Health Association
Carlos Morales Bonilla is with the National Reference and Diagnostic Center, Ministry of Health, Managua, Nicaragua. Evelyn A. Mauss was a consultant to the Natural Resources Defense Council. Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Carlos Morales Bonilla, National Resources Defense Council, 40 W 20th St, New York, NY 10011, Attn: Jessica E. Rosario (e-mail: moralesbonilla@hotmail.com; jrosario@nrdc.org).
In a report in the Journal in 1998,1 we described a then unprecedented measure taken by parents in Pablo Ubeda, a poor barrio in Managua, Nicaragua. The parents had feared that lead emissions from the battery factory at the border of their barrio might be harmful to their children. Their appeals to government that the emissions be reduced or the factory closed had been ignored, as had newspaper and television reports of their concerns, and so they sought authoritative data that might support their quest.
Tests performed in 1996 showed that 78 (80%) of 97 children had blood lead concentrations
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