U.S. team finds high levels of metal in residents of smelter town

Published: 2005-12-08

LIMA, Peru (CNS) -- A team of researchers from St. Louis University in Missouri has found extremely high levels of lead and other metals in the blood and urine of children and adults in a town high in the Andes Mountains of Peru. The study of nearly 200 people in La Oroya, where Missouri-based Doe Run Co. owns a multimetal smelter and refinery, confirmed Peruvian findings of high levels of lead in townspeople's blood, but also found that they had been exposed to a "toxic cocktail" of metals, including cadmium, arsenic and mercury, said Fernando Serrano, who headed the team. Levels of cadmium in urine samples were more than twice the average in the United States, while amounts of mercury, cesium, antimony and uranium were more than three times the U.S. average, according to a preliminary report released Dec. 6 in Lima. The team found that 97 percent of children under age 6 had lead levels exceeding the maximum limit set by the World Health Organization of 10 micrograms per deciliter of blood. Lead poisoning can cause irritability, developmental problems and kidney cancer.

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