By Matthew Monks
While offered to everyone, the Affinity Health Plan initiative targets children 6 months to 9 years old, whose developing nervous system puts them most at risk for lead poisoning, said Richard Younge, senior vice-president and chief medical officer for Affinity. The disease often has no symptoms, he said, and may cause a variety of mild and severe ailments – from impaired hearing, stunted growth and learning disabilities to comas, convulsions and death.A screening is “really the only way to know that lead levels are high,” Younge said. “It's a simple blood test that we do. It's a finger stick. … It's just a little pinch.”The tests take about five minutes, he said, and draw a smidgen of blood from the ring finger. Results come back in about a week, he said. State law requires that children ages 1 and 2 be tested, but the New York City Health Department found that just 20 percent of that city's demographic was tested in 2001, Younge said.”So we're not doing a real great job as far as screening the population,” he said. “We think that one of the barriers to screening has been just the inconvenience.”That's why Affinity will be offering free tests out of medical vans at three Queens locations.The screenings are from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the following spots:- Sept. 21 at Liberty Avenue and Lefferts Boulevard in Richmond Hill.- Sept. 25 at Main Street and Kissena Boulevard in Flushing.- Oct. 2 at Ditmars Boulevard and 31st Street in Astoria.He said the Health Department recently targeted these neighborhoods as high-risk areas because they have a lot of buildings that were erected before the 1970s, when lead-based paint was outlawed in New York City, and they have high immigrant populations. In 2002 the Health Department reported that 26 percent of children with lead poisoning in the city were foreign born, primarily from Mexico, Haiti, Pakistan, the Dominican Republic and Bangladesh.”New York is a city of immigrants,” Younge said. “A lot of children do traveling back to their country of origin and often those countries don't have as stringent requirements for preventing lead poisoning as the United States.” To prevent the disease, the doctor suggested that children frequently wash their hands; that parents mix baby formula with cold rather than hot water, which tends to hold more lead; that tap-water users let the faucet run for a number of minutes each morning to clear the pipe of harmful contaminants; and that children eat iron-rich foods, such as spinach, broccoli and other green, leafy vegetables. He said the iron displaces lead.Reach reporter Matthew Monks by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 156.
