Importance of monitoring family members in establishing sources and pathways of lead in blood

High precision lead isotope measurements were undertaken to establish the sources and pathways in blood and environmental samples of five families from the Broken Hill lead mining community, New South Wales, Australia. The five families were selected from 27 families investigated to illustrate the different sources and pathways of lead into blood and the importance of monitoring the whole family. The results illustrate that although the major source of lead is from the orebody, paint and petrol can be significant contributors to both house dust and blood leads. The results also show that the sources and pathways can be from the fatherʹs occupation and hence monitoring of families is important, especially in high risk locations. In two cases, the elevated blood leads in the children did not derive from their current residence but from other residences in the community.