• Lead can affect children's brains and developing nervous systems, causing reduced IQ, learning disabilities, and behavioral problems.  Lead is also harmful to adults.
• Lead indust is the most common way people are exposed to elad.  People can also gt lead in their bodies from lead in soil or paint chips.  Lead dust is often invisible.
• Lead-based paint was used in more than 38 million homes until it was banned for residential use in 1978.
• Projects that disturb lead-based paint can create dust and endanger you and your family.  Don't let this happen to you. 

Lead and Your Health

Lead is especially dangerous to children under six years of age.

Lead can affect children's brains and developing nervous systems, causing:

• Reduced IQ and learning disabilities
• Behavior problems

Even children who appear healthy can have dangerous levels of lead in their bodies.

Lead is also harmful to adults.  In adults, low levels of lead can pose many dangers, including:

• High blood pressure and hypertension
• Pregnant women exposed to lead can transfer lead to their fetus

Lead gets into the body when it is swallowed or inhaled

• People, especially children, can swallow lead dust as they eat, play, and do other normal hand-to-mouth activities
• People may also breathe in lead dust or fumes if they disturb lead-based paint.  People who sand, scrape, burn, brush or blast or otherwise disturb lead-based paint risk unsafe exposure to lead.

An Environmental Protection Agency document titled "What You Need to Know About Lead Poisoning" says that "Despite laws established in the 1970s to make people aware of the dangers of lead and its poisonous effects, lead poisoning in children remains a common, yet preventable, environmental health problem in the United States."

Heavily-leaded paint is in about two-thirds of homes built prior to 1940 and half the homes built from 1940 to 1960, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), which also says "some homes built after 1960 also contain heavily-leaded paint."

The CPSC recommends that any homes built before the 1980s be tested for lead before renovating.

MAXIM Cleaning & Restoration is an EPA Certified Lead Renovator Firm.