In Nigerian Gold Rush, Lead Poisons Thousands Of Children

This is what results from libertarianism, and lack of any regulation.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/10/03/161908669/in-the-wake-of-high-gold-prices-lead-poisons-thousands-of-children

by Jason Beaubien
Oct. 3, 2012

Across a swath of northern Nigeria, a humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding, as lead from illegal gold mines sickens thousands of children.

More than 400 kids have died, and many more have been mentally stunted for life.

Doctors Without Borders, which has set up clinics to treat the children, is calling it one of the worst cases of environmental lead poisoning in recent history.

The problem first came to light in 2010, when children in some villages started dying. Medical professionals couldn't even explain what was happening. In some villages, one-third of children under 5 years old died.

"Initially, they and we thought there was some sort of communicable disease. It felt like a hemorrhagic fever or something," says Ivan Gayton, who heads the mission for Doctors Without Borders in Nigeria.


Gado Labbo, a mother in the tiny village of Dareta, says she had no idea what was wrong with her 3-year-old son, Yusuf, a few years ago. He was a healthy child, and then suddenly he started violently convulsing.

When Yusuf first entered a Doctors Without Borders clinic in 2010, the level of lead in his blood was 150 micrograms per deciliter — 30 times the level considered dangerous by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Now Yusuf is 5 years old. He's blind, weighs just 22 pounds, can't speak or walk and spends most of his days clutched in his mother's arms.

Clinicians have brought his blood level down to about 50 micrograms per deciliter, says Susan Lake, a nurse from Doctors Without Borders. But he has already suffered significant neurological damage, and the long-term prospects for Yusuf are not good.

These problems are "clearly linked to the lead," Lake says. "Obviously, with children, we just have to wait and see, but there isn't much hope that he would gain enough capacity to walk and talk again."

Unfortunately, the same is true for other children who have been exposed to high levels of the metal.

The source of the lead is illegal gold mines, also called artisanal mines, which have risen in popularity as the price of gold has gone up in the past few years.

Gold is mingled with veins of lead in this part of Nigeria, and miners use primitive methods to process the raw ore. This puts large amounts of lead-laden dust into the air.

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Nigeria may be Africa's largest oil producer, but there is no sign of that wealth in these simple settlements. Aside from subsistence farming, several miners say, mining is their only way to earn a living.

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