IPEN

(Taipei City, Taiwan) More than sixty percent of paints analyzed in a new study on total lead in solvent-based decorative paints contained high lead levels, and at least one paint from all eight brands analyzed contained exceedingly high lead levels. The findings are included in a report released today by Taiwan Watch Institute and IPEN. Moreover, most paint can labels failed to carry consumer information about lead content.

“The health impacts of lead exposure on young children’s brains are lifelong, irreversible and untreatable,” said Xavier Sun, Researcher, Taiwan Watch Institute. “We are limiting our children and our nation’s future intellectual development even though safe and effective alternatives are already in use and widely available in Taiwan. We must reduce this critical source of lead exposure to young children.”

Annual Worldwide Lead Exposure Costs are 7 Times the Amount Low- and Middle-Income Countries Receive in Development Assistance

(Nairobi, Kenya) Worldwide, the annual costs of lead exposure are $977 billion international dollars, with developing countries bearing the great majority of costs, according to research and a new interactive map released today that shows country-by-country costs. Overall, the costs of lead exposure are 7 times the amount of funding provided to developing countries in development aid in 2014.[i]

Economic Costs of Childhood Lead Exposure in Low-and Middle-Income Countries was developed by New York University School of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics (NYU) and released today at the 2^nd United Nations Environment Assembly meeting held in Nairobi, Kenya. The website can be accessed at: http://nyulmc.org/pediatricleadexposure. The map was created to help governments see the costs of lead exposure in their own countries; compare those costs with other countries; and compare costs with the amount of development assistance their country receives.

IPEN Participating Organizations PAN- Ethiopia; CREPD- Cameroon; CJGEA- Kenya; and AGENDA- Tanzania have jointly issued a press release with Oeko-Institut on the health and environmental hazards facing many Africans from recovery of lead from waste batteries, the practice commonly referred to as Used Lead Acid Battery (ULAB) recycling. Partners in four African countries and Germany made a study on the recycling practices involved, which was found to cause fatal lead poisoning to the workers in the recycling facilities and surrounding communities:

Freiburg/Berlin: When the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) meets in Nairobi on Monday, its agenda will include one of the new and major health and environmental hazards facing many African countries today: the recovery of lead from waste batteries. In sub-Saharan countries, in particular, unsound recycling practices cause severe and even fatal lead poisoning of the people working in and living around small and industrial-scale lead smelters, including children. This is just one of the findings of the broad cooperation project initiated by Oeko-Institut that involved African environmental organisations in Cameroon, Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania.

IPEN supports the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal in its efforts to petition the U.S. White House to uphold international law and stop shielding Dow Chemical from accountability for corporate crimes in Bhopal, India. 

On December 3rd, 1984, in the middle of the night, thousands of people were gassed to death because of a catastrophic chemical leak at the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India. More than 150,000 people were left severely disabled, and 22,000 people have since died of their injuries.  For these reasons the Bhopal gas disaster is widely acknowledged as the world's worst-ever industrial disaster. Find out more about the tragedy on the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal's website.