I often scan EurekAlert for story ideas and this one caught my eye because it looked suspicious. The headline: “Children living near toxic waste sites experience higher blood lead levels resulting in lower IQ.”
We often see ominous headlines similar to the one above in the mainstream media. They can cause great concern. The headline is qualified in the first sentence with the phrase “may experience higher blood lead levels” but many of the media reports of the study didn’t get that distinction. This headline came from a press release by the prestigious Mount Sinai School of Medicine (see the entire press release here).
So, what methods did the researchers use to justify even the modified description?
The operative paragraph in the press release is this one:
“Researchers measured lead levels in soil and drinking water at 200 toxic waste sites in 31 countries then estimated the blood lead levels in 779,989 children who were potentially exposed to lead from these sites in 2010. The blood lead levels ranged from 1.5 to 104 µg/dL, with an average of 21 µg/dL in children ages four years and younger. According to Dr. Chatham-Stephens, first author of the study, these higher blood lead levels could result in an estimated loss of five to eight IQ points per child and an incidence of mild mental retardation in 6 out of every 1,000 children.”
Do you recognize the problems with this report? Read the paragraph again. There are many precise numbers implying rigorous research. But, you see the phrases “estimated the blood levels,” “potentially exposed,” and “could result.”
The whole thesis of this research is based on guesswork and assumption. Did the researchers measure lead levels in children’s blood; did they test IQ levels; did they actually count 779,989 children? No to all; further investigation reveals that all the numbers, including the reported blood lead levels, are extrapolations from computer modeling.
I think stories like this reflect poor practice in both journalism and science. I also noted that the study was done in conjunction with the Blacksmith Institute, an advocacy group, so there may be some promotional incentive for the press release headline.
Note: the comments above are based on the press release only. In my opinion, the headline is not justified by the information released, nor by the study methodology. The paper title is “The Pediatric Burden of Disease from Lead Exposure at Toxic Waste Sites in Low and Middle Income Countries.” I could not find the full published paper, but I did find the abstract here. From the abstract we find that the numbers reported in the press release are indeed products of computer modeling, not from actual measurement. The paper in question is apparently a subset of a larger study by the same authors: “Burden of disease from toxic waste sites in India, Indonesia, and the Philippines in 2010” which is available online. The methodology described confirms that no blood tests were performed. So, all those impressive looking precise numbers in the press release are mere artifacts of the assumptions used to program a computer model and may have little relation to ground truth.
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