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Comment by damnitbuilds | Hacker News Reader

I live with children in a very old house. I would love to be able to measure my children's lead exposure and check things like window paint or house dust for lead content to see how big a problem there is.

How do I do that?

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If you wish to do some of your own tests, vs using a service, swab test kits have a reputation for being very poor quality and unreliable. This led this gal to start a kind of one-woman crusade on the topic:

https://tamararubin.com/2023/01/dont-panic-these-lead-test-k...

She recommends the american brand Scitus for swab test kits.

Awesome. Thank you very much.

There are test kits for at-home usecases like paint and stuff - I think they're pretty reliable. For exposure, you can get blood tests at your GP. They might be absurdly expensive if you're in America, but maybe next time you travel to Europe you can pay privately and get a better deal.

Some US states require lead screening (blood tests) for babies and toddlers. In that case they are covered by insurance. My son has been tested once so far.

I'm in Europe and I see no way to get such tests. Other than lying and saying that you are at risk of contamination ("My hobby was glassworking"), I never saw any kind of test that you could pay yourself. Everywhere the government says "100% reimbursed", but you cannot even order one by yourself unless you have a good reason.

So, I don't even know if it's expensive or not.

A friend got a routine physical and blood screening last week and to my surprise it included testing for lead acetate. I've never seen that before.

Oops! Just found out that a lead acetate level test is for particular proteins and is NOT used to detect blood lead levels:

https://microbenotes.com/lead-sulfide-test/#result-and-inter...

In the US, you can get a lead test directly through Quest Diagnostics, without going through your physician or insurance, if you are near a testing center. Probably costs less too.

I was working part time in copper fabrication and had some potential lead exposure

You can ask your doctor, it was just a blood test

It was free but I’m Australian

Came back zero

As the other commenter mentioned, you can buy at-home testing kits. But what you really want is to hire a lead testing and remediation company. We also live in an old house and we spent a huge amount of time applying "lead block" paint and replacing older windows (disastrous for lead dust because of the friction) and some older pipes. You may also want to test your outdoor soil, because older houses near roads will accumulate lead paint in soil due to years of traffic fumes, plus lead dust from the exterior of the house. Kids will sometimes eat dirt, don't ask me how I know. (Also: regular blood lead tests for your young kids! If you live in an older city this will be standard.)

Also if you do any construction that disturbs old paint (demolition, window replacement) be careful to seal off the area using plastic, then clean it carefully with disposable wipes.

> You may also want to test your outdoor soil, because older houses near roads will accumulate lead paint in soil due to years of traffic fumes, plus lead dust from the exterior of the house.

You also want to do this if you're going to be growing anything edible in your front or back yard.

Look for a lead abatement company. The surface test kits only test the surface. A dedicated company should have a X-ray device that can determine if there is lead that has been painted over. Also get soil tests since houses with lead paint will have been scraped and that leads to lead going into the soil around the house.

> A dedicated company should have a X-ray device that can determine if there is lead that has been painted over.

Isn't the risk of lead paint only relevant if it's exposed? So you should test any visible layer and any layer that later becomes visible, but deeply nested layers don't matter so much.

For the house, hire a professional inspector who will use an x-ray fluoresence meter and dust test strips. You want a professional because they will be more thorough, and check things that you would not know to check.

To test your children's exposure, you can have their blood tested. They may very well be exposed from sources other than your house

You can buy a Lead Test Kit and check it yourself https://www.epa.gov/lead/lead-test-kits

You can request blood lead labs done through your doctor. People who work in industry and competition shooters and such will get that done to track.

Competition shooters? They're not likely to touch lead, unless they fatally disobey shooting range safety rules.

Now the people manufacturing the bullets for those competition shooters... they need lead tests.

Doesn't some of the lead end up in the air?

It’s not obvious, but practice enough at indoor ranges or reload your own competition ammo long enough. I have heard firsthand accounts from shooters who at some point weren’t feeling well, got tested, and found out they needed to be a lot more careful with their lead exposure.

Interesting. I'm obviously not from a shooting culture :)

Don't be hard on yourself. None of us are born with this knowledge :-)

If you ever shoot, just remember it is a really good idea to wash your hands afterwards (using the dlead soap if possible). It is not a bad idea to have a change of clothes and to wash your clothes right away as well.

A small amount of lead makes its way out of the chamber in the form of dust and fumes after shooting. It’s quite easy to breath this in or get it on your hands and accidentally ingest it. Not enough to matter for someone who occasionally goes to the range, but significant for those shooting nearly daily, especially if shooting indoors.

the obvious solution is to switch to depleted uranium ammo

A lot of primers have lead, and the dust ends up in the air.

The primers in the ammunition contain a lead compound

I’ve more recently have gotten into competition shooting and it is definitely something to be aware of because it can easily slip into concerning exposure levels. A Reddit group I’m in just had a guy find out he was over exposed. Here’s the post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/nass/comments/1jtrzm7/lead_levels/

Congratulations on getting into competition! I started competing and intentionally practicing to get better about 4 years ago after a long time of being a safe but casual shooter. In the last year I have won some major Glock-sponsored GSSF matches - 1st place Amateur out of 140 at their national championship Talladega, AL. One more win and they are going to bump me to master class. I do not reload my own ammo so I have less lead exposure there. I am very careful with my range routine though. I have dedicated cross trainer shoes as my range shoes that I put in a plastic bag in the trunk of the car on the way home. I wash my hands with the dlead soap right away (have wipes in my bag for outdoor use). Finally, I put my clothes directly in the wash when I get home to reduce tracking anything inside particularly since I have small children at home.

That's awesome and congrats on the success so far! Smart move on the lead precautions. I need to get some of the wipes for my bag!

Pottery stores usually have a "lead test" kit. Quite simple to use.

While that's great, the downside is that if you know there's lead in your house, you are obligated to clean it up, no matter the cost. That's why when old houses are sold or rented, they come with pamphlets warning of lead exposure, unless they are certified free of lead, but few want to pay for that.

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