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Childhood Lead Poisoning Is The Focus For KSC Sidore Lecture Symposium October 17

KEENE, N.H., 10/09/07 - Keene State College’s 2007 Sidore Lecture series will open with a symposium on childhood lead poisoning on Wednesday, October 17, at 7 p.m. in the Mabel Brown Room in the Student Center.

Lead is a toxic metal that can cause a range of health issues, from behavioral problems and learning disabilities to seizures and death. In the 1980s, the use of lead was phased out of gasoline and paint, but in New England, where many buildings are more than 25 years old, many of our houses may still contain lead paint. Exposure to lead usually occurs because of deteriorating lead-based paint, lead-contaminated dust (particularly from renovations), and lead-contaminated residential soil. Children 6 years old and under are most at risk because their bodies are growing quickly.

Even seemingly healthy children can have high levels of lead in their bodies. This symposium brings three experts in the field to help inform parents and community members about this issue:

Dr. Michael Shannon will open with Healthy People 2010: Eradication of Childhood Lead Poisoning - Will the Promise Be Fulfilled? A pediatrician for more than 25 years, Dr. Shannon is chief emeritus of Emergency Services at Children’s Hospital Boston, as well as professor and chair of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. He is the associate director of the Children’s Hospital Pediatric Environmental Health Center at Children’s, a Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit (PEHSU) serving EPA Region I, and the senior consulting toxicologist for the MA/RI Poison Control Center.

Local pediatrician Dr. Marni A. Silverstein will follow with Lead and Your Child: What Your (Child’s) Doctor Does Want You to Know! Dr. Silverstein is a pediatrician at Cheshire Medical Center/Dartmouth-Hitchcock Keene, interacting with children and their parents on a wide range of pediatric issues. She received her bachelor’s degree in neuroscience and behavior from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, and her Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, Massachusetts. She completed her residency training at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire. She has been in Keene since 2004.

Public health nurse Katie Lajoie will conclude with What Parents Can Do. Lajoie is a Public Health Nurse case manager in the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program of the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services. She has worked for the Department of Health and Human Services since 1985 and in the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program since 1990. In this role she provides counseling to parents and other members of the public about lead poisoning and its prevention; serves as a liaison between community health providers, environmental inspectors, and primary health care providers; and helps to ensure children’s care throughout the process, from case identification to case resolution.

The Sidore O. Memorial Foundation and the Sidore Lecture Series have been established to support campus presentations by speakers on emerging ideas and to enhance faculty efforts to challenge students and the wider community to participate in dialogue around original and sometimes controversial issues facing society.

For more information, call Loren Launen at 603-358-2574.

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