To : Ruth Wilson
Re : Lead
In response to a question concerning an infant whose blood lead level was
9.
Testing for blood lead levels is highly variable. Many health departments
use the finger-stick method. I can tell you from experience, that finger
stick samples are useful, but highly erronious. Many finger-stick samples
that return with high levels, are subsequently found to be absolutely
normal following phlebotomy testing. In other words, it would be a good
idea to get the child retested by removing a blood sample from an
intravenous phlebotomy and sending it rather than the lousy finger stick
sample.
Tom Hale