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Environmental NGO, Pure Earth’s Black Smith Initiative has in a study revealed popularly used local metallic cookware, also known as “dades3n” to be a major source of lead contamination and low IQ in children.
The study, which involved nearly 200 consumer goods and food samples across four regions in Ghana, dug into the disturbing levels of lead in those products which is a prevalent phenomenon in low and middle-income countries.
According to their findings, metal cookware (Dades3n) has 55% lead contamination, ceramic cookware has 18%, toys for kids have 14%, and cosmetics, specifically mascara have 7% of lead.
Country Director for Pure Earth, Esmond Wisdom Quansah highlighted the devastating aftermath of consuming foods prepared using these cookware.
“What this points to is that we are not safe. If you happen to be eating from any of these metallic or ‘dades3n’ cookware, we are at risk of lead poisoning.”, he explained.
He also reported the thorough nature of the study in order to arrive at consistent and accurate results.
“Our scientists have conducted what we call the leach test to determine the percentage of leach of this lead concentration in this metallic or aluminum cooking pot into the food, and we were surprised by the findings of the scientists.
“55% of the lead in this metallic cookware actually leaked into the food. The experiment was conducted six times, and the results remained consistent. This is a cause for concern for everyone,” he added.
A recent World Bank report indicates that these high levels of lead contamination have devastating effects on children.
“Children under 5 years old worldwide lost 765 million IQ points, those living in low and middle-income countries lost 729 million IQ points. There is an average loss of 5.9 IQ points per child, and this IQ points loss is 80% greater than the previous estimate,” it stated.
