Abnormally high levels of lead were discovered during the All Saints’ Day holidays in a school in Saint-Denis. For several days, screening of residents of the Francs-Moisins district has been underway, even if the Regional Health Agency wants to be reassuring.
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A resident of Francs-Moisins, Jacky did not imagine that lead contamination could have so many repercussions on her health. This morning, a doctor gave him a prescription to have his whole family tested: “I exposed my children through ignorance so it bothers me because I am not there to put them in danger and, without knowing it, I did it”.
In his children’s school, as in four other establishments in Seine-Saint-Denis, a high concentration of lead was found in the earth. Three children of Aline, another resident, are above the threshold of vigilance. Her GP wants to be reassuring but the mother still panicked: “My six-year-old daughter couldn’t sleep because she was afraid of dying. There was a lack of information”she denounces.
Lead can cause a serious but extremely rare neurological disease called lead poisoning. “The only treatment is monitoring, removing the source and verifying that the lead decreases once the source of exposure is removed,” explains doctor and general practitioner Anne Landais.
By encouraging this screening, the elected officials of Saint-Denis are following the recommendations of the ARS (Regional Health Agency). Lead was detected during work in the city: “That’s good since the entire neighborhood is going to be redeveloped and yes, each time, the fact of changing the land, of covering an area that is particularly polluted is always taken into account in the development projects”assures Cathy Bontinck, first deputy (PS) to the mayor of Saint-Denis.
The first screening results are not worrying according to the ARS. In 2024, 97 cases of lead poisoning were reported, including 34 cases in Seine-Saint-Denis. A figure increasing since 2023.
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