While legislators questioned whether lead water pipes cause negative health effects, researchers at National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH) said long-term exposure to lead might cause infertility or affect childrens’ intelligence.
The Chinese-language Apple Daily on Monday reported that water at half of the 50 water purification plants — that provide tap water to households — that were tested contained lead, and about 36,000 households in seven counties are still using tap water conveyed through lead pipes.
Among the households using water conveyed by lead pipes, about 30,000 are located in Taipei.
The Taipei Water Department said it plans to come up with a pipe renewal plan by April next year, the report said.
The report lead to Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lu Hsiu-yen (盧秀燕) demanding that state-run Taiwan Water Corp (台灣自來水公司) reveal which households are still using lead water pipes and provide free water tests for those households, at a question-and-answer session at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei on Tuesday.
NTUH Department of Environmental and Occupational Medicine director Chen Pau-chung (陳保中) said in a statement on Tuesday evening that the Taiwan Birth Cohort Study by NTUH Environmental Medicine Collaboration Center discovered that when lead levels in the umbilical cord blood are higher, a child shows significant differences in neurobehavioral development before the age of two, especially in cognitive and social abilities.
A study at a lead storage battery manufacturer also showed that high lead levels in blood can reduce fertility, he said, adding that studies in Taiwan have also found that lead affects childrens’ intelligence level.
He also said that leaded fuel was banned in 2000.
Taiwan Birth Cohort Study researcher Lin Ching-chun (林靜君) said the study showed that during the two years of follow-ups on the 230 babies that were tested for lead levels in their umbilical cord blood, 58 babies that had levels exceeding the regulated reference levels showed higher probabilities of obtaining lower scores on the neonatal neurobehavioral assessment scale.
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