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Hong Kong's tainted water scare
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Mother stops breastfeeding baby after high lead levels found in blood amid Hong Kong contaminated water scare

A mother of two young children living on a Hong Kong public housing estate hit by a water contamination scare has stopped breastfeeding her baby due to excessive lead levels found in her blood.

GLORIA CHAN

Chong So-nga, a housewife who has lived at the Kwai Luen Estate Phase 2 for 10 months with her husband, their three-year-old son and 16-month-old daughter, told Commercial Radio this morning she stopped breastfeeding her daughter when government blood tests showed she had 5.72 micrograms of lead per decilitre in her blood.

“I felt like [stopping breastfeeding] is the only thing I can do as a mother,” Chong said. “My son’s [lead level in blood] is 3.7mcg/dl and my daughter’s 4.49mcg/dl, so I think the difference could be due to breastfeeding.”

A reading of 5mcg/dl or above of lead in the blood is a cause of concern for children, pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers.

Photo: David Wong

No safe blood lead level has been defined, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. However, the CDC says lead levels above 10mcg/dl can damage learning ability.

Chong is dissatisfied the government has yet to confirm the date for installing water filters at the estate and that authorities have not been able to find the source of the water contamination.

“We still don’t know how long we have to wait for the filters, and the chief executive [Leung Chun-ying] has gone on holiday,” she said, adding that water filters would not completely ease her worries, as she questioned their effectiveness.

Ng Kim-sing, a Democratic Party district councillor at Kwai Tsing, slammed the government for its attitude in dealing with the lead-in-water scare.

“It is always us [district councillors] chasing government departments for information. They never actively provide us with updates,” he said. “I’m really disappointed with the way they have released information.”

Ng called for the government to confirm the dates of blood tests for children aged over seven years old.

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