My house was built in the 70s and I've tested surfaces over the years and have not found any lead paint yet. Another source of lead, unfortunately, is in children's toys.
Smaller general aviation aircraft still use 100LL gasoline (the LL stands for low lead) - and even though there’s lead-free replacement candidates (still going through regulatory approval, at least in the US), it’s been known that areas around airports with frequent GA traffic have higher levels of lead in the air, and children living near said airports may have elevated levels of lead in their blood (https://paloaltoonline.com/news/2021/08/06/new-study-finds-l...)
>and children living near said airports may have elevated levels of lead in their blood
Or is that because the upper middle class types avoid airport noise like the plague leaving the housing stock around airports cheaper, older and more leaded?
The correlation between low income and lead (all known bad chemicals highly used in the past really) exposure is well studied rather than speculative.
Lead doesn't absorb through the skin. You have to breathe or eat it. As long as you thoroughly wash your hands after preflight, the only exposure should be the fumes and exhaust in the air.
With almost no exceptions, pilots have exactly zero say in what fuel to use. Airplanes are certified to use certain fuels and that's what you have to use. At this point there is no generally approved unleaded replacement for 100-octane avgas (although several are in testing.)
A few engines, mostly low performance ones, have the option to use automobile gas, but even in those cases it's rarely available at airports so it's not really an option either.
Without a legal replacement fuel (which is now in the works, but still not generally available nor legally approved for most aircraft), incentive isn't enough.
Modern mass-market electronics have been made with lead-free solder for a long time because of RoHS regulations (I believe this is an EU thing but most manufacturers have retooled everything to be lead-free). I'd argue that electronics solder is a lot less of a concern anyway since it's usually only in hard-to-reach places. It's a major concern for disposal, however.
In the course of regular pediatric visits the doctor should at some point check the blood for lead early on. Not on every visit, of course, they have a schedule for the blood work.
As for the concerns, if there're reasons, doctor recommened us to check the water first. There may also be free test kits from the city.
Also, out of caution, we were running the water off for some time before filling pots and doing washes, esp. in the morning.
Dust wise, there's no easy solution. The wet cleaning, mopping the floors regularly and maintaining reasonable humidity indoors would help keep dust down... but babies love to crawl.
Perhaps being outdoors more may be an option, unless it's even more polluted.
Old stuff has lead, but also has a bunch of other things that are of dubious health effects.
But new stuff contains more volatiles, more fluorinated plastics, and a far wider array of newish chemicals we don't yet have good data on (nanoparticles etc.)
Overall, I'd say that unless you have a lifetime to test and research everything, it probably isn't worth making any lifestyle choices to avoid unhealthy materials, because in doing so there's a good chance you'll just switch to another. But you should ask your government to put more money into population wide health initiatives, like research into health effects of chemicals.
Or avoid anything that wasn't made the same way 400 years ago. ;-)
Except pewter. Avoid that.
But like -- wood, cast iron, earthenware, unleaded glass, natural fibers (cotton, linen, hemp), vegetable dyes: I don't see how you go wrong with those.
Lead paint is still occasionally found on toys imported from China. But after a previous recall incident the major US toy brands now have better control over their supply chains so the risk should be low.
Watch out for dishes, especially older ones. The older Lenox dishes my family used for 40 years turned out to have heavily leaded glaze on the surface. By the time I was using them for my own kids, the glaze could turn a lead-check swab bright red, which means we were eating that lead.
After I discovered this I replaced all of our dishes with plain white Corelle. Corelle currently uses lead-free glaze; the plain white is just me being an absolutist.
Note that vintage Corelle and almost all other vintage cookware contains some amount of lead in the decorative glaze.
Here's a good resource for lead content in the household items your kids are likely to encounter:
I stripped some woodwork in an 18th century house that had been painted over numerous times. I didn't bother to test, I just assumed that at least some of those layers were lead. The options for removal and disposal are limited and nasty.
