3 ms·

Instead of testing sparrows to infer blood lead in children why not just test the children?

defrost 2y ago
In the specific case of this study they tested both (and looked back at historic records) and now know that sparrows make a very good proxy for human results. This is useful because: The Macquarie University environmental scientist and PhD candidate said collecting blood samples from people, especially children, can be difficult to conduct, and can raise significant logistical and ethical issues. As a result, data on children's blood lead levels is unavailable in many parts of Australia where communities intersect with mining and smelting operations. ~ Linked article, towards the end. It's also not just Australia where human proxies are useful.
- kwhitefoot 2y ago
  > collecting blood samples from people, especially children, can be difficult to conduct, and can raise significant logistical and ethical issues. Really? Children visit family doctors relatively often in my experience and taking a blood sample is a trivial and routine task for the nurse at my GP's surgery. What ethical issue is there?
  - defrost 2y ago
    > in my experience Well, that's all that counts then I guess, never mind the stated opinion of medical researchers in the field with broader experience. Christian Scientists and Jehovah’s Witnesses oppose blood transfusions and small town groups (which can be quite large in specific towns and non existant in others) can oppose blood samples also. Various indiginous groups within Australia and elsewhere can be opposed to medical tests .. for fear of being guinea pigs in experiments again. Some people just don't like giving samples.
    - kwhitefoot 2y ago
      If they have numbers o support their supposed wider experience I'd love to see them. You can always find someone opposed to something, that doesn't necessarily mean that the thing is impractical. How was the blood extracted from the sparrows? There was a surprising lack of information about animal welfare in the article. People interested in that might be opposed to those medical tests too.

In the specific case of this study they tested both (and looked back at historic records) and now know that sparrows make a very good proxy for human results. This is useful because: The Macquarie University environmental scientist and PhD candidate said collecting blood samples from people, especially children, can be difficult to conduct, and can raise significant logistical and ethical issues. As a result, data on children's blood lead levels is unavailable in many parts of Australia where communities intersect with mining and smelting operations. ~ Linked article, towards the end. It's also not just Australia where human proxies are useful.

kwhitefoot 2y ago
> collecting blood samples from people, especially children, can be difficult to conduct, and can raise significant logistical and ethical issues. Really? Children visit family doctors relatively often in my experience and taking a blood sample is a trivial and routine task for the nurse at my GP's surgery. What ethical issue is there?
- defrost 2y ago
  > in my experience Well, that's all that counts then I guess, never mind the stated opinion of medical researchers in the field with broader experience. Christian Scientists and Jehovah’s Witnesses oppose blood transfusions and small town groups (which can be quite large in specific towns and non existant in others) can oppose blood samples also. Various indiginous groups within Australia and elsewhere can be opposed to medical tests .. for fear of being guinea pigs in experiments again. Some people just don't like giving samples.
  - kwhitefoot 2y ago
    If they have numbers o support their supposed wider experience I'd love to see them. You can always find someone opposed to something, that doesn't necessarily mean that the thing is impractical. How was the blood extracted from the sparrows? There was a surprising lack of information about animal welfare in the article. People interested in that might be opposed to those medical tests too.