by Claudia Boyd-Barrett posted in Parenting

If your child is age 6 or younger and has been tested for lead by having blood drawn from his arm, you may need to get him retested.
You may need retesting yourself, too, if you?re pregnant or nursing and also underwent this kind of test.
Federal officials warned Wednesday that results from certain lead tests manufactured by the company Magellan Diagnostics may have ?significantly? underestimated how much lead was in the blood. The problem applies only to tests where blood was drawn from a vein, not the more common lead tests that involve pricking a finger or heel to get a blood sample.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended retesting in cases where the venous blood tests showed less than 10 micrograms of lead per deciliter. Blood lead levels over this amount are considered especially serious, although there is no safe level of lead exposure for children. FDA officials believe the problems with the tests may have started in 2014 and are investigating. Between 400,000 and 600,000 people get these kinds of tests each year, the head of Meridian Bioscience, which owns Magellan, told the Washington Post.
If you think you or your child needs another lead test, talk with your doctor.

Have you or you child had one of these tests" Do these reports of inaccurate tests worry you"

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