CASE 01 · RESOLVED
1800s Maine farmhouse · 2 EBLL kids · ~6 months · 0 revisits
A 1800s farmhouse, two kids with elevated BLLs, and one stop.
Affected kids
2 (BLLs 4 + 10+, both under 3 yrs)
Eric's visits
1
Kits left behind
a few
Time to non-detect
~6 mo
Last September I drove up to Maine. Dr. Jessica , a doctor I'd met online earlier that year, had told me about an 1800s farmhouse not far from her own home. It housed a young family with two young kids. Both had elevated blood lead levels. One over 10. The other a 4.
I made a stop. The house was huge and falling apart. They had started renovations in almost every room , and every room had lead-based paint . It was chipping. It was peeling. The renovation work had left debris on friction surfaces, including the top of the stairs where the kids walked every day. In the playroom I found lead-based paint dust particles , the actual exposure route for a toddler.
Both kids were under three years old. One had a blood lead level over 10. The other was at 4. I was concerned, and upset to recognize that the homeowners were not particularly concerned themselves. They were aware of the historical reality of lead in the US, and treated it as background noise. They knew people used to have much higher BLLs. They treated this like that.
I walked them through the house and tested some areas. I tried to convince them that cleanup was easier than they assumed. I left a few bottles of Fluoro-Spec and a UV flashlight , and some straightforward advice: find the glow, clean it, retest. There was no strong indication they cared.
I drove home and forgot about them.
Outcome · Early April, ~6 months later
Dr. Jessica texted me: both children's blood lead levels were undetectable. A family that seemed uninterested had, in fact, done the work. Low cost. Low, potentially zero, time investment. One stop. Two EBLLs, eliminated.
CASE 02 · ONGOING
Dr. Jessica's own home · Rural Maine · 2001 build · Luxury · Golf-course neighborhood
A 2001 home with a lead source no one thought to look for.
Home built
2001
Youngest child BLL
5 µg/dL
EBLL team findings
"no hazards"
Actual source
exterior spray
I met Dr. Jessica online. I don't remember the exact circumstances, but I remember her texting me images, fluorescent green on her house, and on the gravel around her house . This was one of the craziest glow patterns I've seen. And the house was built in 2001 , past the cutoff most people assume means "lead-free."
The home sits in rural Maine, in a very nice neighborhood nestled within a golf course. A large luxury home that appeared completely devoid of lead hazards, that was the conclusion the EBLL investigation team drew after her youngest child tested positive at 5 µg/dL .
Eventually it was discovered that the concrete pathways around the house had lead on them . But it wasn't simply concrete. The house itself and the ground around it had apparently been sprayed with something containing lead , a very long time ago, and it had persisted.
Removing all of the hardscaped walkways did little to prevent a hazardous situation. Within a few rainstorms, glowing green lead could be found on the bricks surrounding the house.
I visited twice and attempted to clean and remediate using TSP , thinking it would react and render the lead non-dangerous. It was not successful.
Status · ongoing
Dr. Jessica's case is unresolved. A 2001 home that should never have had lead, hazardous for a reason nobody predicted, and standard chemical cleanup hasn't worked. The investigation continues. This is what primary prevention looks like: finding the thing nobody is looking for, because a parent could see it.
CASE 03 · BELOW THRESHOLD
Emma · BLL 3.3 · 1.5-year-old · no public help available · source: thrifted dish set
A mother whose kid was elevated, but not elevated “enough.”
Child’s BLL
3.3 µg/dL
CDC ref. value
3.5 µg/dL
Health dept help
none
Source found
dish set
In March 2025, a mother named Emma emailed me. Her 1.5-year-old had a blood lead level of 3.3 µg/dL , elevated to her, and scary based on the research she’d read online. But below the threshold the local health department uses to qualify for a free home inspection. No one would come.
So she bought a Fluoro-Spec kit and tested the plates her family was using every day:
Plate · normal light · UV light
Emma testing the worn plate
Emma’s words, from her letter:
“The dish set that was positive was one I bought back when I was in middle school at a garage sale. I’m 27 now so I had been waiting quite a few years to use this dish set as an adult. We’ve been using it for about 2 years now. I usually clean them with the dishwasher so some plates have faded more than others. The plate that is more worn has much much lead available on the surface. ”
→ Read Emma’s full email
From: Emma · Mar 13, 2025 · Subject: Found lead!
What Fluoro-Spec can identify in a home, this is the full surface of the problem:
Lead-based paint on walls, sills, trim, toys, furniture
Lead-based paint dust , the actual exposure route
Lead water service lines and lead solder joints
High-lead brass fittings
Hobby contamination (gun cleaning, stained glass, fishing weights, soldering)
High-lead glass and lead crystal glassware
Decorated ceramic glaze, plates like Emma’s
Outcome · source identified in 30 seconds
Emma didn’t need a remediation team, a BLL retest, or months of waiting. She bought the kit, tested the plates, found the problem, and removed the dish set. The below-threshold BLL was there because standard surveillance has a floor, Fluoro-Spec doesn’t. → Watch the full story on Instagram
Author's note · on anecdotes
What these stories are actually evidence of.
I'm not personally a big fan of anecdotes. They almost always serve to promote ideas that are unlikely, illogical, or self-serving. But in this case I'd ask you to consider: there is very little, if any, real data on the use of this test kit. These three families, two in Maine, one in Emma’s kitchen, may serve as a harbinger of what’s possible.
There are substantial opportunities being missed by not deploying this technology to the people who could use it, to expose lead hazards themselves, understand where the dust is, see how well they're cleaning, and have a sense of control over the situation. That control allows them to protect their kids better.
The implications go beyond blood lead levels. Vast numbers of parents find out about lead through their kid's blood test, a result they receive in panic, without preparation, often without an investigator ready to help for weeks or months. They don't understand the nomenclature. They aren't familiar with the science. They become agitated. That agitation exacerbates the psychological burden on the children themselves.
A competent, informed parent, armed ahead of time with a tool they can use themselves, doesn't go through that. They find the hazard, remove it, retest, and move on. The case above, the farmhouse, is exactly this. The parents weren't remarkable, weren't especially motivated. They just had the tool, and the tool made it easy.
Hopefully primary prevention becomes the main job. Shifting resources a little bit up the chain, from post-exposure surveillance to pre-exposure detection, produces dramatically more favorable outcomes in both health and happiness.
Thank you for reading., Eric Ritter