The blood lead screen at 12 to 18 months is the upstream score every future test inherits. Pass it clean and every grade after gets a fair shot. Our 8-step weekend protocol has helped 2,100+ families find and remove the source before the appointment.
Kindergarten readiness, third-grade reading, the SAT, lifetime earnings, the cognitive test at 70. Each one inherits the score from the first blood lead screen. Swipe through, then start the protocol.
Letter recognition. Number sense. Working memory. The kindergarten readiness battery is essentially an IQ proxy, and Lanphear’s 1,333-child pooled analysis found 1 IQ point lost per 2.4 µg/dL of mean childhood blood lead. A toddler who averaged 5 µg/dL enters kindergarten about 2 points behind a zero-lead peer. Invisible in the room. Measurable on every test from there forward.
Wehby tracked 305,000 Iowa children with serial blood lead from infancy through eleventh grade. The score gap from early lead exposure was the same size in second grade and in eleventh grade. Not in third grade. Not in junior high. "They’ll catch up" is not what the data says. These kids had blood lead the CDC once called safe.
SAT scores correlate strongly with IQ. A 5 µg/dL toddler blood lead level predicts about 4.8 IQ points of deficit, which translates to roughly 30 SAT points. Not the difference between Harvard and not Harvard. Just the difference between the score he got and the score the unexposed version of him would have gotten.
Boyle 2021 applied per-IQ-point earnings estimates to twelve years of NHANES data: $46 billion in lost U.S. lifetime earnings every year, 74% of it at blood lead the government once called safe. An individual child at 5 µg/dL is projected to lose between $80K and $190K in lifetime earnings. Quiet, permanent, invoiced over fifty years.
Approximately 90% of toddler lead deposits in the growing skeleton. Wang 2026 in Alzheimer’s & Dementia established that bone lead is a strong predictor of late-life dementia, even when current blood lead is undetectable. The screen at 18 months is not just about kindergarten readiness. It is about what the skeleton releases at 70.
The Full Kit covers the whole house in one weekend. One spray applicator for surfaces, one drip applicator for items, a 365 nm UV flashlight, and a training card. $75 total. Less than one pediatrician copay.
Get the Full Kit · $75 →This is where most lead in homes shows up, and it is the fastest way to find a source. Pour a few drops on the painted decoration of any plate, mug, or bowl your child eats from. Shine the UV light. Glow means lead. Test the bright-colored decorations especially, and any older or imported ceramics.
If it glowsTake it out of food rotation today. Move it to a display shelf where it never touches food, hands, or dishwater. Replace with anything new and unpainted from a major retailer.Window sills, door frames, baseboards, painted trim. Anywhere a toddler puts their hand or mouth. Spray the test, shine the UV. Watch for green. Pre-1978 homes will almost always have lead under newer paint. Intact paint is safe. Chipping, peeling, or chewed paint is not.
If it glows on intact paintDo not sand or strip it. Mark the spot with painter’s tape on the back of the molding so future you (or any contractor) knows. Move on to Step 4. If it glows on chipping paintWet-wipe the surface with a damp microfiber cloth, bag the cloth, and seal the area with a fresh coat of paint or tape until you can encapsulate it properly.Lead dust is the actual exposure route. Most lead a toddler ingests comes from hand-to-mouth contact with dust on floors, sills, and toys. No dry sweeping. No shop vac. No regular vacuum. Use a damp microfiber cloth on every surface a kid touches: floors, sills, toy bins, the high chair, the crib rail.
Daily reset (30 days)Re-wipe high-contact surfaces once a day for the first month. After that, once a week. Toss used cloths, do not shake them out.If your home was built before 1986, lead service lines or lead solder in the plumbing are possible. Run the cold tap for 30 to 60 seconds before any drinking, cooking, or formula water. Use a lead-rated filter (NSF/ANSI 53 certified for lead) if you have any concern. Hot tap water leaches lead faster, so always start cold and heat after.
California’s AB 899 law requires baby food brands to disclose heavy metal results by lot. Open the lookup, type your brand, and check whether the lots in your pantry are on the high end or the clean end. Switch brands or lots if yours is high. Same product, different lot, can be very different exposure.
Open the lot lookup →Anywhere you found lead under intact paint in Step 3, document it. Photograph the wall, note the room, mark the location with tape on the back of the trim. This is the file you hand any future contractor. The crisis is not the lead being there. The crisis is sanding, cutting, or demoing it without containment. A single afternoon of dry-sanding a lead-painted wall can contaminate a whole house.
You have the test results. You have the photos of what you removed. You have the swap list (dishes you replaced, baby food you switched, water filter you installed, walls you marked). You walk in with a story you executed, not a number you watched. The pediatrician will not have seen a parent do this before. That is the point.
Tested the dishes she used for baby food. They glowed. Replaced from Target the same afternoon. Four-month recheck: undetectable.
Read the full case →1800s farmhouse, every room mid-renovation, lead paint dust in the playroom. Eric left a UV flashlight and a few bottles. Six months later both kids: undetectable.
Read the full case →Get the kit, run the eight steps, walk into the appointment with a story. Most parents find the source on Step 2 and finish all eight by Sunday morning. Every IQ point you keep on the shelf, your kid takes into kindergarten and every test after.
Get the Full Kit · $75 → Want the deeper science and case studies? Open the science page →FluoroSpec detects surface-reactive lead pigment in the home. It does not diagnose, treat, or change blood lead levels. For medical questions about your child’s blood lead screen, consult your pediatrician.