When you picture costly, long-term ailments that kids suffer, cancer, intellectual disabilities and asthma spring to mind. But far more U.S. healthcare dollars are spent on lead poisoning than any of those maladies, according to a study by the Mount Sinai School of Medicine published in Health Affairs.
According to a UPI story, the study found lead poisoning treatments for children sucked away $50.9 billion, nearly two-thirds of the total $76 billion spent on treating childhood diseases. Autism, at $7.9 billion, was the next-costliest disease, while cancer cost a paltry-in-comparison $95 million.
