Project Unleaded

Lead is among the most toxic elements on the periodic table, with diverse and profound human and planetary health consequences. There is no physiological purpose for lead and exposure from food, consumer goods, or industrial practices can harm every system in the body. Impacts range from reduced brain volume and lowered IQ, to increased incidence of heart disease and renal failure. 

Globally, lead is estimated to cause more than $6 trillion in harm from lost labor productivity due to impaired cognitive development from childhood lead exposure and millions of premature deaths from cardiovascular disease among adults.

Stanford is a leading researcher on the sources of lead contamination, and is working to develop new interventions to eliminate the health effects. Decades of research have highlighted the adverse impacts of lead exposure, but we need more strategic research to advance solutions to reduce lead exposure globally.

Researchers with Project Unleaded are developing solutions that are moving us toward a lead-free world. This effort includes several priorities:

1. Identifying and prioritizing the most important sources of lead poisoning globally via source attribution studies. 
2. Developing and testing interdisciplinary interventions to mitigate and eliminate these sources.
3. Advancing field-appropriate rapid measurement techniques to detect lead in humans and the environment.

Project Unleaded builds on the success of earlier collaborations that eliminated lead chromate adulteration of turmeric, an important source of lead poisoning in Bangladesh.

To learn more about Project Unleaded's approach and research themes, feel free to download the HPH Project Unleaded Fact Sheet below:

Select Publications

Luby et al. 2024, "Removing lead from the global economy"

Forsyth et al. 2024, “Reductions in spice lead levels in the republic of Georgia: 2020–2022”

Forsyth et al. 2024, "Evidence of turmeric adulteration with lead chromate across South Asia"

Forsyth et al. 2023, "Food safety policy enforcement and associated actions reduce lead chromate adulteration in turmeric across Bangladesh"

Lopez et al. 2022, “Assessing Analytical Methods for the Rapid Detection of Lead Adulteration in the Global Spice Market”

Brown et al. 2022, “Prevalence of elevated blood lead levels and risk factors among children living in Patna, Bihar, India 2020”

Jahir et al. 2021, "Making the invisible visible: Developing and evaluating an intervention to raise awareness and reduce lead exposure among children and their caregivers in rural Bangladesh"

Chowdhury et al. 2021, "Child lead exposure near abandoned lead acid battery recycling sites in a residential community in Bangladesh: Risk factors and the impact of soil remediation on blood lead levels."

Forsyth et al. 2019, "Turmeric means “yellow” in Bengali: Lead chromate pigments added to turmeric threaten public health across Bangladesh"

Forsyth et al. 2019, "Sources of Blood Lead Exposure in Rural Bangladesh"

Forsyth et al. 2018, “Prevalence of elevated blood lead levels among pregnant women and sources of lead exposure in rural Bangladesh: A case control study”

Partners and Funders

This work is highly collaborative with partners across the globe, including UNICEF, LEEP, Pure Earth, Frameworks, icddr,b, Aga Khan University, Lahore University of Management Sciences, and the American Spice Trade Association. At Stanford, we leverage partnerships with faculty and staff across Stanford’s King Center on Global Development, Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, Stanford’s Center for Innovation in Global Health and School of Medicine as well as the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and Woods Institute for the Environment.

People

Stanford University: 

Jenna Forsyth (Primary Contact), Steve Luby,  Karrie Weaver, Grant Miller, Dinsha Mistree, Scott Fendorf, Erica Plambeck, Banny Banerjee, Manu Prakash, Allison Phillips

UC Berkeley: 

Lia Fernald, Helen Pitchik

Johns Hopkins University:

Peter Winch

Global Partners: 

Mahbub Rahman, icddr,b, Bangladesh, Shakeel Jajja, Lahore University of Management Sciences, Pakistan, Zafar Fatmi, Aga Khan University, Pakistan, Manu Sinha, Frameworks, India