Worst Case Lead Poisoning and
Tasmanian Government Inaction (continued)

By Elizabeth O'Brien, Manager, Lead Advisory Service Australia
Edited by Paul Spencer, activist and roving volunteer

The Oates’ Story

While 6% of children in Queenstown between the ages of 1-4 had blood lead levels above the individual intervention level of 15 µg/dL, one child was more than double.

In November 1996, the Oates family moved from a mining lease to the large 4 bedroom house in Montgomery St, Gormanston. According to Denise Oates, the previous residents had had a child who died at the age of 18 months, of cot death, while living at the house and their daughter, born in 1986, had slow learning problems.

At the time of moving to Gormanston, Denise and Nigel Oates had three young children: Raymond aged 10, Adrian aged 2 years 8 months and Makayla aged 1 year 6 months. Tyler Oates was born on the 7^th February 1997.

Around November 1996, it was determined that Makayla Oates had only one kidney working (as the other had not developed when Makayla was born premature) and she was anaemic. She was treated with Fergon (iron supplement).

The family always used to eat the eggs from their chooks, but by the middle of 1997 all the chooks that they had brought to the house when they moved in, had died, one at a time, of unknown causes. The chooks had contact with the soil, as did a number of rabbits and 4 guinea pigs that all died of unknown causes within 6 months of moving to Gormanston.

Over the coming three years, the family lost a huge number of pets to unexplained deaths, including geese, guinea pigs, nearly all of 100 pigeons and a galah. The animals all had contact with the soil, the aviary birds through being given grass pulled out by the roots.