Recently, a damages case levelled against lead mining giant Xstrata by seven year old plaintiff, year old, Stella Hare, was knocked back by an Australian court. The court ruled that allegations that Stella’s brain and nervous system impairments were caused by exposure to lead and other toxins did not comply with personal injury laws . At the same time, an important new study strongly suggestes that pre-natal exposure to lead stored in a mother’s bones can influence the way genes are programmed and expressed later in life.  Such changes to epigenetic programming, claims the report,”may be a mechanism by which lead alters susceptibility to diseases such as Alzheimer’s.” Thus, “lead exposure may influence many generations, even after the exposure has stopped.”
See http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=9197