The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recently updated their website for adoptive parents. They write, “Concern exists about children adopted from overseas who may have been exposed to lead before they came to the United States. Recently in the United States, a small number of internationally adopted children have been found to have high levels of lead in their bodies. As a group, foreign-born adopted children tend to have higher levels of lead in their blood than children born in the United States (3). Children can be exposed to lead in different ways in various in countries (1, 2, 3).”
For more information about testing your child for possible lead exposure, please see the CDC web page International Adoption and the Prevention of Lead Poisoning.