Watersafe® Lead Test Kit Provides Consumers Quick and Inexpensive Way to Answer the Question, "Is There Lead In My Water?"

AZUSA, Calif., Feb. 24, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Flint, Michigan water crisis has put a national spotlight on the dangers of lead contamination, and on municipalities' inadequate testing of lead levels in tap water inside the home. This has left many people questioning the safety of their own water as more stories of cities with contaminated water have surfaced. The Watersafe® Lead Test offers consumers an easy way to answer this question in 10 minutes, right at the tap. Developed by Silver Lake Research Corporation, this simple and inexpensive lead test works like a home pregnancy test to accurately detect dissolved lead at levels even below the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) action level of 15ppb. The Watersafe® Lead Test retails for $9.95 and is available through Amazon and DiscoverTesting.com.

Elevated lead levels are most often a result of leaching and corrosion of plumbing fixtures inside the home or of the pipes delivering water to the home, including pipes that are typically the homeowner's responsibility. The Federal Lead and Copper Rule, which created a set of procedures to test drinking water for heavy metals, recognizes the role a home's pipes play in lead contamination. The law, therefore, requires municipalities to test only a small sample of homes and considers a water system "in compliance" if less than 10% of the homes tested are below the action level of 15ppb. In Chicago, for instance, this federal rule requires only 50 homes to be tested every three years in a city of 2.7 million people with more lead service lines than any other U.S. municipality. In cities across the country, similar small, infrequent testing of homes forms the basis of municipalities' annual Water Quality Reports – yet these reports typically claim that the drinking water FOR ALL CONSUMERS meets safety standards. Though most Americans depend on their local water utility to provide a safe water supply, testing and monitoring water contaminants is not as routine as most people think.

The Watersafe® Lead Test Kit is an immunoassay: a test using antibodies to detect dissolved lead in water. Several years ago, biotechnology companies began adapting immunoassays to environmental testing, simplifying the detection of pesticides and other organic pollutants that must be detected at very low concentrations. This lead test is the first consumer-oriented application of immunoassays to pollutants that exist as inorganic atoms.  The test can detect lead even below the EPA action level, with results available in 10 minutes right at the tap. The test kit has been fully validated in independent, third-party studies. Lead test strips can be applied almost anywhere that lead contamination of drinking water is suspected.

Lead Poisoning

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention established in 2009 that there is no safe level of lead exposure for children. Studies have linked exposure to even low levels of lead with delayed cognitive development, increased rates of ADHD and the development of kidney disease among older adults.

About Silver Lake Research Corporation

Silver Lake Research Corporation is a biotechnology company located in Azusa, California.  The company develops simple, one-step test kits with the accuracy of an analytical laboratory procedure.  By putting such capabilities into the hands of the general public, Silver Lake Research is changing the way consumers deal with some of the most basic questions about their health and environment, the answers to which were once accessible only to highly trained experts.

SOURCE Silver Lake Research Corporation