...The shelter, which is actually a daycare programme, is run by the company responsible for the lead dust and toxic fumes. Under different owners, the huge smelting complex in La Oroya...has affected the health of the local residents for generations. Children under the age of six with blood lead levels of over 45 micrograms per decilitre (mcg/dl) of blood are bused to the childcare facility in a school in Casaracra, a half hour drive from La Oroya. (The acceptable limit, set by the World Health Organisation, is 10 mcg/dl.). But the programme financed by the U.S. company Doe Run is merely a palliative measure, aimed at removing the children with the highest blood lead levels from the environs of the metallurgical complex for eight hours a day, while the plant's smokestack continues spewing out sulphur dioxide, lead dust, cadmium and other heavy metals...Three times a day, the children at the daycare centre are served nutritional meals containing natural products like amaranth, an Andean grain rich in protein. They are also bathed using a special shampoo that removes metal particles that adhere to the scalp and skin, and they are given the medicines they need...