Children make animation encouraging baby teeth donations for child health research project

Kalgoorlie-Boulder children have used sand drawings to tell an animated story promoting a research project into heavy metal deposition in children’s teeth.

The Heavy Metal Tooth Fairy Project encourages kids across the Goldfields to donate their fallen-out baby teeth and have them analysed for heavy metal exposure.

The Heavy Metal Tooth Fairies at the Rural Clinical School in Kalgoorlie-Boulder last Friday. Picture: Isabella Davis

Twelve Kalgoorlie-Boulder children have spent two weeks working with animation expert Steve Aiton, who travelled from Perth for the project, and artists in residence Tanya Tucker, Rebecca Stokes, and Lynn Hazelton.

Created through a series of finger-drawings in an illuminated tray of sand, the video tells the story of a tooth fairy named Leah, who overhears the prayer of a child wanting to know why so many families are sick with kidney disease and diabetes.

Leah wonders why people living in remote communities get sick so much more than people in the city.

She deliberates with Alexei, the mechanical tooth fairy, who realises he can use his analysing machine to look at the children’s teeth and see if there are any heavy metals in there making the children sick.

The children introduced and presented their video to an audience of family, friends, and community members last Friday at the Rural Clinical School.

The video will be released on Facebook and YouTube to educate and encourage the community to donate baby teeth to the research project.

The project was inspired by the 2008 Alfie The Tooth Fairy video, developed by the Western Desert Kidney Health Project to research diabetes and health issues.

According to the Heavy Metal Tooth Fairy website, the project revealed no difference in the prevalence of risk factors for renal disease and diabetes between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children living in remote areas, and the results suggested a toxic exposure might be the common factor.

The website says heavy metals such as arsenic, lead, copper, mercury and zinc occur naturally in the environment and are common in resource-rich regions such as WA.

These naturally occurring minerals can leach into ground water which, if used as drinking water, can contribute to adverse health outcomes.

Babies and young children are especially vulnerable due to their developing tissues and organs being more susceptible to environmental influences.

In children, heavy metal toxicity has been linked to intellectual disability, neurocognitive and behavioural disorders, and cardiovascular and respiratory issues.

The Heavy Metal Tooth Fairy Project addresses this gap in understanding around whether heavy metals are accumulating in children living in remote Australia.

Led by researchers from the University of Western Australia, the project team is analysing 125 baby teeth from remote WA communities, alongside 125 teeth from metropolitan areas to compare the presence of heavy metals.

The Kalgoorlie-Boulder children wore matching T-shirts and fairy wings and held blow-up balloon guitars to show their participation in the Heavy Metal Tooth Fairy Project.

They were treated to a feast after the screening.

Credit: Author/Source Isabella Davis, kalminer.com.au