system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Why can't we just "bleed out" lead poisoning victims who can't afford the full treatment?

I'm sure I must be missing something really obvious here, but I keep hearing about kids in underdeveloped countries who are dying from lead poisoning because they couldn't afford treatment. but since lead poisoning is just dangerous concentrations of Pb in blood, couldn't a cheap form of treatment be to bleed out the patient a little bit every ~2 months or so, just enough to keep them healthy? Wouldn't the volume of blood eventually be restored between each procedure, thus increasing the ratio of "pure" blood to contaminated blood and decreasing lead concentrations?

Or is the lead not actually in the blood, but absorbed by organic tissue?
gpt
Its toxicity comes from being absorbed by normal tissue, not just the amount that's free in the blood.  Most of how they treat it is chelation therapy, where you give people chemicals that bind to lead, and then they excrete it.  Also, bleeding people is a bad idea when one of the main symptoms of lead poisoning is anemia.