Lead Poisoning

Lead poisoning, once widespread, appears on the way to becoming a rarity among children living in old rental housing in Baltimore and the rest of Maryland. But the problem is growing among youngsters who live in owner-occupied and newer rental homes, and that is prompting state officials to look for new ways to fight the longtime health scourge. State environmental officials reported Tuesday that the number of Maryland children found last year with harmful levels of lead in their blood declined to 531, down by 22 from the year before and less than 0.5 percent of all youngsters tested.

Fewer children were poisoned by lead-based paint in 2011 than in any year since Maryland began tracking cases nearly two decades ago, prompting the state to expand its focus to newer rental properties and owner-occupied homes. A survey released Thursday by the state Department of the Environment showed 452 children had dangerous lead levels in their blood last year, down from more than 14,500 youngsters who tested positive for the substance in 1993. In 2010, 531 children were found to have the same level of lead poisoning.

PHILADELPHIA -- For decades, it's been the stealth epidemic. Now, a battle is being waged to combat lead poisoning. But are we fighting the wrong enemy by going after the paint companies? While the number of lead poisoning cases for children under age 6 has dropped from 14.8 million in 1978 (the year lead paint was banned) to 890,000 today, lead poisoning remains a serious problem. More than 7,000 children are exposed to lead paint in Baltimore each year, and 1,200 are poisoned. Poor children are five times more likely than others to have high blood-lead levels.

The reports that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cut its threshold for lead poisoning from 10 micrograms per deciliter to 5 micrograms were something of a simplification. What the CDC said, after years of study and discussion, was that no level of lead exposure for children is safe. The 5-microgram level was set somewhat arbitrarily as the point at which doctors and public health officials would recommend parents take action to reduce their children's risk, but there is ample evidence to show that levels of 3 or 4 micrograms - and perhaps even lower - are associated with learning and attention deficit disorders later in life.

Athena Environmental Sciences has landed a grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop a rapid, urine-based test for lead poisoning, the company said yesterday.The $100,000 grant for the privately held company, which is based at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County Technology Center, is earmarked for developing a prototype urine test and a small pilot clinical study.Athena's chairman and chief executive officer, Sheldon Broedel, said the company plans to develop a test that can detect in urine samples a protein that is believed to be a marker for lead in the blood.

A Columbia woman who claims her 7-year-old son suffered irreparable brain damage from lead poisoning has filed a $6 million lawsuit against a Mount Airy landlord.Estelle Alexander alleges that the home she rented from Emmett Full in 1989 contained peeling lead paint that was ingested by her son Philip, then 1 year old.As a result of his exposure to lead, Ms. Alexander says the boy, now 7, has a learning disability, a shortened attention span, hyperactivity, a diminished IQ and behavioral and emotional problems.

AFTER many years, the problem of lead poisoning is finally receiving some well-deserved attention. Unfortunately, your series by Jack Reilly (Other Voices, Feb. 4-6) was so full of errors that it did more harm than good. Reilly has little background or experience in lead poisoning prevention, and his comments on the report of the Baltimore City Lead Poisoning Prevention Task Force reflected this lack. Let me help set the record straight.The federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has categorized lead poisoning as the most serious environmental health problem affecting children in the United States today.

About 300 cases of lead poisoning requiring medical treatment have shown up, mostly in Baltimore, during the four-month delay of a new state law designed to prevent it.Maryland's pioneering lead-poisoning legislation, passed last year after months of arguing and trade-offs, remains in legal limbo as children's advocates and landlords feud over regulations to carry it out.The law was supposed to take effect in October.Another casualty of the delay is the freezing of nearly $6 million in federal money that would cover the cost of reducing lead hazards in 600 houses in the state.

WASHINGTON -- The federal government has begun a broad effort to eliminate lead poisoning in children over the next decade.The government's new plans, being drawn up as separate actions by three agencies, are aimed at halving the amount of lead in children's blood.Lead attacks the nervous system and causes a range of effects in children, from a drop in academic performance to mental retardation.The plans also call for eliminating lead paint in all the nation's homes over the next decade.The government approach would include an alert, monitoring and treatment.

Every week, doctors discover harmful traces of lead in the blood of more than two dozen children in Maryland.Every month, lawyers in Baltimore file a dozen lawsuits for youngsters allegedly poisoned by lead-based paint in their rented homes.Every year, landlords in the city board up lead-laced properties. Removing the lead paintcosts too much, they say, and insurers no longer will protect them from the claims of litigious tenants.Now, many state officials and legislators hope to stop this cycle of lead-related brain damage, costly court cases and urban blight.

The number of young children deemed at risk of lead poisoning in Maryland and nationwide expanded drastically Wednesday as a federal health agency declared it would effectively cut in half its threshold for diagnosing the environmental illness. Acknowledging mounting evidence that children can suffer lasting harm from ingesting even minute amounts of lead, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it would reduce the level at which it recommends that doctors, families and health authorities act to lower a child's exposure to the toxic metal.

A bill that would require landlords with units built before 1978 to protect their tenants from lead-paint hazards cleared the General Assembly tonight, along with a provision urging courts to penalize baseless litigation over the problem. HB644 , approved in a conference agreement by House and Senate, would extend lead-paint regulations that now cover all rental homes in Maryland built before 1950. The bill also authorizes the state to regulate repairs, renovations and painting in all homes where lead paint is present.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has finally served formal notice of what has been widely speculated - that the federal government is cutting off the grants it's been giving states to fight childhood lead poisoning. In a March 7 letter

With efforts to reduce lead poisoning among children at a crossroads, Maryland lawmakers are wrestling with proposals to expand state regulation of home sales, rentals and repairs to reduce youngsters' exposure to the toxic metal. But the biggest question facing legislators might be how — or whether — to help landlords facing a flurry of lead-paint poisoning lawsuits from former tenants. The number of young children reported poisoned by lead in Maryland has dropped 98 percent since the mid-1990s.

Two siblings trying to collect a $2.6 million judgment against Baltimore's public housing agency for lead-paint poisoning argue in court papers that an auction of 20 agency vehicles must go forward because officials have refused to pay. The Housing Authority of Baltimore City "must be treated like every other judgment debtor that fails to pay its debts," their attorney, Evan M. Goldman, wrote in a motion filed Wednesday in Baltimore Circuit Court....

So it comes to this: The sheriff's office tagging vehicles that belong to the Baltimore Housing Authority, preparing them for seizure and auction. Like some common deadbeat, an actual governmental agency gets what is essentially a visit from the repo man. This would be a pretty astonishing turn of events, except that it's also an inevitable one for the public housing authority. For years, the agency has practiced a policy of delay, denial and, ultimately, defiance when it comes to taking responsibility for the children who were poisoned by lead while growing up in public housing units.

LEAD poisoning is the No. 1 environmental health threat to children.So whatever else Congress may do with health-care reform this year, it is imperative to provide for testing blood for lead, as the Clinton administration proposes.A National Academy of Sciences report on measuring exposure to lead, released in October, confirms a large body of evidence that lead poisoning at very low levels is a widespread problem.The report contains the most up-to-date and authoritative findings on the health effects of lead.

FORTY YEARS ago, the starkest divide in the fight for civil rights was a color line. But the question was whether equal representation and equal opportunity were merely platitudes or the very foundation on which our government should stand. Those of us who worked for and with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. understood that our crusade for true equality would not end with the passage of the Civil Rights Act or the Voting Rights Act. Today, the battle continues, even in our homes, as we seek to protect our children from environmental hazards that disproportionately affect poor and minority communities.

Maryland's highest court struck down Monday a key provision of state law that shielded owners of older rental housing from civil lawsuits - and potentially costly payments to victims - if they took precautions to protect children in their units from lead-paint poisoning. In a 7-0 ruling, the Court of Appeals declared that the 1994 lead-poisoning law violated the state's Constitution by denying a day in court to victims of the once-widespread environmental health scourge. In doing so, the court struck down what was considered a historic legislative compromise.