Funding cuts
Not too long before the CDC adopted a more stringent threshold, the agency severely cut its lead prevention funding, which Detroit and other cities have heavily relied on. In this fiscal year, it was slashed from $30 million to $2 million.
Thompson of Wayne State University said the lack of money has “halted lead services in their tracks” in Detroit.
“The CDC has pulled back big time and at the same time the city is still suffering from the financial crisis, and the tax base is hit because people are leaving,” he said.
Schottenfels said almost all of the money in Detroit to fight lead – about $1 million annually – came from the CDC. “With current funding, the effort to stop this problem is in dire straits," she said.
Milwaukee is fighting the same battle, said Paul Biedrzycki, director of disease control and environmental health at the Milwaukee Health Department.
“We are trying to do more with less,” Biedrzycki said in an emailed response. He said the department does not currently have the resources to inspect homes of children with elevated lead levels.
Research shows that lead prevention more than pays for itself.
“Each dollar invested in lead paint hazard control results in a return of $17-$221 or a net savings of $181-269 billion,” according to a 2009 study by the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan economic think tank in Washington D.C.
Lanphear said most people point to vaccines as the most cost effective public health spending programs, and their cost benefit ratio is typically $1 spent for every $16 saved.
“So reducing child exposure appears to be more cost beneficial than what we tout as the most cost beneficial program we currently have,” he said.
The benefits of Detroit’s lead prevention work aren’t hard for Renee Thomas to see. Her tidy home stands out in her working class neighborhood with its fresh paint and new porch and windows.
After she moved in, she had all four children, ages 6, 8, 10 and 12, tested for lead. None had elevated levels. But she still keeps a lead prevention pamphlet handy and uses a new vacuum designed to minimize dust.
“I feel much better – now they can play anywhere,” Thomas said.
This article originally ran at Environmental Health News, a news source published by Environmental Health Sciences, a nonprofit media company.
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10 Comments
Add CommentPerhaps, instead of imprisonment for petty crimes young people should be be tested for lead poisoning and treated for that first. Give them a second chance and save them and the legal system.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat is great news and Jean makes an interesting point. There are ways to remove lead from a person's system, so it is something to consider.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow is it that the effects of lead were known well over a hundred years ago, and we are still 'getting rid of it?'.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStrange how we can go to another country and essentially cover it in lead bullets and that's OK.
That may come to be the ultimate weapon. If you can't beat them, dumb'um down. Firing lead rounds could be considered chemical warfare, the effects of which damage the core essence of self, our brain, for at least a generation.
If you look at the removal of lead from gasoline and the crime rate in the USA, you can see a nearly 20-year lag between lowering lead exposure and lowering crime rates. While correlation does not prove causation, the fact that lead exposure impedes brain development in many ways that cause criminal tendencies is powerfully convincing evidence that these environmental laws have a lot more benefits than people think.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUnfortunately, I don't think there's any way to eliminate from adults the accumulated effects of lead poisoning suffered during their mental and biological development as young children...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe folks you want to thank for having lowered several generations cognitive potential are the auto industry and
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisvarious metal smelting plants along with no waste management.
Indeed the giants of industry knowingly poisoned millions.
So do take heed as the menace is not yet over. Just imagine the other industrial nations that have little or no pollution controls. The world will endure more generations of lowered potential.
Being a science magazine and stating the figure 70% means?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReal science would reference the basis for the figure. What was the population figure then and now for which 70% improvement was noted?
Perhaps the authors could flesh out these articles more.
While we are on the topic of lead, I think it would be appropriate to ban, or at least tax, lead ammo, like bullets and pellets. Also, leaded AVgas, which is still used in older planes needs to be phased out.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf exposed to lead when very young the damage is already done. You can remove the lead but not the cognitive loss.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGood article, but it focuses on household paint! The greatest source of lead for children can be the back yard, thanks to auto exhausts, prior to lead being banned. Thanks to industry denial, obviously still very effective, people concentrate on paint, when just one lick of a hand after playing in the dirt can exceed the daily tolerable intake.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.motherjones.com/environment/2012/12/soil-lead-researcher-howard-mielke
Detroit is the home of the automobile, yes? The fall in lead in children could just be the result of removing lead from fuel.
If they're serious, they still need to look at lead residue in soil.