An article about families facing lead poisoning in their children prompts a blog post on the hazards kids face from contamination with this dreadful, yet common, toxin.

According to the EPA more than 80 percent of American homes built before 1978 contain lead paint, a statistic that is frightening in the extreme when you realize how little lead it takes to impact a child. 

The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta (CDC) puts the risk of a contamination at when a child's blood-lead level rises to a 10 micrograms per deciliter of whole blood. (Normal children test out at 1 or 2, and a 70 can be a death sentence.) 

Because chldren's bodies absorb lead easily, and because their developing brains and nervous systems are sensitive, the damage can be devastating, as civil rights lawyers note on their site:
learning disabilities
 brain damage (sometimes subtle)
 loss of IQ points and intellect academic failure
 neuropsychological deficits
 attention deficit disorder
 hyperactive behavior
 antisocial (criminal) behavior
 neurological problems
 encephalopathy (brain swelling)
 major organ failure
 coma
 death
The story linked at the top is of two one-year-olds, both poisoned with lead while living in Dover, New Hampshire apartments. (Dover is said to have a "universal risk" of lead poisoning by the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services due to a plethora of older homes.) 

Although Federal law says landlords have to provide a "Lead-Based Paint Disclosure" to tenants of older buildings, this is apparently not taking care of the problem. 

For information on how to protect yourself and your children, whether you are renters or home buyers, see the EPA advisory on lead that has links to publications that explain legal rights and responsibilities. 


The Centers of Disease Control (CDC) has a Lead Poisoning Prevention Program that offers loads of information. 

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) offers the Office of Healthy Homes and Lead Hazard Control that even has links to a course manual on the safe rehabilitation of hurricane-damaged homes.

It's up to us as parents to protect our kids from the hazards of history that continue to haunt us, and will into the time our grandchildren are tall enough to chew on a window sill or dig around old buildings. Being informed is the only way to know what needs to be done, and how to do it.