Lead Battle Mvoes to Non-Public Housing

September 18, 2003

Rose Dewolf, Philadelphia Inquirer

A child who lives in public housing is safer - when it comes to lead poisoning - than a child whose family lives in a poor neighborhood where property owners don't have to follow government rules, according to a recent nationwide study.

The study on lead-based paint hazards was jointly conducted by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

It also found that, today, children who live in public housing are no more likely to suffer lead poisoning than children who live in more affluent neighborhoods.

The battle to protect children from lead poisoning - which can cause mental retardation, impaired hearing and other health defects - "is regarded by the public health community as a great success story," said Dr. David E. Jacobs, director of HUD's Office of Healthy Homes and Lead Hazard Control.

"The number of children who suffer from lead poisoning has declined dramatically in the last ten years," he said.

HUD isn't claiming the problem has gone away. But Jacobs says the agency is now focusing its lead hazard reduction efforts on poor - non-public housing - neighborhoods. "That's where most children are now being poisoned. That's where we can make a real dent in the epidemic," he said.

The use of lead-based paint has been banned since 1978. But before that it was considered the best kind of paint because it was long- lasting.

However, in the decade after 1978, existing lead based paint was considered a hazard to young children only if they ate flakes of it falling off walls or woodwork.

Then scientists learned that inhaling lead dust, which could be set loose in the air by the act of opening and closing a painted window frame, was equally hazardous, even if the lead paint had been painted over with non-lead paint. And that kind of lead dust might be found in any home painted before 1978 if the paint had been allowed to degrade.

Before 1992, said Jacobs, HUD only required public housing authorities to inspect for lead-based paint and abate it whenever that unit was renovated. But since 1992, he said, public housing authorities have been required to take care of lead hazards immediately.

That doesn't mean removing all traces of the lead-based paint. It means testing for deteriorated lead-based paint, removing any loose paint in a safe manner (no sand-blasting that would create dust), repainting and then testing the air for lead dust to make sure it is safe for children.