That Public Health Success Story - RI Lead Paint Trial

During the Rhode Island (RI) lead paint trial, Patricia Nolan, former head of the RI Department of Health, was a key witness for the state.  In my interviews with the jury members they said that her medical expertise was persuasive. 

Yet, some of her testimony was damaging to the state's case.  See, during the ten years that Dr. Nolan oversaw the RI Department of Health, the reduction of lead levels in children's blood was -- and remains -- a major success story.  Of course, the defense highlighted that.  But somehow that story has never really gotten out, not in RI, not nationally. 

First, the story.  According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the percentage of children with lead poisoning has dropped to less than six percent.  In the late 1970s, just before the federal government banned use of lead in paint, that figure was 88 percent.  And thanks to ongoing legislation, programs are in-place to further reduce that level of under six percent even more significantly.   Currently, in RI the interim reduction goal is to under five percent.

Yet, the hysteria about lead paint in residences seems to become more shrill.  That's strange. 

Over and over again during the trial and in literature about lead paint, there has been presented documentation that the problem of flaking and chipping lead paint that can be ingested by children is a landlord's problem.  In RI there are laws on the books which, if enforced, could and would solve that problem.

For example, the Department of Housing and Urban Development reports show that both interiors and exteriors containing lead-based paint do not in themselves present a health hazard.  They become a hazard only when that paint is not intact.  And that's a situation that can be totally prevented by regular maintenance by landlords and inspections by lead-paint experts.

The weak link in this in RI seems to have been the enforcement.  The RI Attorney General has the power and responsibility to ensure that landlords comply and that inspections are conducted.  The list of landlords and properties not in compliance is available on the RI Department of Health website.  This bizarre disconnect between the law and the enforcement of that law is where the public health officials, parents and child-advocates should focus their attention and activism.  This is where action can come fast and relatively cost-efficiently