By Harry Jaffe
There are outrages that make us go tsk tsk — such as Adrian Fenty’s running buddy Sinclair Skinner getting six-figure city contracts that even he can’t explain. Then there are outrages that call for immediate action — such as news this week that the federal government lied to us about the amount of poisonous lead in our drinking water.
About eight years ago, tests of water flowing into homes from city pipes showed high levels of lead. Lead in water is a poison, period. It can cause irreparable damage, especially in the developing brains of babies and young children. Lead kills brain cells. Kids who ingest lead can become violent, lose the ability to learn and show all the signs of attention-deficit disorder.
Alerted to reports of high lead levels the city’s water, scientists began to investigate. D.C.’s Department of Health and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) undertook studies of kids. In 2004, as pressure mounted, the CDC issued a report that said, essentially — no worries.
Our drinking water posed no health risk, the most authoritative public health experts told us. But they lied. An investigative committee in Congress came out with a report this week that said the CDC fudged its report and called it “scientifically indefensible.”
Two things have to happen — now:
— First, heads have to roll, starting with the author of the report, Mary Jean Brown. According to the investigation by the House science and technology subcommittee, Brown literally fudged the numbers. She and her colleagues ignored findings that lead was indeed poisoning kids; instead, they used numbers that came to the opposite conclusion.
— Second, the federal government must offer free tests of every child in the District. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton needs to take some of her outrage onto the House floor and squeeze some dollars out of the CDC budget. Free bottled water should be made available, too.
The horribly damaging effects of lead cannot be understated. Going back to the days of Romans drinking wine from lead jugs, humans have been suffering from lead in their systems. When scientists discovered that lead in paint could poison kids who ate the chips or breathed the dust, the government outlawed lead paint. Great. But children living in older homes in the District still eat lead paint chips and suffer the consequences. Following tough regulations in Baltimore, D.C. has started to demand that landlords remove lead paint from older buildings.
What’s most troubling about the latest reports is that lead is still in the water. When the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority replaced some lead pipes, the amount of the metal in our water actually increased. The House committee reported that children living in the 9,100 homes where the pipes had been changed could be drinking water with unsafe levels of lead.
There is absolutely no excuse for this public health disaster. Poor kids who live in older buildings will suffer the most. The children of the nation’s capital deserve free tests and free bottled water — now.
Harry Jaffe’s column appears on Tuesday and Friday. He can be contacted at [email protected]
