Since 1994, lead-poisoning cases in Maryland children has dropped 97 percent, but the last 3 percent could be the hardest to clean up.
“We?ve taken care of 97 percent of the problem. The rest of the job involves some heavy lifting,” said Ruth Ann Norton, director of the Coalition to End Childhood Lead Poisoning. “We?ve done a tremendous job getting this far there are still a lot of loopholes.”
In 1994, Maryland passed the first lead-related housing standards, spurring years of legal wrangling between health advocates and entrenched interests. The Coalition Friday unveiled its strategic plan for eliminating new lead-poisoning cases by 2010, a job Norton said means cutting 450 new cases in each of the next three years.
The problem, Norton said, is the closer they get, the more complacent people become. “There?s no safe level of lead, even at the lower levels, children can be irreversibly damaged.”
The coalition and its allies in the General Assembly and health community discussed those last steps Friday.
“We?re taking big steps forward but we really have to accelerate the pace,” said Baltimore Health Commissioner Josh Sharfstein. “I don?t think you should have to wait for a child to be poisoned for something to happen. If the risk is there, we should treat it as an emergency.”
Voluntary services to families with newborns, incentives to clean up homes and education could be the key, he said.
“We need injunctive relief for kids with elevated lead levels to get them out of a toxic environment,” said Del. Sandy Rosenberg, D-Dist. 41.
Landlords working to mitigate lead levels are required to pay to relocate the families of poisoned children, he said, but there is no such enforcement against landlords who flout the law.
Norton said 50 percent of new lead-poisoning cases are children living in owner-occupied homes. The law does not require lead testing at sale, and health officials have no authority to mandate testing of these homes.
Even at low blood-lead levels, children are seven times more likely to drop out of school and can expect to earn less, have trouble holding down jobs, and are more prone to violent behavior, imprisonment and health problems, according to coalition information. At high levels, lead poisoning can cause mental retardation, coma, convulsions and death.
This year one child in Illinois died after swallowing a lead-laced bauble from a pair of Reeboks.
Allison Gutman contributed to this report.
