The federal government’s Renovation, Repair and Painting Program is designed to reduce incidents of lead poisoning — an insidious disease made infamous during the Roman Empire.
The new rules are “another way to raise national awareness on the toxic nature and toxic legacy of lead poisoning,” said Ruth Ann Norton, executive director of the Baltimore-based National Coalition to end Childhood Lead Poisoning.
“This has been something that people understand — it transcends political administrations,” she said. “You don’t want a contractor coming in and leaving something behind that can get kids sick.”
The neurotoxin leads to learning disabilities, attention deficit disorder, hearing loss, mental retardation, is strongly linked to “violent, aggressive behavior,” causes impotence in men, and stillbirth and miscarriages in women, Norton said.
Historians and scholars have also linked lead poisoning to some of the ancient Roman emperors.
“Symptoms of ‘plumbism’ or lead poisoning were already apparent as early as the first century B.C.,” wrote Jack Lewis in the EPA Journal. “Julius Caesar for all his sexual ramblings was unable to beget more than one known offspring. Caesar Augustus, his successor, displayed not only total sterility but also a cold indifference to sex.”
Almost a million children have elevated blood lead levels because of exposure to the element, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
The National Association of the RemodeIing Industry supports the government’s goal of reducing lead poisoning, said Jerry Levine, president of the D.C.-Metro Chapter of NARI.
“NARI and our contractors are for the idea of not having kids eat lead,” he said.
