Despite State Law, Thousands Of Maine Children Still Suffer From Lead Poisoning

Naomi Schalit - Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, Portland Press Herald
Tue, 08/04/2015 - 9:01pm

Part one of four Childhood lead poisoning: It’s the problem that everyone thinks has gone away. But everyone is wrong. Lead poisoning was the headline-grabbing public health controversy of the 1970s and ’80s, but later got pushed to the back pages by fresher issues, like the industrial chemical called BPA used in toys or the flame retardants in children’s clothing. But while politicians and the media took up newer topics about toxic health hazards, lead from the paint in older homes was still poisoning tens of thousands of children, especially in states like Maine, which has the sixth-oldest housing stock in the country. The problem was so serious that in 1991 the Maine Legislature passed a law promising to eradicate childhood lead poisoning by 2010. While some progress was made following passage of that law, five years after the deadline, thousands of Maine children are still being poisoned by licking surfaces covered with lead paint dust, licking their hands and fingers after touching lead dust or inhaling the lead dust floating in the air around their homes. The Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting spent six months investigating the problem by examining state and national data, and interviewing the top experts in the field, public health officials, landlords and tenants.

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