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IN THIS ISSUE:
We are pleased to announce that the Community Environmental
Health Resource Center (CEHRC) has launched its new website
- www.cehrc.org!
On the website, you will find home hazard assessment tools,
information on organizing and advocacy, relevant legislative
and regulatory information, a list of current grantees and
more. CEHRC is a project of the Alliance, developed in collaboration
with community groups working on healthy housing nationwide.
CEHRC has developed easy to use, scientifically sound hazard
assessment protocols and training. CEHRC also provides organizing
and advocacy assistance, facilitates peer-to-peer support
and provides competitive grants to local community-based organizations.
The CEHRC website is a good resource for organizations working
on primary prevention through environmental sampling of the
home to identify hazards before children become sick. Please
send feedback or ideas for future content to cehrc@afhh.org.
The first phase of Rhode Island's trial against the lead-based
paint companies, which focused on whether lead-based paint
in public and private buildings constitutes a public nuisance,
ran for seven weeks this fall. After three days of deliberations,
the jury announced that it was unable to reach a unanimous
verdict, and Judge Silverstein declared a mistrial on October
29, 2002. The state introduced evidence showing that tens
of thousands of its children have been poisoned and that 90,000
homes in Rhode Island pose an immediate risk to children.
Eight nationally recognized researchers testified that lead
paint is the primary cause of lead poisoning in children in
the U.S. Both parties have requested the judge to decide the
public nuisance issue in papers filed this month. If the judge
declines to do so, the case likely will be retried early next
year.
In St. Louis, Circuit Court Judge Margaret Neill upheld all
but one of the city's claims in her ruling on a motion to
dismiss filed by the defendants. In an 88-page order issued
a year after the hearing on the motion, she ruled that the
presence of lead-based paint in the city’s housing stock
presents a serious and pervasive threat to public health and
an environmental hazard, qualifying it as a public nuisance.
She also ruled that the city unquestionably has standing to
assert all the claims in the complaint, and that the city
may satisfy the product identification requirement through
discovery due to the relatively limited number of lead-based
paint and pigment manufacturers. She dismissed the city's
claim for indemnity.
On November 4, Mass Tort Judge Marina Corodemus dismissed
cases against the lead industry brought on behalf of more
than twenty public entities in New Jersey, including Newark
and Union County. She dismissed the cases on grounds that
the public nuisance approach violated New Jersey’s laws
and constitution, and other grounds. While ruling that the
municipalities lack authority to bring the suit, she observed
that the Attorney General has the right to abate a public
nuisance and to bring suit in cases where the public interest
is concerned. Published reports indicate that the plaintiffs
plan to appeal the decision.
Attorneys General from 24 states, the District of Columbia,
Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands met with representatives
from 10 paint companies during October to request that the
companies place warning labels on paint cans to inform consumers
about the hazards of unsafe methods of surface preparation
for painting.
In an effort spearheaded by the Alliance, over 50 national,
state and local advocacy groups stressed that warning labels
at best address only a small fraction of poisonings, and urged
the Attorneys General to seek solutions commensurate with
the scale of the problem. The advocates also asked that public
health and technical experts, as well as advocates for children's
health, be included in the negotiations. This effort by the
Attorneys General is separate from the lawsuits against manufacturers
of lead pigments and does not involve, with one exception,
defendants in that litigation. The labeling initiative does,
however, highlight the opportunity for Attorneys General working
as a group to engage the lead industry in discussions about
more comprehensive solutions to protecting children from lead
poisoning.
Philadelphia recently filed suit against 500 property owners
for failing to remedy lead-based paint hazards in their properties
after receiving repeated warnings from the health department.
These suits are the first in a new effort by the city to address
over 1,000 properties where lead hazards have been identified.
The city has established a special “lead court,”
which began on November 4 and will operate for three days
per week to hear cases brought by the city. Non-complying
landlords and owners face fines of up to $300 per day and
liens on their properties. For more information, contact Colleen
McCauley at Philadelphia Citizens for Children and Youth at
colleenmccauley@pccy.org
or 215-563-5848 x 33.
The Alliance is pleased to announce the appointments of Dr.
Marie Lynn Miranda, Professor at the Nicholas School of the
Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University, and Dr.
Megan Sandel, pediatrician and researcher at Boston Medical
Center, to our board of directors. Both bring vast experience
and expertise in safe and affordable housing to protect the
health and well-being of children and families. Lynn Battle,
parent advocate and founder/director of Citizens Lead Education
and Poison Prevention Organization, has been elected Vice
Chair, and Dr. Bailus Walker, Associate Director and Professor
of Environmental and Occupational Medicine at Howard University,
has been reappointed board Chair.
On July 12, the Department of Energy (DOE) issued a new guidance
on health and safety and federal lead-based paint policy for
grantees under its Weatherization Assistance Program. DOE’s
policy requires that weatherization crews be aware of hazards
from lead-based paint and conduct weatherization activities
in a lead-safe manner. Crews will only conduct hazard control
activity when their work disturbs painted surfaces. DOE offers
lead-safe work practices training to assist states that do
not offer such training. Crews conducting work in HUD program
housing must comply with the HUD lead-safety rule and the
guidance encourages crews to apply for HUD funding to become
certified to do lead hazard control work. An attachment also
details HUD regulations that apply to weatherization work.
The guidance is available online at www.waptac.org/wpn02-6.htm.
An article in the September 2002 (Vol. 10, No. 9) issue of
Environmental Health Perspectives dramatically illustrates
the potential of using data from a variety of sources in conjunction
with geographic information system (GIS) mapping to predict
child lead exposure risk for specific property addresses.
Researchers Marie Lynn Miranda, Dana C. Dolinoy and M. Alicia
Overstreet at Duke University utilized GIS technology and
statistical analysis of blood lead screening data, information
from county tax assessors and demographic data from the US
Census to predict risk for low-level lead poisoning for most
residential tax parcels in six North Carolina counties. The
authors conclude that policy makers, officials and advocates
can make useful predictions about lead exposure risk using
only publicly-available data and GIS mapping techniques. Such
an approach has high potential for helping prevention advocates
set priorities and target and calibrate prevention efforts
according to need. A copy of the abstract for this article
can be obtained at http://ehpnet1.niehs.nih.gov/docs/2002/110p947-953miranda/abstract.html.
This research is part of a broader Children's Environmental
Health Initiative (CEHI) at Duke’s Nicholas School of
the Environment. See the CEHI web site at www.env.duke.edu/cehi
or contact Dr. Miranda at mmiranda@duke.edu.
A recent study, “Costs and Benefits of Enforcing Housing
Policies to Prevent Childhood Lead Poisoning,” published
in the November/December issue of Medical Decision Making
concludes that enforcement of lead abatement and remediation
policies result in significant public health savings from
decreased medical and special education costs and increased
productivity for children protected from lead exposure. The
study, authored by Mary Jean Brown ScD, RN at the Harvard
School of Public Health, examined 137 properties between 1992
and 1993 in two urban areas where children had been identified
with a blood lead level above 25 µg/dL. Children living
in properties where housing enforcement policy was not enforced,
were about 4.5 times more likely to be lead poisoned when
compared to those properties where strict enforcement was
employed. The study estimates savings of more than $45,000
per building over a ten-year period from lead abatement. Copies
of the study can be ordered directly from the publisher by
visiting www.sagepub.com.
The journal Neurotoxicology and Teratology (Vol. 24, 2002)
recently published a series of articles on research ethics,
including an article by Nick Farr and Don Ryan that calls
for expanded research into housing-related hazards and new
research guidelines. New guidelines must recognize that substandard
properties pose significant risks to occupants day in and
day out - risks that typically eclipse any additional risk
associated with research studies. E-mail bphilpott@afhh.org
for a hard copy of Ryan and Farr's "Confronting the ethical
challenges of environmental health research."
EPA recently launched a new website (www.epa.gov/safewater/lead/schoolanddccs.htm)
to encourage drinking water testing for lead by schools and
daycare facilities. The site contains information on risks
from exposure to lead in drinking water, and assessment and
remediation tips. EPA hopes that the site will be a resource
for school administrators, day care owners, teachers, and
care givers on drinking water safety to reduce the risk of
exposure to lead by young children from leaded pipes, solder,
and brass fixtures and valves. EPA warns that lead in water
is not only a problem for older buildings, as lead wasn’t
banned from fixtures until 1997. A brochure, “Is there
Lead in the Drinking Water?,” can also be downloaded
from EPA’s website at www.epa.gov/safewater/Pubs/standards.html#lead1.
EPA recently announced enforcement action against two New
Hampshire real estate firms for failing to disclose information
on lead hazards in their properties. The agency will levy
fines totaling $33,892 against Senecal Properties and $13,200
against Lacerte Realty. Senecal and Lacerte had both received
prior orders to remediate lead hazards in their rental properties
from the New Hampshire Office of Community and Public Health.
On October 3, EPA also announced an enforcement action against
the Franklin Pierce Law Center, a law school in Concord, NH,
concerning its failure to properly notify tenants about lead
risks in student housing. The law school will spend at least
$103,265 to fully abate lead-based paint in the interiors
of its student housing and pay a civil fine of $22,374. Visit,
www.epa.gov/Region1/pr/press.html#oct02,
for more information on these enforcement actions.
A fine of $324,000 has been imposed against New York Presbyterian
Hospital for failing to provide physicians living in hospital
housing with information on possible lead hazards. The Westchester
hospital grounds contain housing facilities for families of
resident and attending physicians. Seven out of 29 units housed
children under six, and several additional units housed pregnant
women. For more information, visit www.epa.gov/Region2/news/2002/02111.htm.
These enforcement actions are part of EPA’s ongoing
efforts to hold landlords accountable for failing to notify
tenants of the possibility of lead hazards in their properties.
The Abell Foundation, devoted to enhancing the quality of
life in Baltimore, recently published an in-depth article
highlighting the high number of children poisoned by lead
in the city due to the lack of enforcement of existing laws
and regulations. “Childhood Lead Poisoning in Baltimore:
A Generation Imperiled As Laws Ignored,” calls lead
poisoning the “chief environmental disease affecting
Baltimore City children.” The report points to the tens
of thousands of old, poorly maintained units in distressed
communities as the primary source of childhood lead exposure
and says that it will take the state at least 45 years to
address only the most dangerous homes at the current pace
of remediation. About one in five Baltimore children under
age six has lead poisoning, and the prevalence rate is particularly
high in 11 city zip codes with a high percentage of pre-1950,
poorly maintained housing. Because many children are not being
tested, the number of children affected may be even higher.
The report recommends increasing the number of one- and two-year-olds
screened, improving the condition of poorly maintained homes,
expanding options for relocating families, and improving educational
and other services to the city’s lead poisoned children.
The report is available online at www.abell.org/publications/detail.asp?ID=70.
CDC recently announced grants totaling $14.2 million to 20
state and local health departments and three universities
to establish surveillance systems to track environmental linkages
to diseases such as lead poisoning, asthma, cancer and autism.
States and universities will monitor health effects, exposure,
and hazard data related to birth defects, developmental disabilities,
chronic respiratory disease, cancer, and neurological diseases
from exposures to lead, pesticides, and carbon monoxide. The
goal of the program is to “develop a standards-based
environmental public health-tracking network that allows direct
electronic data reporting and linkage of health effect, exposure
and hazard data, which can operate with other public health
systems.” The Pew Environmental Health Commission identified
the need for an environmental public health tracking system
in a 2001 report, America’s Environmental Health Gap:
Why the Country Needs a Nationwide Health Tracking System.
Congress responded by providing funding for this first ever
effort by CDC to track environmental linkages to disease.
CDC hopes the system will allow them to reduce exposure to
environmental toxins, physical agents, and chemicals that
pose serious health threats. For more information, visit CDC’s
website at www.cdc.gov/od/oc/media/pressrel/r021008b.htm.
The Alliance has just released a new educational resource
on the critical issue of lead screening for children enrolled
in the Medicaid program. Designed specifically for advocates,
community members, and parents. The Community
Tool Kit, An Advocate’s Tool for Improving
Lead Screening in Your Community, is a resource designed to
help communities participate in decision making about targeting
lead screening. The tool kit includes a basic fact sheet on
lead screening, a brief guide to focusing lead screening on
children who are most at risk, examples of recent media coverage
of communities in action on lead poisoning issues, and a tip
sheet on finding vital information about lead in your community.
Tool Kit contents are available on the Alliance website at
www.afhh.org.
A non-profit organization has been launched to bring environmental
health professionals and environmental justice activists together
to eliminate environmental disease in poor minority communities
in the US. The Environmental Justice and Health Union (EJHU)
compiles information about the disparate impact of environmental
disease on poor minority communities, background on the environmental
health profession and environmental justice movement, a calendar
of events, and funding deadlines. EJHU also publishes a monthly
newsletter. For more information, visit the EJHU website at
www.ejhu.org.
The Advocacy Institute, in conjunction with the Ford Foundation
and the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service
at New York University, is seeking nominations for the "Leadership
for a Changing World" award. The award honors leaders/organizations
working to improve lives in communities across the country
by "giving voice to the unheard, protecting the natural
world, improving access to services, and challenging unfair
practices." Awardees will receive $100,000 in program
support and $30,000 to strengthen their leadership capacity.
Leaders from various disciplines including economic development,
sexual and reproductive health, religion and social change,
human rights, environment and environmental justice, as well
as arts and social action are eligible and application is
made by nomination only.
The deadline for nominations is January 7, 2003. Information
about the award program and nomination procedures is available
at www.leadershipforchange.org.
**For information on the Alliance’s international programs
and worldwide prevention activities, please visit our Global
Lead Network website at www.globalleadnet.org**
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