{"id":2027,"date":"2018-02-20T12:03:11","date_gmt":"2018-02-20T17:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/?p=2027"},"modified":"2018-02-20T12:03:11","modified_gmt":"2018-02-20T17:03:11","slug":"lead-poisoning-threat-persists-in-new-york","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/lead-poisoning-threat-persists-in-new-york\/","title":{"rendered":"Lead Poisoning Threat Persists in New York"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Almost 50 years after New York banned the sale of lead in paint, each year some 1,800 children are found to be lead poisoned in New York.\u00a0 This epidemic affects mostly young children of color from low-income communities who live in poorly maintained housing, where windows, doors, walls and ceilings produce invisible lead dust that is ingested by infants and toddlers through hand-to-mouth behavior and inhalation.<\/p>\n<p>Lead creates a host of health, cognitive and behavioral problems, including loss of IQ, attention deficit, impulse control issues, high blood pressure, kidney disease, and, in extreme cases, coma and death.\u00a0 There is no safe level of lead and it has no beneficial use in the human body.<\/p>\n<p>While children may be exposed to lead through a number of sources\u2014including toys, old water pipes and soil\u2014the primary lead poisoning threat for New York\u2019s children is from paint dust in older, substandard housing.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, New York\u2019s housing puts children at elevated risk of lead poisoning.\u00a0 New York has both the nation\u2019s greatest number (3.3 million) and the highest percentage (43.1%) of its housing stock built before 1950, the houses most likely to contain lead paint, the leading source of childhood lead poisoning.<\/p>\n<p>Because lead harms children even in tiny concentrations\u2014parts per million levels\u2014seemingly small increases in the concentration of lead in a child\u2019s blood level can have substantial cognitive impacts, with comparatively low blood lead levels correlating with significant IQ loss.<\/p>\n<p>In 1970 when it banned lead in paint, New York was among the vanguard of states\u2014almost a decade before the national residential paint ban.\u00a0 However, in 2018 New York lags in childhood lead poisoning prevention in several key respects.\u00a0 As a result, thousands of New York\u2019s children ingest dangerous levels of lead and could suffer permanently from this entirely preventable exposure.<\/p>\n<p>New York must do more.\u00a0 Here\u2019s five steps that the state can take immediately to dramatically reduce childhood lead poisoning in New York.\u00a0 The 2019 state budget\u2014being examined and negotiated now through the end of March\u2014is the vehicle to enact these changes.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Use existing authority to lower the level at which a child is considered lead poisoned and action is undertaken to identify and eliminate the lead hazard. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lowered its recommended action level five years ago.\u00a0 It\u2019s past time for New York to follow suit.<\/li>\n<li>Reduce the dust level standard that\u2019s used to determine whether a lead hazard exists and whether a clean-up effort has been effective. The current \u201cdust-clearance standard\u201d is based on rules formulate in the 1990s.\u00a0 While U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has formulated a significantly stronger standard, under the Trump Administration the agency is dragging its feet.\u00a0 New York doesn\u2019t have to wait for EPA to act and should adopt the stronger standard immediately.<\/li>\n<li>Despite the scope of the problem, New York spends too little on lead poisoning prevention, citing budget constraints. The state could nearly double its budget\u2014currently proposed at around $14 million\u2014by adopting an idea Mario Cuomo put forward in 1992: Place a twenty-five cent per gallon surcharge on large paint manufacturers based on the amount of paint they sell in the state.\u00a0 Based on Maine\u2019s successful program, New York could generate another $12 million a year for lead poisoning prevention programs.<\/li>\n<li>Lead poisoned families can face myriad health problems, learning disabilities and behavioral issues. Unfortunately, for many with serious, permanent injuries from lead poisoning due to poorly maintained rental housing, the civil courts provide no recourse.\u00a0 This is because the state allows insurance companies to exclude lead poisoning coverage from standard liability policies sold to landlords.\u00a0 The governor should direct the state Department of Financial Services to close the childhood lead poisoning liability loophole so lead poisoned kids can get their day in court.<\/li>\n<li>The governor has proposed that local government housing code agencies enforce strict lead paint maintenance standards in housing located in areas with a track record of high numbers of poisonings. This \u201cprimary prevention\u201d approach make enormous sense.\u00a0 But without a long-term commitment by the state to <em>fund<\/em> prevention programs, it will never get off the ground.\u00a0 The governor should commit to fully fund this proposal.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>As the state\u2019s chief executive overseeing state agencies and as the former administrator of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Governor Cuomo is uniquely qualified to be a champion in this area.\u00a0 This is a matter utmost importance to public health, social justice and investment in New York\u2019s future, its children.\u00a0 2018 should be the year New York gets the lead out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Almost 50 years after New York banned the sale of lead in paint, each year some 1,800 children are found to be lead poisoned in New York.\u00a0 This epidemic affects mostly young children of color from low-income communities who live in poorly maintained housing, where windows, doors, walls and ceilings produce invisible lead dust that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2027"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2028,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2027\/revisions\/2028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}