Time to end childhood lead poisoning in Pennsylvania

The Lead-Free Promise Project, a new coalition of child welfare advocates, law enforcement, housing officials, health insurers, health care providers and more, have joined forces to urge Pennsylvania lawmakers to target childhood lead poisoning at its source.

Lawmakers should heed their call and act to end this far-reaching, statewide problem that is devastating to children, their families and their communities, and also 100% preventable.

Lead poisoning attacks a child's brain and nervous system and can cause, depending on the levels in a child's blood, hearing problems, headaches, slowed growth, and learning and behavior problems, including an increased risk of future crime, as detailed in a May report "Preventing Childhood Lead Exposure in Pennsylvania" by Fight Crime: Invest in Kids Pennsylvania. Fight Crime is a law enforcement organization that seeks to protect public safety by promoting solutions that divert children from crime. It is a member of the Lead-Free Promise Project.

Lead-based paint hazards, such as paint flakes and dust in Pennsylvania's aged housing stock, are the primary source of lead poisoning in this state. Lead-based paint was banned for residential use in 1978, but the state ranks fifth in the nation for old housing stock, with 70% or residential units dating to before 1980. As a result, painted window trim, walls, railings and baseboards - the structures that shelter children from the elements - could in fact shed toxins with the power to alter the trajectory of their lives.

There is no safe level of lead in a child's blood.

The sooner any exposure is detected, the better chance that child can grow with their intellect and health intact.

The Lead-Free Promise Project's straightforward, consequential agenda seeks first to get the lead out of Pennsylvania homes and properties by creating a state fund for low-income homeowners and landlords to remove lead-based paint hazards from properties. Members want the Legislature to set aside a $40 million out of Pennsylvania's pandemic relief funds to seed the effort. This week, designated as Lead Poisoning Prevention Week, it seeks to renew awareness of this stubborn problem that lawmakers have failed to address at scale.

"Childhood lead exposure can cause behavior problems, and increased risk for future crime. Investing in lead remediation can keep kids healthy now, and out of trouble later," York County District Attorney David W. Sunday Jr. said in the May report. The Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association, the Pennsylvania Chiefs of Police Association, and Pennsylvania Sheriffs' Association have endorsed the Lead-Free Promise Project.

Any investment in remediation pays off for children and those doing the work will add to the state's economy, in our view. The Promise Project predicts that "for every dollar spent on removing lead paint-based hazards in children's homes and apartments, $17 to $221 would be returned in health benefits, increased IQ, higher lifetime earnings, tax revenue, reduced spending on special education, and reduced criminal activity."

Second, the Lead-Free Promise Project wants the state to stop flying blind when it comes to the depth of the problem by guaranteeing all children get tested for lead twice, once at age 1 and once at age 2. Poisoned children must be referred to early intervention services, it said.

We know that about 9,000 children are poisoned by lead each year in Pennsylvania - yet only about 20% are tested. Underscoring that shortcoming: Our state had the second-highest number of children who tested positive for lead poisoning nationwide in 2019 but ranked second from the bottom in testing out of the 10 states with the worst rates of lead poisoning.

Mandatory testing would ensure no cases go undetected.

Most children affected in Pennsylvania are white, but children of color, who are often already at a disadvantage due to historic inequities, are disproportionally impacted because they are more likely to live in homes with deteriorated lead paint. In Pennsylvania, lead poisoning occurs in Black children at nearly five times the rate of white children, and Hispanic children experience lead poisoning at twice the rate of white children, according to the Fight Crime report.

A reminder: The Flint, Michigan lead poisoning scandal spurred pledges to address lead poisoning in Pennsylvania. The Legislature formed a task force in 2017 to explore the hazards of lead poisoning and in 2019 that task force released a report spotlighting the shortcomings of the state's efforts. It offered a raft of proposed solutions, including universal blood screenings and the creation of a registry of certified lead-free rental options. But attempts to fashion those solutions into law largely failed to survive this dysfunctional Legislature's gauntlet.

We urge lawmakers renew focus on this issue in good faith. Together they could strike at a problem that each year needlessly robs potential from our youngest and most vulnerable, damage that has consequences far beyond the individual.

The May Fight Crime report found the lifetime economic burden of childhood lead exposures in Pennsylvania is $3.1 billion. The direct costs of crime due to lead exposure across the nation are estimated at $1.7 billion, it said.

Given the stakes, this is not something to be chipped away at piecemeal. We owe it to our kids and our communities to give them a clean start.