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Thomas v. Mallett7/15/2005
ed by Kehoe to run into four figures annually, and we have no monopoly on either substandard housing or substandard mentalities in the USA. . . .
Shortly thereafter, the American Standards Association, a voluntary group comprised of representatives from a variety of medical, public health and industry groups (including the LIA and NPVLA), developed a standard to minimize hazards to children. This new standard provided that paint used for interiors or any surface that children might chew on should contain no more than one percent lead by weight. Prior to that time, the LIA indicated it made " very effort . . . to confine the regulatory measures . . . to the field of warning labels, which, as applied to paints, are obviously less detrimental to our interests than would be any legislation of a prohibitory nature."
Two years later, in 1957, the LIA finally recognized what the literature had supported for nearly half a century: lead paint was the major source of childhood lead poisoning. The LIA also recognized the problems of lead paint causing lead poisoning was going to be a lasting one. However, the LIA still was displacing blame. This time, the LIA suggested the blame fell on the children's parents' shoulders, as it stated:
As the major source of trouble is the flaking of lead paint in the ancient slum dwellings of our older cities, the problem of lead poisoning in children will be with us for as long as there are slums, and because of the high death rate, the frequency of permanent brain damage in the survivors, and the intelligence level of the slum parents, it seems destined to remain as important and as difficult as any with which we have to deal.
In a letter to Kehoe towards the end of 1957, the LIA similarly acknowledged the problem yet cast blame elsewhere, writing:
Without fear of successful contravention, I can say:
1. That the overwhelming major source of lead poisoning in children is from structural lead paints chewed from painted surfaces, picked up or off in the form of flakes, or adhering to bits of plaster and subsequently ingested.
2. That of some, but secondary importance is lead paint mistakenly applied by ignorant parents to cribs, play pens and other juvenile furniture and subsequently chewed off and ingested.
3. That any poisoning that there may be from lead-painted toys is of quite minor concern in comparison with the two above sources.
4. That childhood lead poisoning is essentially a problem of slum dwellings and relatively ignorant parents.
5. That it is almost wholly confined to the older cities of the eastern third of the country and is practically nonexistent west of Milwaukee, Chicago , St. Louis and New Orleans.
6. That, in all too many cases, the slum child, diagnosed, hospitalized and cured, returns to the same environment and to another routine of lead paint ingestion.
7. That the importance of the problem lies primarily, not in the number of cases, but in the likelihood of permanent brain damage and in the great difficulty of instituting really effective preventive measures.
8. That, until we can find means to (a) get rid of our slums, and (b) educate the relatively ineducable parent, the problem will continue to plague us.
9. And finally that, if you know the answer to those two, you are even more of a genius than I think you.
Perhaps this letter is just another instance of "carrying coals to Newcastle," but the misunderstanding of the fundamentals of this problem is so widespread, and frequently where one would least expect it, that I find myself impelled to sound off
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