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Getting the Lead OutIf only it were as easy as recalling the Mattel toys.

By Darshak Sanghavi
Posted Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2007, at 12:47 PM ET

(Continued from page 1)

But the bad news about lead keeps coming. In 2003, Bruce Lanphear and colleagues wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine that kids with lead levels less than 10 mcg/dl lost roughly 7 IQ points. (Though the average IQ is 100, a populationwide average loss of 7 points makes tens of thousands of children fall below 70, the general threshold for mental retardation.) Using independent data, David Bellinger of Harvard and Needleman later confirmed these findings, which were novel but not unexpected: Serious damage happens at levels now considered safe for millions of American kids. The data should have galvanized public-health authorities to pursue zero-tolerance lead policies, which would mean nationwide de-leading of unsafe homes. After all, the New England Journal of Medicine reported in 2001 that medicines can't recover lost IQ points from lead poisoning. Once gone, they're gone forever.

Yet no de-leading program happened. Instead, opponents of comprehensive lead removal blatantly politicized the latest science and hatched an economic justification for inaction.

Just before the CDC considered lowering lead limits once again in 2003, Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson removed a qualified scientist, Michael Weitzman, from the CDC's lead advisory committee and then rejected the appointments of Bruce Lanphear and Susan Klitzman, the researchers who found toxic effects of lead at low levels. Instead, Thompson moved to appoint Joyce Tsuji, who worked for two companies that represented lead firms, and William Banner, who has stated publicly that 70 mcg/dl of lead is safe for children's brains—a view not shared by any respectable scientists. (The Union of Concerned Scientists and Rep. Henry Waxman publicized Thompson's abuses [subscription required].) But the political message had already been sent, and no lowered limit resulted. Today, all those parents whose children will be tested in the wake of the Mattel scandal continue to be falsely reassured that all is well, even if the kids have lead levels of 5 to 10 mcg/dl, which may cost them 7 IQ points.

Meanwhile, though the Mattel toys have been recalled, little has been done about the wider threat to kids from lead paint. Removing leaded paint (mostly from housing built before the 1970s) can cost tens of thousands of dollars per dwelling, for a total tally of $58 billion nationwide, according to a 2000 EPA report. But progress halted over a pointless debate over the dollar value of a child's IQ points. In 2000, the EPA estimated that national de-leading would ultimately cost taxpayers about $8,000 per saved IQ point. Conservative economists like Randall Lutter of the American Enterprise Institute argued this was not worth the cost. Using a bizarre analysis—based on estimates of how much parents were willing to pay out-of-pocket for drugs to remove lead—Lutter valued a child's intelligence at only $1,100 per IQ point. Arguing for looser lead standards, Lutter concluded that authorities should "reconsider the need for environmental standards that protect children more than their parents think is appropriate." Since 2000, no progress on lowering allowable lead limits has occurred, and in early 2007, Lutter was appointed to lead policy adviser at the FDA.

A few years ago, I talked with Bruce Lanphear at a conference in San Francisco, just after he'd been rejected from the CDC's lead advisory committee. Resistance to lead control is a historical problem, he said. He was clearly frustrated by the politics but said he'd continue working in the field with the hope that somebody will listen. Perhaps the Mattel fiasco will finally bring attention to the hidden toll of lead paint.

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Darshak Sanghavi is a pediatric cardiologist and assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He is the author of A Map of the Child: A Pediatrician's Tour of the Body.
Photograph of toy car by Pat Roque/AP. Photograph of frowning child on Slate's home page by Photodisc.
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