Published: January 03, 2009 10:47 pm      

State faces challenges to cut childhood lead poisoning

CUMBERLAND — When the ceiling fell down in her mother’s two-story Baltimore home, Towanda Malley never considered the possibility of lead exposure. But on Oct. 13, after a mandatory lead test, her 2-year-old daughter, Paris Shannon, showed elevated levels of lead in her blood.

“I didn’t know that lead still existed, that it was still in homes,” said Malley, who lives in the house with her three children and her mother, who has lung cancer.

Lead is found mainly in older homes, which are much more likely to contain lead paint. Families who live in homes built before 1978 are at the highest risk for lead exposure and can reduce this risk by keeping their children away from peeling paint or repainting rooms to seal in lead paint. During home renovation, it is wise to seal off the rooms that are being worked on with heavy plastic.

With a statewide goal of eliminating childhood lead poisoning by 2010 nearing, Maryland has made significant progress in decreasing the number of cases among residents in rental property units. But Malley’s story is an example of a growing trend of lead poisoning among children who live in owner-occupied housing units, one of the reasons advocates say the state may not meet its 2010 deadline.

“What we have found as we have implemented this law over the past 14 years is that the number of children with elevated blood lead levels has decreased in pre-1950 housing units but has increased in rental units from 1950 to 1978 and also in owner-occupied housing pre-1978,” said Alvin Bowles, manager of the lead poisoning prevention program at the Maryland Department of the Environment.

In 1994, Maryland enacted the Reduction of Lead Risk in Housing Law, which requires that owners of rental properties that pre-date 1950 must register their units, distribute materials from the Maryland Department of the Environment to inform tenants of the hazards of lead and meet specific lead risk reduction standards.

The law did not include regulations for owner-occupied housing or rental units built between 1950 and 1978.

Nine years ago, when Malley’s mother purchased the Garrison Avenue home, which is more than 30 years old, she was told that it was lead free.

Lead remains one of the most significant environmental hazards for children in Maryland. Children from birth to age 6 are at the greatest risk because of their developing neurological systems.

Exposure can result in lower intelligence and has been associated with behavior and attention span problems. It can lead to kidney, liver, brain and nerve damage, and at extreme levels can cause seizures, coma or death.

After the exposure, Malley noticed that Paris’ eating habits increased and that she had an increase in violent behavior. Everyone in the home began to suffer from headaches.

In 2006, approximately 1,000 children out of nearly 100,000 tested in Maryland showed an elevated blood lead level, according to figures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That number is down from nearly 16,000 children in 1993, according to Ruth Ann Norton, executive director at the Coalition to End Childhood Lead Poisoning, based in Baltimore.

Norton said the state will have difficulty meeting its 2010 goal unless it adopts a lead dust testing standard that would require more than just a visual inspection of many properties.

For more information on state and national statistics about lead poisoning, visit www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead/ or www.mde.state.md.us/Programs/LandPrograms/LeadCoordination/index.asp.

Capital News Service contributed to this story.