
Fifty Years of Peeling Away the Lead Paint Problem
Saving Our Children's Future with Healthy Housing
- 1st Edition - September 24, 2022
- Imprint: Academic Press
- Author: David E. Jacobs
- Language: English
- Paperback ISBN:9 7 8 - 0 - 4 4 3 - 1 8 7 3 6 - 0
- eBook ISBN:9 7 8 - 0 - 4 4 3 - 1 8 7 3 7 - 7
Fifty Years of Peeling Away the Lead Paint Problem: Saving Our Children's Future with Healthy Housing documents the history of childhood lead poisoning from paint between 1970 and… Read more

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Request a sales quoteFifty Years of Peeling Away the Lead Paint Problem: Saving Our Children's Future with Healthy Housing documents the history of childhood lead poisoning from paint between 1970 and 2022. Tracing the failure of the medical model (treatment after exposure) that marked the 1970s and 1980s and its replacement with a prevention housing-focused effort, the book documents the changes in health, housing and environmental science and policy. It is the first book to examine how the lead poisoning law in the U.S. was passed in 1992 and later implemented, with implications for the future, in particular, the emergence of a healthy housing movement.
The book describes the roles played by Congress, various administrations, agencies, local governments, the private sector, researchers, and a popular citizen's movement, especially parents. The role of the courts is discussed, including a controversial lead paint case on research ethics in Baltimore through an environmental justice lens. This book is the first to examine another recent case in California, where ten local jurisdictions established a precedent by successfully suing the lead paint industry to help pay for abatement.
- Elucidates sources and pathways of lead paint exposure
- Details how the environment, housing and public health sectors can best collaborate with researchers and citizens to develop and implement change in housing and health
- Contains new stories and archived scientific data not available elsewhere
- Cover image
- Title page
- Table of Contents
- Copyright
- Dedication
- About the author
- Foreword
- 1 A social crime
- 2 Recognition of lead’s extreme toxicity to children
- 3 The lead pigment, and paint industries’ fierce opposition
- 4 Progress in regulating new uses of lead
- 5 Grappling with the legacy of past uses of lead
- 6 “Traditional” practices were aggravating the problem
- 7 A widening gap between science and policy
- 8 The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Foot-Dragging outrages Congress
- 9 Congress dictates “all or nothing” for public housing
- 10 Striking fear in the hearts of owners, insurers, and lenders
- 11 The Helter-Skelter of lead poisoning lawsuits
- 12 Bombshell report to Congress confronts policymakers
- 13 Stuck in the rut of reacting to poisoned children
- 14 Protecting children required a whole new approach
- 15 A big surprise: 57 million American homes contain lead paint
- 16 Wildly differing reactions to our lead-contaminated housing stock
- 17 A nonprofit organization steps into the breach
- 18 National Center for Lead-Safe Housing (later National Center for Healthy Housing)
- 19 A landmark federal law
- 20 The critical question facing the nation: what makes homes safe for children?
- 21 Federal agencies struggle with their assignments
- 22 Lead poisoning prevention and healthy homes
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- A short summary: lead is a long-lasting insidious poison
- Part 1: Paralysis and the abject failure to address lead paint before 1985
- Chapter 1. Banning lead paint: the missed opportunity
- Abstract
- 1.1 The beginning
- 1.2 Finger pointing—food versus gasoline versus paint versus bad landlords versus bad parents
- 1.3 “It’s right in front of you—it’s the paint!”
- 1.4 Inadequate measurement methods obscure the lead paint problem
- 1.5 Where lead was used
- 1.6 The first international lead paint ban
- 1.7 How the US government changed from promoting lead paint to banning it
- 1.8 Lead-free versus lead-safe
- 1.9 Toxicity research and intervention solution research
- References
- Chapter 2. Early failures and the seeds of success
- Abstract
- 2.1 Limitations of the Medical Model: The 1971 Lead Based Paint Poisoning Prevention Act
- 2.2 Treatment versus prevention
- 2.3 Surveillance and population surveys
- 2.4 Reagan’s “New Federalism”: lead poisoning disappears from the policy agenda
- 2.5 Where was the housing profession?
- 2.6 Early lead paint removal efforts backfire
- 2.7 Housing codes fail to regulate lead paint
- 2.8 Housing law and public housing
- 2.9 Lawsuits and affordable housing
- 2.10 Seeds of success: new pathway studies reveal the importance of lead dust from paint
- 2.11 Time for change
- References
- Part 2: Breaking the Barriers to Progress (1986–2001)
- Chapter 3. Solutions take shape: the lead paint Title X law
- Abstract
- 3.1 Science, policy, and practice meet—an unlikely venue
- 3.2 Bombshell report to Congress: “corrective actions have been a clear failure”
- 3.3 Congress tries again: the 1987 Housing Act and the 1988 Stewart McKinney Amendments
- 3.4 Leaders in public housing take action: the birth of lead paint risk assessments
- 3.5 A scandal prompts Congress to create the HUD lead paint office
- 3.6 Moving remediation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to the Department of Housing and Urban Development: The 1990 Public Housing Guidelines
- 3.7 Sticker shock: The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s comprehensive and workable plan
- 3.8 A new Alliance to End Childhood Lead Poisoning marshals political will
- 3.9 The nation’s health secretary declares lead poisoning the number one childhood environmental disease over White House objections
- 3.10 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issues public health strategic plan and new medical guidance
- 3.11 Congress acts: Title X of the 1992 Housing and Community Development Act
- 3.12 Bringing science to bear: a new National Center for Lead-Safe Housing brings health and housing together
- 3.13 Confidence emerges
- References
- Chapter 4. Growing pains—new regulations, enforcement, capacity, and proof emerge
- Abstract
- 4.1 The 1995 rescission and bringing science to the Department of Housing and Urban Development
- 4.2 The 1995 Department of Housing and Urban Development lead paint guidelines
- 4.3 The Title X task force fills in the gaps
- 4.4 The fight over lead dust standards
- 4.5 Do the new remediation methods work?
- 4.6 The struggle to reform all federal housing lead paint regulations
- 4.7 Improved lead paint testing—how government stimulated private innovation
- 4.8 National lead laboratory accreditation program
- 4.9 First enforcement actions
- 4.10 Mustering the proof
- References
- Chapter 5. The Nation Acts: community organizing, a 10-year solution from the President’s Cabinet, and political sabotage
- Abstract
- 5.1 Parents and communities
- 5.2 The Campaign for a Lead-Safe America
- 5.3 The Community Environmental Health Resource Center
- 5.4 Community groups and the press
- 5.5 The President’s Cabinet approves a 10-year strategy, 2000–10
- 5.6 Political sabotage
- References
- Chapter 6. Research ethics and the Grimes court case
- Abstract
- 6.1 The context: lead poisoning and the courts
- 6.2 Legal and scientific evidence
- 6.3 Research ethics and protection of research study participants
- 6.4 The Baltimore lead paint abatement and repair and maintenance study
- 6.5 The Grimes decision
- 6.6 Ethics in housing intervention research
- 6.7 The best of intentions or the best of community-based science?
- 6.8 Environmental justice and community participation in research
- 6.9 The legacy of the Maryland Court of Appeals Grimes decision
- References
- Part 3. The new consensus (2001–22)
- Chapter 7. If “you make a mess, you have to clean it up”- the Rhode Island and California court decisions
- Abstract
- 7.1 Local jurisdiction lawsuits against the lead paint industry
- 7.2 The Rhode Island court decision, 1999–2008
- 7.3 The California court decision, 2000–2022
- 7.4 The industry fights back
- 7.5 The new consensus
- References
- Chapter 8. The US and international healthy homes movement
- Abstract
- 8.1 The detective scientists who solved the Cleveland mold mystery
- 8.2 The Department of Housing and Urban Development healthy homes report to Congress
- 8.3 The Surgeon General’s Call to Action
- 8.4 Assembling the evidence
- 8.5 The formation of the National Safe and Healthy Housing Coalition
- 8.6 The World Health Organization Healthy Homes Movement
- 8.7 “A Kid Who Grew Up in Public Housing”
- Appendix: Vilnius Declaration
- References
- Chapter 9. Reframing health, environment, and housing
- Abstract
- 9.1 Health: reframing communicable and noncommunicable disease
- 9.2 Environment: reframing the shared commons
- 9.3 Housing: reframing wealth, affordability, and equity
- 9.4 Toward a healthy housing consensus
- References
- Chapter 10. Conclusion: the triumph of science and citizen action over policy paralysis
- Abstract
- 10.1 Knowing and doing
- 10.2 Two steps forward, one step back
- 10.3 The Find It, Fix It, Fund It campaign
- 10.4 Getting the housing market to work
- 10.5 Getting government to work
- 10.6 Getting the procedures right and recruiting the necessary expertise
- 10.7 Strategic plans
- 10.8 The influence of industry
- 10.9 Nine lessons from lead paint poisoning prevention
- 10.10 Ending a policy paralysis paradox
- References
- Appendix 1. US government agencies involved in lead paint
- Appendix 2. Honor role-leaders in lead paint poisoning prevention and healthy housing
- Glossary
- Some definitions are from the Guidelines for the Evaluation and Control of Lead-Based Paint Hazards in Housing, released by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, 2012
- Index
- Edition: 1
- Published: September 24, 2022
- No. of pages (Paperback): 460
- No. of pages (eBook): 460
- Imprint: Academic Press
- Language: English
- Paperback ISBN: 9780443187360
- eBook ISBN: 9780443187377
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