US EPA Proposes Stricter Limits on Lead Paint Dust to Reduce Children's Exposure to Lead

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has taken action to reduce children's exposure to lead by proposing stricter limits on lead paint dust in older homes and childcare facilities.

The US government has declared that "there is no safe level of lead," and the proposed regulations are estimated to reduce lead exposure for up to 500,000 children under six years old each year.

This is important because for some time, health scientists have been stating that there is no safe level of lead in children's blood, and there are no safe standards for it. The damage lead does to the brain is well known: it lowers IQs, robs children of their ability to solve problems, and makes learning to read more difficult. It also affects other organs, including the liver and kidneys.

"This proposal to safely remove lead paint and our other efforts to provide clean drinking water and replace lead pipes will help protect the health of our future leaders," said Janet McCabe, EPA Deputy Administrator, when announcing the proposal in New Jersey.

Lead paint was banned in 1978, but it is believed that over 30 million US homes still contain lead because the paint is layered and can flake off or be sanded down during renovations.

The proposed rules target the amount of lead dust. Currently, a concentration of 10 micrograms per square foot on floors and window sills is considered hazardous. The new regulations would reduce the amount of lead in both substances to levels that cannot be detected.

In addition to reducing the hazardous factors, the proposed rules would also decrease the allowable amount of work done by primary contractors (often called lead abatement contractors) on lead problem properties. These levels are currently 3 micrograms per square foot on floors and 20 micrograms per square foot on window sills.

Some public health experts are celebrating this announcement.

Dr. Philip Landrigan noted that the US government has gradually lowered the toxic level of lead in children's blood, with the most recent change occurring two years ago. But he said the EPA's statement marks an effort to take more preventative measures.

"When you rely on a child's blood lead level to indicate whether lead is in the environment, you're essentially using children as canaries in a coal mine," said Landrigan, a biology professor at Boston College who heads the school's global public health and common good program.

"By doing it this way, we're actually dealing with the source, not the consequences of exposure," he said.

He called the proposed rules "a very big deal, very necessary, and long overdue."

David Rosner, a public health historian at Columbia University and a leading expert on US lead regulation history, praised the regulation, saying it reflects a growing recognition that no level of lead exposure is safe for children.

Rosner was surprised by the announcement given that new environmental regulations have become more difficult and controversial in recent years. "I'm glad they're at least attempting to deal with this obvious, longstanding problem that we've had for a century," Rosner said.