------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the April 15, 2004 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
RESIDENTS OF HISTORIC CITY MOBILIZE: LEAD THREATENS CHILDREN'S HEALTH AND LIVES
By Phil Wilayto Richmond, Va.
Zakia Shabazz vividly remembers the day she decided to have her children tested for lead poisoning.
"When I saw the paint peeling around the air conditioning unit in my son Zaki's bedroom, it triggered some memories of a younger cousin having to be hospitalized for lead poisoning," she said. "So I decided to have all four of my children tested."
That was in 1996. Zaki, then 18 months old, tested positive.
"Zaki's lead level wasn't considered high enough for hospitalization or medication, so I started looking for natural remedies," Shabazz said. After bolstering her son's diet with fruits and vegetables rich in iron, calcium and vitamin C, his lead level came steadily down. By that time, Shabazz had become committed to helping other parents prevent lead poisoning in the first place.
The result was United Parents Against Lead, or UPAL, a national advocacy organization Shabazz directs from a modest office on Richmond's South Side.
"Our goal is to be proactive, rather than wait until after the fact," Shabazz said during an interview in early April, observed annually as National Lead Awareness Month.
Lead is a toxic substance that in low concentrations can cause nerve damage, learning disabilities and behavioral problems in children. At higher levels, it can lead to convulsions, coma and even death. Many experts think lead may be a major factor in poor school performance, as well as in youth violence.
"A lot of the problems of Richmond's children can be caused by lead poisoning," says Nancy Van Voorhis, director of the Lead-Safe Virginia program of the state health department.
A major source of lead poisoning is lead-based paint. The paint tastes sweet, so young children like to eat the deteriorating flakes. Infants can ingest lead dust through their constant hand-to-mouth motions. But even though medical researchers have known for more than 100 years that lead can cause brain damage in children, its residential use wasn't banned by the federal government until 1978. As a result, older cities like Richmond are particularly vulnerable to lead hazards.
Another potential source of lead poisoning is municipal drinking water. In Richmond, approximately 20,000 of the city's 65,000 water service lines are made of lead. The city's utility department takes measures to stop the "leaching" of lead into the system, but only tests the pipes every three years.
While lead can't be completely removed from a child's system, lead- poisoning symptoms can be reduced through medications and diet. But the problem has to be caught in time--and that means early testing.
In 2002, an estimated 50,000 Virginia children under the age of six were screened for lead poisoning, according to Van Voorhis. Of these, 2.3 percent were found to have elevated levels. The national average that year was 2.2 percent.
But in Richmond, a nearly 400-year-old, majority Black city, 8 percent of the children under age three who were tested were found to have elevated levels of lead. The 1,672 city children tested represented just 22 percent of those the state considered to be at risk.
Actually, the problem may be much greater than even these statistics would suggest. During the 1960s, 60 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood was considered the threshold for concern. That was lowered to 25 micrograms in the 1980s, then to 10 in the 1990s. However, in a well- publicized article in the April 17, 2003, issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, researchers stated that even lead levels below 10 can be harmful, particularly in very young children.
"Our findings suggest that considerably more U.S. children are adversely affected by environmental lead than previously estimated," the researchers wrote.
After that article was published, Van Voorhis told a reporter from Richmond's daily newspaper that there had been a discussion at a recent Virginia conference of dropping the threshold to 5 micrograms, but that public health officials had decided they had "enough children 10 and above to worry about."
The problem isn't a lack of resources. In Richmond, as in other cities across the country, government officials find money for the projects favored by their wealthy backers. So, faced with what appears to be a widespread but greatly neglected health problem, UPAL has joined with the Richmond Branch NAACP and the Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality, a predominantly African-American community group, to demand the city test all children for lead by the age of 12 months.
That's "a realizable goal, if it is considered a priority," states a flier now being circulated by the Defenders. "City Hall can declare the city to be in a state of emergency. ... It can demand funding from the federal government. ... Or demand that the thousands of corporations that profited from slavery and Jim Crow discrimination in Virginia fund a massive lead-prevention program as a form of reparations. Tell Washington that instead of fighting wars overseas it needs to declare a war on lead poisoning here at home."
Earlier this year, UPAL, the NAACP and the Defenders were successful in focusing public attention on the fact that the city's Lead-Safe Richmond program had fallen so far behind its lead-abatement schedule that it was in danger of losing its $3-million federal grant. Three dozen civic, civil rights, religious, labor and anti-war organizations endorsed a statement that Ms. Shabazz read before City Council demanding it take all necessary steps to save the program. The city has since made changes in the program's management and administrative procedures.
While continuing to monitor the program's progress, the three organizations are now collecting endorsements for their call for early, universal testing. They are also mobilizing people to attend upcoming meetings of the City Council and the School Board where Shabazz will formally present the groups' demand.
"I'm hoping it doesn't take somebody dying before the city admits how serious this problem is," Shabazz said.
For more information, visit UPAL on the Web at www.home.earthlink.net /~shabazzaupal and the Defenders at DefendersFJE.tripod.com. n
- END -
(Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe wwnews- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)
------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
