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Re: editor says lead poisoning is parents fault!

Posted by Anna on June 20, 1999 at 23:54:06:

In Reply to: The Lead-Paint Disaster - N.Y. Post Editorial posted by Mark Smith on June 18, 1999 at 01:40:14:

second paragraph: "It's been known for decades that children
who eat lead paint, or breathe its dust, have
experienced developmental problems."

last paragraph: "Lead paint only becomes a health risk when
children ingest it. Prevention is a job for
parents, not landlords. Landlords should not
be responsible for what kids put in their
mouths. Parents should. According to the
Environmental Protection Agency, one of
the ways to defend against lead poisoning is
simply this:

Keep your home clean. "

And what did this editor ingest between these two paragraphs? the LEAD DUST missing from it? some other 'dust'?

the whole editorial & a link to HUD (again!):

THE LEAD-PAINT DISASTER

The City Council is in a legislative wrangle
over an oldie-but-goodie in the health wars:
lead paint.

It's been known for decades that children
who eat lead paint, or breathe its dust, have
experienced developmental problems. Now,
more than 30 council members have thrown
their support behind a bill that puts the
responsibility for solving this putative crisis
on the shoulders of landlords.

The bill, written by Councilman Stanley
Michels, assumes that peeling paint in any
housing unit built before 1960 is lead-based -
without having actually been tested.
Landlords must conduct a yearly inspection
of all units in which children under age 6
live. The city's Department of Housing
Preservation and Development will conduct
inspections as well and serve as the enforcer
of the new regulations. Landlords have 21
days, and a possible 60-day extension, to
correct problems found upon inspection.

Landlords make an easy target because in
New York, they rank somewhere near
lawyers on the villain scale, and there's no
political cost associated with imposing new
rules on them. But this mandate will only
worsen the difficulties of being a renter in
this city.

There are 1 million housing units in New
York on which property owners are
forbidden from charging a rent that reflects
fair market value.

Yet owners are required to comply with an
extraordinary number of cost-raising
mandates. While the cost of doing business
increases, the Rent Guidelines Board
prevents them from fully passing along the
cost to their tenants.

The result of this policy has been disastrous.
In the years since the imposition of rent
controls in 1947, more than 500,000 housing
units in the city have been abandoned
because landlords could no longer afford to
lose money on them.

Any new law that addresses lead paintmust
permit landlords to defray the cost, or it will
have the consequence of causing more
landlords to cut their losses and abandon
their buildings.

Everybody agrees the city must pass a new
law. That's because of a judge's order
stating that if the council fails to craft a new
law, the city must enforce what is currently
on the books.

And what's on the books would lead to the
destruction of New York City's housing
market. Period.

Courts interpret the existing law to mean that
any amount of lead paint in any condition is
a violation of the housing code and must be
removed.

The cost of removal - which means stripping
walls clean and repainting - is so
prohibitively expensive that it will literally
cause landlords to flee, dumping hundreds of
thousands of housing units.

What's more, the process of removal
presents a serious health risk - just like the
last health-scare clean-up, the one dealing
with asbestos. When scraped off a wall,
hardened paint turns into dust. Children who
breathe in that particulate matter are thereby
exposed to a far greater health risk than
children who live in apartments with intact
lead paint.

Speaker Peter Vallone is in the process of
drafting a bill that considers not only the
health of children, but also the legitimate
interests of property owners.

Current law is nightmarish. Michels' law is
calamitous. Here's hoping Vallone can come
up with a compromise solution that won't
need a horrific adjective to sum it up.

Lead paint only becomes a health risk when
children ingest it. Prevention is a job for
parents, not landlords. Landlords should not
be responsible for what kids put in their
mouths. Parents should. According to the
Environmental Protection Agency, one of
the ways to defend against lead poisoning is
simply this:

Keep your home clean.


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