On Sunday, a story published in USA Today flagged this problem: "The EPA has not revised key hazard standards that protect children from lead poisoning since 2001, despite science showing harm at far lower levels of exposure than previously believed."
The story, by Alison Young, cites an array of evidence that EPA's standards are some five times higher than what many scientists believe is a safe level; experts also note that "no blood threshold level" has been identified as safe in children. Yet, as the story also notes, realtor associations have fought hard against stiffening the standards, putting political pressure on the agency. Perhaps, not surprisingly, the EPA refused to grant Young an interview for the story.
Sunday's piece is an important story in its own right but I also want to pay it attention in context of the really exceptional job that Young and her colleagues (such as Peter Eisler) at USA Today have done over the past couple years in illuminating the problems of lead contamination issues in American communities, including their Ghost Factories series looking the poisonous residues left by shuttered work sites in U.S. cities.
Other publications, such as Mother Jones, have also highlighted the dangers of lead contamination, such as Kevin Drum's recent exploration of the link between lead contamination and crime levels. But no other publication has so consistently exposed and explored the risks associated with lead contamination as the environmental writers at USA Today. I'm not the only or the first person to notice and praise this work. The lead contamination stories have won awards including the 2012 Bartlett and Steele Award for Investigative Business Journalism, the 2012 Associated Press Media Editors award, and the Alfred I. DuPont Columbia University Award. It also won this year's first place investigative reporting award (for large publications) from the American Health Care Journalists Association.
Many of the people affected by lead exposure live in American inner cities and in neighborhoods where money to remove lead paint in old buildings or clean up contaminated soils is not readily available. And, in fact, despite growing awareness of the element's destructive effects on children. the U.S. Congress recently slashed funding for lead removal programs in urban areas. It's an issue that needs journalists such as Young and Eisler to remind the rest of us, including legislators, that we should not give up on protecting citizens at risk.
These are journalists who have not given up on that task and we at the Tracker would like to add to all those other accolades in saluting their work.
— Deborah Blum
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