DeLauro wants more funding for lead testing

NEW HAVEN » A new bill proposed by U.S. Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro aims to increase federal funding for lead testing and subsequent treatment for exposed children.

Provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the program to test lead poisoning was allotted $17 million in the 2017 federal budget. DeLauro stated she believes that is not enough money to effectively prevent and treat lead poisoning and she proposed an allocation of $150 million instead.

“Which is why, last Wednesday, I introduced the SMART Child Act,” DeLauro said. “It stands for screen, manage, address and remove toxins for children.”

Dr. Carl Baum, director of the Yale Regional Lead Treatment Center, said most children in the Northeast are exposed through dust in their homes, particularly older housing, built prior to 1978, which is “loaded” with lead paint.

Even though the use of lead-based paint has been banned for nearly 40 years, around 80 percent of the houses in New Haven were constructed before 1980, according to the Department of Public Health’s Healthy Homes Initiative. Children can become poisoned from ingestion of lead dust or paint chips or inhalation of lead dust.

When lead is absorbed into the body, it can cause serious damage to vital organs such as the brain, kidneys and nerves. It is especially harmful to children under the age of 6 as their growing bodies absorb more lead than adults do and their brains and nervous systems are more sensitive to the damaging effects.

As of 2015, more than 3,000 children under the age of 6 in Connecticut had lead poisoning, according to the DPH 2015 Annual Disease Surveillance Report. More than 300 of those cases were children in New Haven.

DeLauro said children need to be tested at when they are one year old and again at 2. “The big issue here, overall, is that there is a lead paint crisis with regard to our children in this country today,” DeLauro said.