Senior Project Paper

Running head: LEADING THE CHARGE ON LEAD

Leading the Charge on Lead: The Detrimental Effects on the World Garett C. Claybrook First Colonial High School

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LEADING THE CHARGE ON LEAD

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This paper reveals the largely untold truth of lead poisoning and how it is a much bigger than issue than it is credited with. The author introduces the history of lead throughout history and how it affected society, in a retrospective lens. The author then transitions to a thorough analysis of the implications of lead poisoning in all aspects such as environmental and health, followed by a highlight of some legal examples. The legal disputes are real world examples that accurately represent the potential for damage that lead possesses as well as covering the different realms that the cases exist in. Finally, foreign countries such as Nigeria, China, and Mexico are all highlighted for their issues regarding lead poisoning, especially in regards to the health of children.

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Leading the Charge on Lead: The Detrimental Effects on the World Between the dates of April 2014 and October 2015, over 9,000 children under six years old were affected by lead poisoning to some degree in Flint, Michigan alone. This tragic exposure will most likely affect these children for the rest of their lives, causing minor disabilities, decreased overall brain function, and even the indirect possibility of a life of poverty. The exposure that comes along with this has been largely ignored by the government and bigger news sources, as The United States is a country that used to integrate lead into every product virtually imaginable, due to its distinct ability to dye and color products so efficiently; however, that convenience is something that has ended up causing more harm than good (Bliss, 2016). Lead has been reduced in most instances in the past couple of decades; however, it is still prevalent today, and its dangers should not be ignored. According to a 2018 study by ​The Lancet Public Health​, approximately 400,000 Americans die to lead-related exposures every year (Medical News Today, 2018). It is a chemical element that has a huge impact on the health of people, yet goes relatively unnoticed throughout the headlines of today’s bustling world. Lead can be found everywhere, from groundwater to household products, but in recent years, has been most prevalent in the form of paint. These lead paints were found to be extremely harmful to people, especially children and have had a negative effect on people since its invention in the early 1900s. Although lead naturally occurs in the ground and in water, human interaction causes large amounts of lead to be found, concentrated in one area, creating an adverse effect on the environment, wildlife, and the

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people around it. Hundreds of thousands of Americans die every year from lead and its toxic properties, yet the government and society as a whole, largely ignore it. History/Background Information Lead has forever been known as a poisoning agent, as far back as ancient times, but hasn’t really been highlighted in a public view until the last 30 years. Even though lead is present in Earth, under the ground, human activity/lead mining has caused the lead to be much more available and visible than it necessarily should be, leading towards these health and environmental issues. One of the biggest contributors for lead levels in the environment would be gasoline burn-off from vehicles and other machines but has since been banned by the EPA back in 1984. The period from roughly 1920-1984 created a notable amount of lead in the environment. When making comparisons between lead levels in modern day, compared to prehistoric times, it was found that the average modern human (in 1990), had 500 times more lead in their body than a prehistoric human counterpart. It is also notable that Americans have diets that consist of a hundred times more lead than prehistorically, and that is from their diets alone. In the 1940s, a study was conducted on children involving lead levels effects on children, it was observed that high lead levels caused “​poor school performance, impulsive behavior, short attention span, restlessness, and occasional neurological signs in these children” (Rice, 1990). Most of this was attributed to lead paint in homes. “Methodological limitations including inadequate markers of lead exposure, environment-influenced instruments of neuropsychological function, and choice of populations in which these environmental factors and lead exposure are highly correlated” (Billick as cited in Rice, 1990). Copious animal studies have been conducted

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to compare the results to potential human reactions in an effort to cancel out harmful effects, but to little to no avail. Lead is one of the first known metals to be discovered by early humans. The Romans had an affinity for using lead, as it was a key component in the making of plumbing, such as water pipes, and was considered the only acceptable vessel when making wine (Roberge, n.d.). Historians also believed that lead was a smaller contributing factor to the decline of the Roman empire, as those within the aristocracy had a love for wine, which had a negative effect on the royalty, even citing that one ruler, Caesar Augustus, could have been completely sterile due to the amount of lead that he encountered in relation to his diet. Many ancient societies utilized lead for different reasons including The Egyptians for pottery, or the Chinese for currency (Roberge, n.d.). Lead has been commonplace in all societies at all different time frames in the history of the world and that trend continues even to this day. Implications The effects of lead range far and wide, from political and human health concerns to the destruction of the environment and all of its ecological treasures. In October of 2018, the Supreme Court of the United States denied appeals from three major paint-involved companies including Sherwin-Williams, ConAgra, and Valhi Inc., all major giants in the paint retailing marketplace, due to their past sales of lead-based paints. The court claimed that the paints created a danger to the public as the companies hid the true dangers of lead-based paints, which can have a significant effect on the human body, especially children. The companies were held accountable for all homes built before 1951, that used these paints, which averages out to be millions of dollars for each corporation. Issues such as these have been prevalent dating back to

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the beginning of the 21st century, where similar lawsuits were also littered throughout the legal systems, as the connection between harmful paints and the human body were being drawn. In a similar case in 2014, The California Supreme Court ruled that those companies and other similar ones were liable for $1.15 billion, which was to be put ​“​i​nto a fund used to locate lead paint in homes in seven counties and three cities and then to remove it from those residences​” (​ Hurley, 2018). Cases of similar circumstances have appeared in other state court systems including Rhode Island, New Jersey, and other unnamed states. Lead poses a serious health issue to all exposed to it; however, children, especially when exposed at a very young age, are at a severe risk detrimental health effects that could change the course of their life forever. This element can be found in a variety of household items, including small toys which are dyed using lead. Lead poisoning can cause permanent damage to the brain and nervous system, digestive organs, kidneys, heart and reproductive organs. In its acute form, lead poisoning can cause paralysis, coma, and death. In chronic lead poisoning, very small amounts of lead can interfere with the brain development in a human fetus or cause a miscarriage or premature birth. Children are more susceptible than adults. Very low blood lead levels in children may cause no distinctive clinical symptoms, but the effects of childhood lead poisoning on intellectual and neurobehavioral functioning are measurable and may persist for life (Michael, 2006 as cited in Reigert et al, Needleman 2004, Eisler 1988). With such horrific effects and widespread cases, it would be assumed that this issue would be receiving copious amounts of national, and even worldwide attention, yet it continues to go relatively unnoticed.

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During the 1990s, lead was removed from a variety of different products and production processes; however, is still extremely prevalent in lots of products as it is an integral component in some instances. Lead is interpreted as calcium in the human body, which affects the bones primarily, but also poisons the blood, and causes multiple issues with pregnant women. The same occurs within animals, as it weakens the animal’s nervous and circulatory systems, making it more susceptible to a variety of environmental factors, including weather or disease, or even death from the lead poisoning alone. Lead in animals usually originates from the animal mistaking it for food, or a carnivorous animal eating another animal that has ingested the lead (Linette, 2016). Lead does not actually biomagnify up the food chain, as found with similar toxins such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), but some levels of lead can be transferred from consumption of other contaminated animals (Cope, 2018). One of the most common occurrences of unnatural lead in birds used to be lead shot, originating from shotgun shells but has since been outlawed in practices such as duck hunting, which involve water sources, leading to possible contamination of local wildlife water sources (Linette, 2016). In a research study involving a number of different raptors, mainly the white-tailed eagle, it was discovered that lead poisoning was a common cause of death amongst these types of birds. One of the main reasons was due to the consumption of smaller game birds that have picked up high levels of lead within their bodies from either ingesting it or lead-based shotgun shot from hunters. In a 1990 study by Canadian and United States environmental officials, it was found that waterfowl hunters alone deposited approximately 8000 metric tons of lead collectively in the environment simply from lead shotgun shot (Michael, 2006). The lead levels in their food source alone was killing these eagles at an exponential rate when compared to the natural rate of mortality. The eagles also

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became scavengers of carrion, as the fish population declined, and it was found that large portions of carrion also carried lead due to lead-based shot. The only real proposed, while also feasible, option to eliminate these bird of prey lead poisoning cases would be the complete elimination of lead-based ammo (Nadjafzadeh, 2013). Although possible, it would create lots of economic repercussions towards pre-existing products as well as the firearms industry. Lead poisoning also has a tremendous effect on another realm of the environment; the ocean. The lead has an adverse effect on the fish themselves, but it also affects the animals on higher trophic levels, filter feeders such as oysters and other carbonate creatures, as well as marine birds. Waterfowl and other birds that base their lives around water have experienced the worst effects. As water is one of the most common places lead can found, it creates an easy vessel for the marine birds to be exposed. In Washington State, common loons are plentiful, but are now taking a hit due to lead-based fishing gear such as sinkers and shot, which are generally different shapes of molded lead, used to bring the fishing line to a certain depth or set up a type of fishing rig (Michael, 2006). Seafood, namely large apex predator fish such as Atlantic bluefin tuna and swordfish, are very susceptible to exposure of multiple toxic metals such as mercury, cadmium, and lead. Those game fish were found with more traces of mercury than any other of the metals; however, there was still a decent amount of lead present. Lead was very prevalent when testing creatures such as mussels, mollusks, and squid, with some species even clocking at approximately sixty percent of their maximum capacity (Pastorelli et al, 2012). Imports and exports make up a large majority of a country’s revenue economy, and most of that commerce is provided by boats, specifically large shipping containers that span the globe every day. The amount of wear that these ships experience in their service is extreme, and their

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hulls go through a significant amount, leading shipping companies to invest in a bottom paint called anti-fouling paint. ​marine fouling is the process of algae and other small, generally, invertebrate creatures settling and growing on something submerged underwater. As a method of combating this natural process, anti-fouling paints have been developed, which constantly send out low levels of toxic chemicals that keep the organisms from surviving on the surface, and also preserve the structure which they are on. Copper and tin are generally used as this chemical as it is cheap to manufacture and keeps algae and other nuisances from growing; however, it has a negative output on the environment. The paint coatings are the primary method to preserve marine structures and combat against fouling (Tadros, 2005). In an experiment conducted in the Alexandria Harbor in Egypt, two different PVC panels were coated with three different experimental anti-fouling paints, one with a percentage of algae-based paint, another with a garlic-based paint, and the third was a tubeworm-based powder paint, in an attempt to test the preservation properties of all three. The algae-based paint, as well as the garlic-based paint, both prevented slime formation; however, the garlic paint was much more effective in preventing erosion, while the algae paint was the better overall choice. The tubeworm-based paint protected the surface very well, but only for a period up to 7 months (Tadros, 2005). Such an experiment proves that there are more effective and environmentally-friendly methods of combating marine fouling; it is just a matter of convincing commercial companies to make the switch. Legal Involvement Leads rich history of involvement with seemingly everything in twentieth-century America has led to legal ramifications that occur in the modern day, while all of these issues occurred decades earlier. One of which can be traced back towards the poisoning of water

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sources, neglecting the environment, all in the effort to make a few extra dollars. The plaintiffs, who are referred to as Zidell, as a collective, operate a ship dismantling business where they deconstruct old, decommissioned military ships and other large vessels. They primarily specialize in military and merchant ships from the post-WWII era. Zidell tows ships to a docking station in Portland, Oregon, where they are deconstructed for materials such as scrap metal. The process in which they dismantle the ships caused significant damage to the environment, by way of pollutants resonating from the ship paints, batteries and fuel systems. “​The pollutants included polychlorinated biphenyls, petroleum products in the form of fuel, lubricating, and hydraulic oils, and a variety of metals, such as arsenic, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury, and zinc”​ ​(Hurley 2018). It was known that the pollutants leaked into the river, or onto land, where they eventually contaminated groundwater, then leading back to the river. Zidell had purchased two separate insurance policies that theoretically protected them on all marine fronts; however, according to court proceedings, the policies were more limited than previously thought (Hurley, 2018) Chauncey Liles Jr. was just two years old when he was first intoxicated with lead paint. Now, the eighteen year-old Baltimore, Maryland native, faced the jury to tell his tale. Throughout his childhood, he developed learning disabilities, losing IQ points, due to lead paint found in the walls of his Maryland home. In August of 2000, he was tested for lead poisoning, and the tests found that his blood level contained eleven milligrams per deciliter, while only ten is allowed by Maryland state law. ​"He's been living with this problem for a long time. It showed through his grades and his concentration. Growing up, it really stressed me out and had me depressed because I knew what my child was going through” (Liles as cited in Broadwater,

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2016). The court awarded the Liles family approximately $1.3 million in compensation; however, the insurance company, which is based out of London, CX Reinsurance Co., refuses to pay the fee. The company feels they are not liable as all proper steps were taken to prevent this, and that it is at the fault of the landlord, which would transfer all fees to him. The landlord, ninety year-old Stanley Sugarman, feels that it is completely at fault of the insurance company. Regardless of the fault and blame, this should not be an issue that has happened in the first place, as a young man, who has just began his life, was already affected at a young age, and will be forced to live with the detrimental effects for the rest of his life. Mattel, a huge childrens toy manufacturer, along with its conglomerate, Fisher-Price, were forced to pay $2.3 million in a civil case against the company for its unethical and illegal misconduct in the use of lead paint in its toy manufacturing process. They were accused of importing over two million toys coated with lead paint with illegal toxicity levels, knowingly, and neglecting the fact that those toys could cause significant harm to the young children that would receive the toys. “In August 2008, Congress passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, which gave makers and sellers of children's products such as toys, clothing and books have until Feb. 10, 2009 to comply with stricter standards for permissible lead amounts” (Kavilanz, 2009). This was a step in the right direction by the United States Government in an effort to reduce the crisis of lead poisoning at hand, especially with young children. The toymaker brands felt that this deadline was too abrupt; however, Congress didn’t budge on their assertion.

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Foreign Countries and Lead During the latter part of 2010, an environmental engineer firm that mainly works in Nigeria, discovered that almost six hundred children have died due to lead poisoning alone in a period of six months. This was a result of primitive gold mining in ore veins near these villages. Elizabeth Brys of the United Nations Humanitarian Office claimed that more than 3,000 children were at risk for exposure in these remote villages. The issue is, however, the gold mining is one of the only decent revenue sources that these villages have, so they are very hesitant to cooperate with officials. The villagers either conceal the fact that their children are being affected entirely, or refuse to work with anyone. It is a combination of a life of poverty and the lack of education that is killing these poor children, and change in this regard is a slow and tedious process. China is an immensely populated country, the most populated country in the world in fact, and having such a huge population in one country causes lots of health problems. Lead poisoning is no exception. “​In the past two and a half years, thousands of workers, villagers and children in at least 9 of mainland China’s 31 province-level regions have been found to be suffering from toxic levels of lead exposure” (LaFraniere, 2011). When all of those are tallied up, that equates to hundreds of thousands of affected adults and children, mainly due to general neglect by government regulatory agencies. Due to the close quarter confines of Chinese societies, large factories are thrusted just a number of meters from entire villages. Although it produces a revenue stream for those in the surrounding area, those factories usually neglect to abide regulations as the Chinese government does little to enforce it, essentially allowing the company to run rampant. This causes a number of health concerns for the villagers in the

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vicinity as well as the villagers working at said factory. One of the main concerns is in regard to lead poisoning. In the miniature village of Mengxi in the Zhejiang province of China, close to two and a half hundred adults along with a hundred other children have been found with lead levels six to seven times higher than deemed safe by the Chinese government. This epidemic was caused a battery manufactory company that placed their factory a mere thousand feet from the village, with houses literally across the street from the gloomy monstrosity (LaFraniere, 2011). In an overall analysis of scholarly articles published on the state of health of Chinese society in regard to lead poisoning, it was found that approximately fourteen thousand children were affected, from a mere thirty-four articles analyzed (Li, 2016). This was done in recent years, proving that this is a persistent problem with little to no progress being made in the right direction. According to a recent study by The Annals of Global Health, it was found that almost half of the children were exposed to lead poisoning in some levels. The cause is from lead-based paints, but the unusual circumstance is that it isn’t from the insides of buildings, but rather from ceramic bowls. Colorful and vibrant ceramic bowls are an important part of Mexican culture and these paints that create said colors have a fair amount of lead found in them. Some traditional Mexican dishes have lots of acid or spice in them which leads to a chemical reaction within the lead paint and those eating the food ingest the lead. Although the issue is being highlighted and attention is being brought to it, little to nothing is being done to stop this toxic trend. “The Mexican government agency ​Fondo Nacional para el Fomento de las Artesanías ​(FONART) has a database of nearly 10,000 small-scale producers that still use lead-based glazes, and estimates that there may be an additional 40,000” (Trevino, 2014). It was estimated that approximately

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thirty-five thousand metric tons of pottery are produced in Mexico with toxic paints each month. Along with the huge production output, an estimated twenty to thirty million Mexicans use lead coated pottery every month (Trevino, 2014). In a country that has largely outlawed the use of lead for commercial uses, it is an astoundingly high statistic, literally equating to one in two children, which many times could statistically mean every family is affected. Torreón, a industrial city in the state of Coahuila, Mexico, has had the region's largest non-iron smelter for the past century and a half. For the entirety of that time frame, it has blackened and polluted the surrounding area exponentially. At first, this wasn’t seen as an issue as it was isolated in the desert; however, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Mexican government auctioned off land in the surrounding area for housing, the beginnings of the town. As time passed, the pollution accumulated and accumulated, creating a “sandy desert hillside that shines jet-black. The ​cerro negro​ (‘black hill’), as it is known locally” (The Economist, 2011), is a major source of lead poisoning and pollution in the local area. A local doctor began noticing a trend in his patients, with their blood work specifically. The children from the city consistently had blood levels with six times higher than the Center for Disease Control says should arouse immediate action. The children were clocking in with more than sixty micrograms per deciliter, which is an absolutely and absurdly high number. The responsible company, Met-Mex Peñoles, was simply slapped on the wrist for this atrocity. They set up a medical fund and cleaned up their mess, but the fund only covered certain people the company deemed truly needed help, and was very limited, only supplying supplements such as milk and vitamins (The Economist, 2011). Once again, the general trend of neglect appears, with similar results, at the detriment to those who don’t have a voice in the conversation.

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Although lead naturally occurs in the ground and in water, human interaction causes large amounts of lead to be found, concentrated in one area, creating an adverse effect on the environment, wildlife, and the people around it. Hundreds of thousands of Americans die every year from lead and its toxic properties, yet the government and society as a whole, largely ignore it. The narrative across the world in regard to lead poisoning is largely the same. Lack of awareness for those who are disadvantaged, general neglect and looking the other way by those in position of power as well as the persistent occurrence of lead poisoning in similar scenarios has created a global problem. This story isn’t just happening with lead poisoning. Third world countries and the poorer parts of first world countries are experiencing the exact same issues with all sorts of diseases and illnesses. Although there are regulations in place to promote the general welfare of all those affected, the lead poisoning pandemic is simply an issue that will not disappear. Continuous regulations as well as more awareness is the only way to combat issue, yet still, in a lack of better words, no one seems to care. Lead poisoning, something that causes severe health problems in those affected, especially children, makes little to no noise in the whole conversation in regards to illnesses. Diseases such as cancer and diabetes receive all the attention, which obviously are both much bigger issues than lead poisoning; however, just the slightest change in allocation of resources could really make a difference. The promotion of this illness will hopefully generate some chatter in regards to the issue, as prior to this research paper, personally, this wouldn’t have been considered an issue that needed an immediate resolution. Thankfully, some countries have started to take notice of the issue such as the United States, and

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complete bans of lead paints etc. can really make a difference, but begs the question, how long will it take until the issue is fully resolved across the globe?

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17 References

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