Officials focus on gaps in lead paint law

Officials focus on gaps in lead paint law
Despite sharp drop in poisonings, advocates say more effort needed
August 27, 2010By Timothy B. Wheeler, The Baltimore Sun
Steve Ruark, BALTIMORE SUNThough incidences of lead poisoning have declined greatly among children in Baltimore and Maryland in the past two decades, they have not decreased as readily among youngsters who live in homes not covered by the state's lead paint law.

More than half the Maryland youngsters found last year with elevated levels of lead in their blood lived in owner-occupied homes or rental units built since 1950, according to a new report by the state Department of the Environment.

Statewide, more than 500 children age 6 and younger were poisoned by lead last year, the report said. Most of those cases, 347, were in Baltimore — long the state's leader in lead poisoning because of the age and dilapidated condition of much of the city's housing.

Government officials and health advocates gathered Friday outside a recently treated East Baltimore rowhouse to celebrate the gains made against the long-standing childhood health scourge, but also to draw attention to new efforts to reach more families living in unregulated homes that likely contain toxic lead-based paint.