I just read an article about how the city of Cincinnati has filed a law suit against nine paint manufacturers asking that the companies be required to clean up all lead hazards in properties in the city, pay for a public awareness campaign about lead’s dangers and repay the city for years of testing and investigating lead hazards.
While I am not sure that this case is entirely fair to the paint companies I do believe that they should be putting a hefty percentage of their profits toward organizations that help homeowners deal with lead paint issues. It was their product after all that is causing so many problems and posing such a danger to us. But then again…the article does say that these companies knew of lead’s toxic nature as early as 1900 so maybe I need to rethink that.
Children with lead poisoning can suffer from:
Damage to the brain and nervous system
Behavior and learning problems (such as hyperactivity)
Slowed Growth
Hearing Problems
Headaches
Adults can suffer from:
Difficulties during pregnancy
Reproductive problems (both men & women)
High blood pressure
Digestive problems
Nerve disorders
Memory and concentration problems
Muscle and joint pain
This issue interests me especially since I have an older home in Ohio that needs some renovations and I am unsure about how to go about dealing with the layers of lead paint that house has inside and out. Scraping to repaint would be bad….but then again so is using vinyl siding. I have a problem on my hands for sure.
