- Lead paint: Despite progress, hundreds of Maryland children still poisoned, By Timothy B. Wheeler and Luke Broadwater, December 5, 2015, Baltimore Sun: “There’s a huge hole in the kitchen ceiling of the rowhouse Olivia Griffin rents in West Baltimore. Rain leaks in through the roof, the lights in a bedroom don’t work, and standing water fills one end of the basement. The 27-year-old mother’s biggest worry, though, is the flaking, peeling paint inside and out — and the dangerously high level of lead in the blood of her 1-year-old daughter, Lyric. Two of her other three children have lower but still potentially harmful levels in their blood as well. Lead poisoning, once epidemic among Baltimore’s poor, is much less common than it used to be, with the number of new city cases dropping by 86 percent since 2002. But it is still claiming young victims years after authorities vowed to eradicate it. At least 4,900 Maryland children have been poisoned by lead in the past decade, their brains exposed to a contaminant that causes lasting learning and behavioral problems. There are likely more victims, because not all children are tested…”
- In Flint and beyond, lead remains irreversible scourge among Michigan’s children, By Mike Wilkinson, December 13, 2015, MLive.com: “Across Michigan, in cities large and small, lead poisoning continues to plague children, limiting them in school and on the playground. Although much of the state’s focus has been on lead-poisoned water in Flint, the metal continues to turn up annually in the bodies of thousands of children across the state, at percentages well above the numbers that raised red flags in Flint…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty