Bill Clinton: “I rise today to discuss a persistent, serious, and entirely preventable threat to our children's intelligence, behavior…”

“I rise today to discuss a persistent, serious, and entirely preventable threat to our children's intelligence, behavior, and learning. Lead poisoning affects 300,000 children in our Nation between the ages of one and five, and has been linked with developmental disabilities, behavioral problems, and anemia. One recent study from the New England Journal of Medicine also found that children suffered up to a 7.4 percent decrease in IQ at lead levels that CDC considers safe. At very high levels, lead poisoning can cause seizures, coma, and even death. In New York State in 1999, over twelve thousand children suffered from lead poisoning, 9,533 of those children in New York City alone. In fact, we may even be underestimating the significance of this important public health problem. I am glad that the Secretary of Health and Human Services considers lead poisoning to be a priority, and established a national goal of ending childhood lead poisoning by 2010. However, federal programs only have resources to remove lead-based paint hazards from less than 0.1 percent of the twenty-five million housing units that have these hazards. At this pace, we will not be able to end childhood lead poisoning by 3010, let alone 2010. We will never stop childhood lead poisoning unless we get lead out of the buildings in which children live, work, and play. In Brooklyn, more than a third of the buildings in one community have a lead-based paint hazard.”