Lead Poisoning Lawsuits

and the Lead Industry

• "For over 50 years the lead paint industry conducted its business with full knowledge of the harm that it was causing. Our legacy is a widespread, serious childhood disease and the lead contamination of millions of homes. " Richard Rabin,The Lead Industry and Child Lead Poisoning. See also Rabin's website Child Lead Poisoning and the Lead Industry.

• In a New York Times article (January 6, 2007, 6 Ohio Cities Rush to File Suits Against Makers of Lead Paint), Bonnie Campbell, a lawyer who represents several paint manufacturers, made this startling statement: "Did the companies know that lead was toxic? Sure, everybody knew that. What wasn't known was that property owners wouldn't take care of their property."
  

• In February 2006, the State of Rhode Island prevailed in its suit against three former lead pigment manufacturers, an important and precedent-setting decision that could have ripple effects to other jurisdictions where suits are already under way. For more information visit the Alliance for Healthy Homes.

• The Poison Kids: Sherwin-Williams knew for decades that its paint was toxic. Cleveland kids now pay the price, by Lisa Rab, The Cleveland Scene, August 16, 2006

Poison Paint, is a report on the Sherwin-Williams Company's role in childhood lead poisoning, (21 page, PDF, June 2006 ), from ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). The report documents the company's knowledge as early as 1899 that lead-based paint was poisonous. Sherwin-Williams,founded in 1866 in Cleveland, is the largest seller of paint in the US. On October 23, 2005, four hundred ACORN members paid a surprise visit to the Board Meeting of the National Paint & Coatings Association (NPCA) during their annual conference in Cleveland, winning a commitment from the Association’s President to discuss their concerns.

• For information on the history of the lead industry in this country read Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution by Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner. Here are 2 excerpts:

  "Immediately after taking office in 2001, Bush, known to be a friend to industry, appointed Gale Norton to head the Department of the Interior. Norton, a former lobbyist for NL industries, the modern incarnation of National Lead, was quick to claim that the lead industry had first learned of the dangers of its products to children in the 1940's and had acted immediately to remove lead from paint, when in fact industry documents indicate that they had known more than twenty years earlier that their product was killing children."

  "We may never know the true extent of the damage lead, vinyl and countless other chemicals have done to our society, not to mention the damage that trade associations have done to our democratic institutions. Nor will it ever be possible to evaluate the lost potential of individuals whose intelligence has been slightly lowered, whose behaviour has become a bit more erratic, whose personalities have been altered in ways imperceptible to scientific measurement. We will never know the social, economic and personal costs to society from the lost potential of our citizens."

• The Lead Industry’s Finest Hour?: The Truth About “Voluntary Action” - Alliance for Healthy Homes

• More information on the lead industry from the New York Coalition to End Lead Poisoning
  • Warnings Unheeded: A History of Child Lead Poisoning , by Richard Rabin, American Journal of Public Health
  • Lead Industry's Secret History by Jamie Lincoln Kitman, in The Nation
  • Expert affidavits from Brenner v. American Cyanamid --- a history lesson on the lead industry.
  • Childhood Lead Poisoning and the Lead Industry.
  • Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center website with color reproductions of lead industry advertisements and more history on the industry.

 

• The lead industry side of the story: Companies That Are The Targets of Lead Pigment Litigation

More Information on Lead Poisoning

• Lead Poisoning - Down But Not Out
• Cleveland Rates
• Cuyahoga County Rates
• Laws and Regulations
• Lawsuits and the Lead Industry
• Putting Lead Poisoning on the Community Agenda
• Preventing and Managing Lead Poisoning
• Too Few Children Tested for Lead Poisoning
• Lead's Damage Below Currently Accepted Levels
• Lead and Asthma
• Difficult Issues
• Links
• Environmental Health Watch Activities

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