Exposing the Hazards of Lead Poisoning

A California judge has called David Rosner “the people’s historian.” Although the judge was speaking of Rosner’s role in a case that lists the People of the State of California as plaintiff, it is an apt description of someone who has spent decades studying environmental hazards, especially the toxic effects of lead paint on children. “Lead poisoning is the oldest and most persistent childhood epidemic in American history,” said Rosner, the Ronald H. Lauterstein Professor of Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health and a professor of history in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Rosner was an expert witness on behalf of 10 California city and county governments that filed suit in 2000 against paint manufacturers and distributors, claiming they knew the dangers of lead paint when they sold it and should be responsible for eradicating the problems it created. The case went to trial last year, and Judge James Kleinberg in California Superior Court in San Jose ruled in December that three companies—Sherwin-Williams, NL Industries and ConAgra Grocery Products—created a public nuisance and should put a total $1.1 billion into a fund to remove lead paint hazards from thousands of homes. Lawyers for the paint companies have said they will appeal. Lead hasn’t been used in interior paint since 1978, but it is still present in many older homes, especially in poor neighborhoods, Rosner said in an interview in his Mailman School office in Washington Heights. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that even now, a half million children have elevated levels of lead in their blood, which can cause learning disabilities, behavioral problems and seizures. Severe cases can lead to coma and death. Rosner is co-author with Gerald Markowitz, a history professor at the City University of New York and an adjunct professor of sociomedical sciences at the Mailman School, of Lead Wars: The Politics of Science and the Fate of America’s Children, published last year. He has written numerous articles about the toxic effects of lead. They both spent several days on the witness stand in the California trial. Their testimony was “absolutely pivotal, they were an inspiration to all of us,” said Fidelma Fitzpatrick, an attorney with the law firm Motley Rice who worked on the case. “They provided the critical historical context of what these companies knew, when they knew it and what they did or didn’t do.” They found internal company documents going back to the early 20th century showing that the health consequences of lead exposure were well known even as the companies continued to market the paint. The fund is to be used for inspection of homes built before 1978, abatement of hazardous conditions such as chipping paint and dust from window frames painted with lead paint, and education about the dangers posed by lead paint in the home. “This could go a long way toward ending childhood lead poisoning in California,” said Rosner, adding that some 8,000 children in Los Angeles and San Francisco alone are poisoned by exposure to lead paint each year. “It will mean an incredible improvement in people’s lives.” The benefits of reducing exposure to lead paint exceed the cost of the abatement plan, the judge wrote in his decision. “Medical treatment, special education costs, lost lifetime earnings, lost tax revenue, and other costs associated with lead poisoning amount to hundreds of billions of dollars,” he wrote. “Every dollar spent on reducing lead paint exposure results in societal savings between $12 and $155.” Rosner also was an expert witness in a 2006 Rhode Island case that ended with a jury verdict requiring three paint manufacturers to pay for cleaning up contaminated homes. The Rhode Island Supreme Court overturned that verdict, saying the state should not have based the case on public nuisance law, which was ruled appropriate in the California litigation. Rosner, who joined the Columbia faculty in 1998, has a master’s degree in public health from the University of Massachusetts and a Ph.D. in the history of science from Harvard, and he is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine. He began working with Markowitz in the 1970s, when both were on the faculty at CUNY. In the 1990s, they worked with the New York City Law Department, which was trying to get landlords to remove lead paint from rental apartments. Lawsuits like the one in California “force us to confront all sorts of environmental issues, not only lead. Companies have to think about their corporate responsibilities,” said Rosner, who also co-directs the Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health, a joint project of the Mailman School and the History Department. “It’s very rewarding that history can be used this way.” —Story by Georgette Jasen —Photograph by Diane Bonderoff