Recent changes to the membership of the CDC Advisory Committee on Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention indicate that the nominations of scientists with a long record in determining the health effects associated with childhood lead poisoning are being rejected, and that instead the vacancies are being filled by individuals who have direct ties to the lead industry, which has a financial interest in the policies adopted by the Advisory Committee. [Bush-appointed Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson is responsible for overruling CDC recommendations as to the makeup of the Advisory Committee.]
-Lead poisoning affects virtually every system in the body.
-Lead can damage a child's central nervous system, kidneys, and reproductive system and, at higher levels, can cause coma, convulsions, and death.
-Low levels of lead are harmful and are associated with decreased intelligence, impaired neurobehavioral development, decreased stature and growth, and impaired hearing acuity.
The CDC Advisory Committee on Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention assesses scientific data and recommends changes to CDC policy to prevent lead poisoning, including assessing whether the blood lead level limits are adequate. These blood lead levels are then used to determine which children are at risk for adverse health effects, and how much remediation must be done to ensure that a lead-contaminated site is safe. The Committee has guided major changes in lead poisoning policy for more than a decade. For example, in 1991, the acceptable blood lead level limits were revised from 25 µg/dL down to 10 µg/dL in a report released by the CDC and developed in part by the Advisory Committee.
Reappointment rejected:
-Dr. Michael Weitzman, Department of Pediatrics, University of Rochester, and Pediatrician in Chief, Rochester General Hospital, Advisory Committee member since 1997, author of numerous peer-reviewed publications on lead poisoning.
Nominations rejected:
-Dr. Bruce Lanphear, Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, currently the Sloan Professor of Children's Environmental Health, author of numerous peer-reviewed publications on lead poisoning.
-Dr. Susan Klitzman, Associate Professor of Urban Public Health at the Hunter College School of Health Sciences, author of numerous peer-reviewed publications on lead poisoning.
Nominated to the panel:
-Dr. William Banner, expert witness for the lead industry who believes that lead is harmful only at levels that are 7-10 times as high as the current CDC blood lead levels.
-Dr. Joyce Tsuji, principal scientist for Exponent, a company whose corporate clients include ASARCO (which is currently disputing EPA's assumptions that ASARCO is the source of elevated arsenic and lead in residential soils in El Paso and fighting Superfund designation) and King and Spalding, a DC law firm representing several large lead firms, and who has testified that the health risks of toxic plumes were not imminent.
-Dr. Kimberly Thompson, Assistant Professor of Risk Analysis and Decision Science, Harvard School of Public Health, affiliated with the heavily industry-funded Harvard Center for Risk Analysis. HCRA has 22 corporate funders with a financial interest in the deliberations of the CDC Advisory Committee on Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention and less stringent regulation of lead. Three of these funders have Superfund sites with lead contamination - Ciba-Geigy Corporation, FMC Corporation, and Monsanto.
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