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. 2012 Nov;102(11):e19-33.
doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2012.301004. Epub 2012 Sep 20.

With the best intentions: lead research and the challenge to public health

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With the best intentions: lead research and the challenge to public health

David Rosner et al. Am J Public Health. 2012 Nov.

Abstract

In 2001, Maryland's court of appeals was asked to decide whether researchers at Johns Hopkins University had engaged in unethical research on children. During the 1990s, Johns Hopkins's Kennedy Krieger Institute had studied 108 African American children, aged 6 months to 6 years, to find an inexpensive and "practical" means to ameliorate lead poisoning. We have outlined the arguments in the case and the conundrum faced by public health researchers as they confront new threats to our health from environmental and industrial insults. We examined the case in light of contemporary public health ideology, which prioritizes harm reduction over the historical goals of prevention. As new synthetic toxins-such as bisphenyl A, polychlorinated biphenyls, other chlorinated hydrocarbons, tobacco, vinyl, and asbestos-are discovered to be biologically disruptive and disease producing at low levels, lead provides a window into the troubling dilemmas public health will have to confront in the future.

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References

    1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “CDC Response to Advisory Committee on Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Recommendations in ‘Low Level Lead Exposure Harms Children: A Renewed Call Primary Prevention.’” Available at http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/lead/acclpp/CDC_Response_Lead_Exposure_Recs.pdf (accessed June 6, 2012). For the history of government policy and research in the past few decades, see Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner, Lead Wars: The Politics of Science and the Fate of America’s Children (Berkeley: University of California Press/Milbank Fund, forthcoming)
    1. There are no reliable statistical studies of the extent of lead poisoning nationwide before the late 1970s, but there are numerous indications of the widespread epidemic of lead poisoning in the historical literature. See Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner, Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution (Berkeley: University of California Press/Milbank Fund, forthcoming) and Christian Warren, Brush With Death: A Social History of Lead Poisoning (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000) for discussions of this long history.
    1. Recently, a class action suit has been initiated that revives the legal struggles over this case. See K. Moisse, “Baltimore’s Kennedy Krieger Institute Sued Over Lead Paint Study, ” ABC News With Dianne Sawyer. Available at http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Wellness/baltimores-kennedy-krieger-institu... (accessed June 6, 2012)
    1. Court of Appeals of Maryland, Ericka Grimes v. Kennedy Krieger Institute, Inc., Myron Higgens, et al. v. Kennedy Krieger Institute, Inc., Nos. 128, 129, September term 2000, August 16, 2001, Westlaw, MD. 29, 782 A.2d 807, p. 10.
    1. C. Tamber, “The Shore’s Straight Shooter, Judge Dale R. Cathell Steps Down, ” The (Baltimore) Daily Record, July 30, 2007. Available at www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-8984315.html (accessed July 11, 2012)

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