The first step in this effort to mount a true Federal assault on childhood lead poisoning was the enactment of the Lead Based Paint Poisoning Prevention Act, which Senator Kennedy and I initially sponsored and which was signed into law on January 13, 1971. As you are well aware, despite the fact that this law authorized a total of $30 million for fiscal years 1971 and 1972, the Nixon administration steadfastly refused to request a single penny to fund it for fiscal year 1971 and only after great public pressure did it finally submit a belated amended budget request for a mere $2 million for fiscal year 1972. The Congress, recognizing the total insufficiency of this request, provided $7.5 million for this fiscal year-still woefully inadequate to meet the need. Yet to this date, to my knowledge, not a cent has reached the community level where it is so desperately needed. The present authorization under the act expires on June 30, 1972-the end of this fiscal year. Now is the time to insure a greater and more sufficient level of funding for combating this horrid crippler and killer of young children in the future. On the first day of the second session of the 92d Congress, I introduced legislation to extend and expand the Lead Based Paint Poisoning Prevention Act. Some 64 Members of the House of Representatives have joined with me in sponsoring this companion measure to S. 3080 which you are considering today. Our legislation provides an authorization level of $50 million for fiscal year 1973 and each fiscal year thereafter to combat the menace of childhood lead poisoning. This authoriaztion is the bare minimum needed to undertake a meaningful Federal program. That every penny of these funds is urgently needed is clear. What is even more striking is that if we fail to spend the necessary funds to combat this menace, we will have to expend far more patching up the sins committed against our children by allowing them to fall victim to this disease. Each year for instance, 800 young children are so severely afflicted by this crippler that they require institutionalization and care for the remainder of their lives. It has been estimated that such care costs a quarter of a million dollars per child for a lifetime of treatment. That is a total cost of $200 million, and each year an additional 800 children are so institutionalized. What better proof that, even in cold economic terms, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And what better investment could there be in the lives of our children? But let me make one thing clear. It is not enough for the Congress to authorize the amounts in the legislation before you today. It must insure that they are appropriated as well. The Congress has a long and dubious history of making promises but not delivering on them. Despite a $30 million authorization for the Lead Based Paint Poisoning Prevention Act passed over a year ago, not a single penny has reached the local community to combat this disease. Worn out slogans and yesterday's promises will not keep our children healthy. They will only result in greater despair and spreading illness. Anything less than the full appropriation of authorized funds can only result in condemning thousands of urban children to lives of suffering and disease. If we are to eliminate lead-based poisoning, we must eradicate lead from paint. The present definition of lead-based paint in the LeadBased Paint Poisoning Prevention Act is 1 percent lead by weight. This is far from adequate to protect the health of our children. Unless the definitional level is changed to a more realistic one, millions of youngsters will continue to be subjected to this totally preventable disease. H.R. 12466 and S. 3080 change the definition to 0.06 percent lead by weight. The matter of a safe level of lead in paint has been of deep concern to me for quite some time. On August 9, 1971, five child health advocates joined me in filing a formal petition with the Food and Drug Administration requesting that agency to ban paint with more than minute traces-0.06 percent-of lead from household uses under the authority of the Federal Hazardous Substances Act. The overwhelming preponderance of medical and scientific evidence and opinion submitted to the FDA supports my petition to ban paint with a lead content in excess of 0.06 percent from household uses. Included among the wide range of individuals and organizations who have endorsed my proposal are the Environmental Protection Agency; the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Bureau of Community Environmental Management; Jane Lin-Fu pediatric consultant, Maternal and Child Health Services, HEW; the American Academy of Pediatrics; the American Public Health Association; the State of New York; the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs; and a great number of State and local health departments across this country. I will not take the time to try to explain the medical and scientific foundation for an 0.06 percent level—Î will leave that for the experts. But I would like to quote from Dr. Jane Lin-Fu, pediatric consultant, maternal and Child Health Services, HEW, and a leading expert on the problems of childhood lead poisoning. In her letter in support of banning paint with a lead content in excess of 0.06 percent, she stated, "The tragic mistake of painting millions of houses with paint containing lead in the past decades was made in ignorance. With our current knowledge of the health hazards of lead in paint, it is inexcusable to repeat the mistakes of the past and perpetuate a disease which is preventable." Childhood lead poisoning is a national peril, bringing death and affiction to thousands of young children each year. Its continuance is a stain on our national conscience, for there is absolutely no reason for this horrid disease to be allowed to continue. We have the ability to eradicate the menace of lead-based paint poisoning from the face of America. There is no question about that. What must be questioned, however, is our will to do so. For this Government has failed too often to safeguard the health of poor children, and poor citizens. We have an obligation to assure that all children in this Nationall children-have the opportunity to grow up in heath and decent living conditions. Either we meet that obligation or we fail. It will not fade away by our ignoring it. Senator KENNEDY. Thank you very much, Congressman. One of the things I supose we have to ask ourselves about is the money we are talking about. As I mentioned in my formal remarks, they just completed a survey up in Boston now of some 473 homes, only 473 in the Dorchester, Roxbury area; and more than 800 kids were affected, 30 percent of them severely retarded. This is really a small percent of the number of homes in that whole community that are affected, and we are talking about, you know, re sources, and it seems certainly the amount of resources that we were talking about previously were completely inadequate, and there is a real kind of question whether these resources that we are talking about today in terms of the authorization appear to do the job. Since the bill that we had introduced before has become law, I notice that there are an awfully lot of communities that are that have really staffed up and are prepared to do the job and could utilize the resources made available at the Federal level to insure we get the value of the dollar spent, and perhaps you might comment on your findings in your own community and what you know about the other parts of the country. Are communities really geared up to do the job if the Federal Government provides the resources, and are the resources we are talking about here sufficient to do the job? Mr. RYAN. Senator, as of a year ago when I testified in support of the funding of the Lead-Based Painting Poisoning Protection Act, for which the administration had refused to ask any money at that time, there was already before the Department applications for assistance from some 40 communities across the country. I think that local health authorities in the past 2 or 3 years have become awakened to this danger, and realize that they have to have comprehensive programs. They are faced with a severe shortage of funds, which necessarily means that we have to help them-$50 million is the recommendation in this bill. As I said, when I testified, that is barely adequate to meet the need. But if it is fully funded, it will go far beyond anything the administration has been prepared to spend to this date. So while I would advocate more, and hope that you will increase the authorization to $100 or $150 million, if we authorize and appropriate this, we will have moved a long way ahead. It is true that, as communities develop programs for testing, the need for assistance becomes greater-for instance, in 1969, the city of New York was just beginning to carry out a testing program, and at that time 727 cases were found. Two years later, 1,900 cases were found. So as we move ahead, more will be found. However, this money is an investment for the future because, as the money is spent, and as treatment takes place, the cost will ultimately be reduced, because we will catch up with the disease and hopefully eliminate it. Concomitantly, we have to deal with the housing aspect, too, and provide programs for the detection and elimination of the lead-based paint itself. Senator KENNEDY. Could you tell us, Congressman Ryan, whether this is a problem that exists in some of the rural communities as well? I know it is primarily the older communities in the country. But we have not heard whether it exists in rural communities. We have heard it pointed out that the rural poor don't have the resources to paint their houses, and second, my general impression, as in so many other cases and kinds of diseases, is that in rural communities they don't spot it, they don't diagnose it, and, therefore, you don't hear about it. But I am wondering from your own kind of study about the problem whether this exists in some of the rural communities as well as the urban areas. Mr. RYAN. It is not limited to the cities, although in the cities there is the major concentration of deteriorating housing, and the cities also have more up-to-date medical assistance to diagnose the disease when children are brought into hospitals and clinics for whatever reason. But the disease itself, which results from ingestion of lead in the paint, is one which affects children wherever the source is. And the source is bad housing in the rural parts of the country as well as in urban areas. This is indicated by the fact that some of the smaller communities have already submitted applications for funds. Senator KENNEDY. I don't believe that HEW has funded any of these programs yet. Mr. RYAN. As of last week, no applications had been approved. Mr. RYAN. As of last week. None of this money, which was only released in December, after having been impounded by HEW, none of it has reached the local communities. Senator KENNEDY. This is another example where the people are ahead of the Government on this. I am sure you find both in New York and I know in Massachusetts, and some of the other parts of the country, even when we had the hearings 2 years ago, we heard of a number of different programs that were taking place, without Federal funding. These are programs which are so desperately important in terms of saving lives as well as the mental health and well being of children. But the Federal Government had been dragging, and particularly HEW, dragging their feet on this. Mr. RYAN. No question about it. The program was passed by the Congress over the objections of the administration, which then asked no money for it. They finally came in and asked for $2 million. Congress appropriated $72 million, and after that the money was impounded and not released until December, and none of it has yet even reached the needy areas. Senator KENNEDY. As you and I well understand the reason that the administration opposed it, they said they had the legislative power to go ahead and do the job, and they understood the job had to be done, but it was the congressional desire and intention to provide some categorical funds for this, and still they have been dragging their feet. I think it shows the interpretation that they are just not committed to this kind of an effort the way I believe that they should be. Mr. RYAN. No question. I should point out that within HEW there are some very dedicated individuals who want to see this program go ahead. In fact, they issued a statement last spring in which they pointed out the urgency of moving it ahead, and the Bureau of Management and Budget dragged their feet. Senator KENNEDY. I am glad you made that point. I know they are, from our communications with them. I hope we can give them the ammunition to do the job that needs to be done. I want to thank you, Congressman. You are the real authority in Congress today on this problem, and you have been relentless in your pursuit of legislation and appropriations. I know as sponsor of the bill in the Senate that we find inspiration from your labors, and I want to thank you very much for your appearance here this morning, and I look forward to doing everything we can here in the Senate. I hope we can get this job done. Mr. RYAN. We certainly look to you, Senator, for you leadership in bringing this to fruition so that we will have a comprehensive program. It is a pleasure to appear. (The prepared statement of Congressman Ryan follows:) As the original sponsor of the Lead-Based Paint Poisoning Prevention Act, I greatly appreciate this opportunity to testify in support of your bill S. 3080 and the companion measure (H.R. 12466, H.R. 12467, H.R. 12566, H.R. 13045 and H.R. 13343) which I have introduced on behalf of myself and sixty-four Members of the House of Representatives. And I want to commend you not just for holding these hearings today -but for your deep personal concern and dedicated leadership in the fight to assure that every child in this country has the opportunity to live his life in good health. Sometimes it is called the silent epidemic; sometimes it is referred to as ghetto malaria. But no matter what it is called, the tragic fact remains that childhood lead poisoning continues needlessly to plague the children of America. Each year thousands of young children are afflicted by this dread disease. The exact number of youngsters poisoned is unknown, for there are still far too few programs to screen children for lead poisoning. Even so, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare has estimated that each year some 400,000 children are subjected to lead-based paint poisoning. As a result, some 16,000 youngsters require treatment. An additional 3,200 suffer moderate to severe brain damage. And 800 are so severely afflicted that they require institutionalization for the remainder of their lives. And for another 200 children there is no future at all not even the vegetable-like existence of permanent institutionalization for they will die as a result of this crippler of young children. Two hundred children a year. - |