While lead poisoning is something my son Sean will live with for the rest of his life, the outcome could have been much worse had the local and state health departments not had the resources to help us. Without federal funding for both of these agencies, Sean would never have been tested for lead by a WIC nurse. Our home would not have been tested for lead-based paint in time to save us from an environmental hazard. There would not have been any nurse-related check ups and blood work schedules in place. We would not have been directed to AEA 267 to oversee my son’s education.
To put it simply, we might never have known that Sean was lead poisoned. Or worse, we might have lost him. We will forever be thankful to Mike Prideaux, the Black Hawk County Health Department Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program, and Rita Gergely, Iowa Department of Public Health who have been a huge part of our lives over these past nine years.
A recent op-ed highlighted the importance of partnerships between health care and housing. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) Assistant Secretary, Raphael Bostic and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) President Risa Lavizzo-Mourey state that “housing policy is health policy” and “preventing disease is cheaper than treating illness.” We couldn’t agree more.
On Monday, the Boston Globe published an article about how the U.S. is preparing to cut aid for lead poisoning prevention efforts.
I had the good fortune to be working for Senator Jack Reed in 1999 when he introduced a resolution (S. Res 199) to establish National Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Week in October. It is both ironic and sad that during the one week each year when we celebrate childhood lead poisoning prevention, we are simultaneously engaged in a battle to protect one of the key federal childhood lead poisoning prevention programs from evisceration.
Are you receiving daily email pleas for your help in saving important federal programs? The proposed budget cuts are so broad and deep that it could be a full-time job to communicate with elected officials about the importance of maintaining these programs. The public health and affordable housing communities are in a constant state of high alert to protect vital programs for their clients. So what distinguishes our orange alert—the obliteration of the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) lead and healthy homes program by Senate appropriators—from all of the others?
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