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Children poisoned by lead on U.S. Army bases

reuters.com

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Re: Children poisoned by lead on U.S. Army bases

#21

Post by istjohn »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #4

>The 80-year-old white stucco home... Well there's your problem. Old houses have lead. It should be assumed to be that way unless there's reason to believe otherwise. It'll be another 50+yr before most lead paint is gone. The fact of the matter is that labor is expensive in this country so lead paint is rarely dealt with unless it's conveniently within the scope of other work. I don't think this article very meaningf…

I find the revelation that the military has failed to notify state health agencies of lead poisoning as reqired by law and refused to take effective steps to prevent further poisoning after the issue was brought to their attention to be extremely meaningful and newsworthy. The cost to properly remediate lead poisoning hazards is far less than the societal costs of lead poisoning, including additional healthcare and education costs and lost future economic contributions from brain-damaged children.

Re: Children poisoned by lead on U.S. Army bases

#22

Post by somebodythere »

hammock wrote: post #16

Stupid question, but how is the danger from lead paint? Do you have to eat paint chips? I see you can breathe in the dust- how much dust does it take?

Canada considers blood lead levels of less https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2235210/

It appears to me that no level of lead exposure is truly safe.

Re: Children poisoned by lead on U.S. Army bases

#23

Post by Gibbon1 »

hammock wrote: post #16

Stupid question, but how is the danger from lead paint? Do you have to eat paint chips? I see you can breathe in the dust- how much dust does it take?

I don't know how much dust it takes, one can google 'lead oxide MSDS' though. Occupational limits are 0.05mg/m3.

What I've read is lead is really bad for neurological development. Isn't as bad for adult men. Acute toxicity isn't that bad. LD50 > 10000 mg/kg ( Rat ).

Two problems with lead paint is, lead is an insidious poison. The body doesn't clear lead that well and it has a long half life. So small repeated exposures cause harm.

And small children will happily eat lead paint chips. Which is an issue since lead is a neurotoxin and impairs brain development at very low levels.

Re: Children poisoned by lead on U.S. Army bases

#24

Post by drblast »

Former Navy officer here. The "privatized" housing was a complete farce. There's a natural monopoly on military base housing and turning that over to a for-profit private company nearly guarantees they're going to cut costs at every opportunity.

We lived on base for a number of years but after a while it seemed like a scam to siphon the service members' entire housing allowance. Maintenance was horrible, conditions were horrible, there were waiting lists just to get into the housing, and heavy penalties if you broke your lease early with no opportunity to negotiate out, even if the wait list was a mile long.

We ended up renting houses near the base out in town that were much cheaper and not infested with mice and cockroaches. Most people I knew who thought living in base housing was convenient and cheaper came to the same conclusion.

Re: Children poisoned by lead on U.S. Army bases

#25

Post by dx87 »

Stuff like this is pretty common in the military. When I was stationed at Camp Lejeune NC, my wife worked as a reporter for a local paper. One of her assignments was interviewing people at a town hall style meeting regarding chemicals in the base water supply. Children of people that lived in base housing had an abnormally high cancer rate, but the military denied that any of the contaminated water was leaking into the drinking water.

I also remember the barracks I lived in had old asbestos floor tiles and the walls were covered in lead paint. They eventually renovated the barracks, and instead of getting rid of the lead paint, they just painted over it. The asbestos tiles weren't dealt with, and all they said was "just don't use a floor buffer and you'll be fine". There was also a cleaning station where we'd clean our rifles, no safety warnings or instructions were given, and we thought it was just a cleaning solution. Later we saw a warning sticker on it that said to use full eyes, face, and hand protection because the cleaning solution could cause neurological damage. Just waiting for health probelms to crop up once I'm older :/

Re: Children poisoned by lead on U.S. Army bases

#26

Post by freedomben »

drblast wrote: post #24

Former Navy officer here. The "privatized" housing was a complete farce. There's a natural monopoly on military base housing and turning that over to a for-profit private company nearly guarantees they're going to cut costs at every opportunity. We lived on base for a number of years but after a while it seemed like a scam to siphon the service members' entire housing allowance. Maintenance was horrible, conditions w…

This was my experience as well. Not to mention, when you do move out, they are extremely anal with inspections and make you pay for "damage" even if you can prove that it was there before you (pictures, etc).

And not to mention the weekly inspections. There was a sergeant that used to come around the neighborhood with a ruler, measuring people's grass to ensure it was within regulated length. A friend of mine got in trouble with the first sergeant for not cutting his lawn often enough.

Re: Children poisoned by lead on U.S. Army bases

#27

Post by dgacmu »

hammock wrote: post #16

Stupid question, but how is the danger from lead paint? Do you have to eat paint chips? I see you can breathe in the dust- how much dust does it take?

The article is mostly wrong about breathing in the home. The dust gets on things and the things get eaten. The danger is the oral route. It's particularly likely for kids because lead tastes sweet.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_poisoning

Re: Children poisoned by lead on U.S. Army bases

#28

Post by freedomben »

tyingq wrote: post #10
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #4

>The 80-year-old white stucco home... Well there's your problem. Old houses have lead. It should be assumed to be that way unless there's reason to believe otherwise. It'll be another 50+yr before most lead paint is gone. The fact of the matter is that labor is expensive in this country so lead paint is rarely dealt with unless it's conveniently within the scope of other work. I don't think this article very meaningf…

The US government probably isn't subject to the same abatement and disclosure laws as regular landlords.

This is often true. There's typically "equivalent" regulations that are created by the executive branch for the executive branch. However, it's difficult to hold anybody accountable for violations, so you don't typically have any recourse like you do with a private party.

Re: Children poisoned by lead on U.S. Army bases

#29

Post by shrikant »

gaahrdner wrote: post #17
prions wrote: post #3

Military bases are some of the most polluted sites in America. Lots of soil/groundwater contamination from BTEX and other poorly handled chemicals. However, Military bases provide a lot of research for remediation engineering. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Military_Superfund_si... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016770120...

Yes, sadly this is not an anomaly: https://www.publichealth.va.gov/exposures/camp-lejeune/

Fuck me! The top comment as of now in this comments page is someone's personal experience of Camp Lejeune!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18197954

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