In Maine, the total number of both confirmed and unidentified lead poisoned children has resulted in a potential economic loss of about $1.9 billion due to the effects of lead on their intellectual function. He said another $500 million in private and philanthropic cash would be part of the mix.Enter your email and password to access comments.The goal of Golden’s Lead Free Future Act is to eliminate the major sources of lead exposure for America’s children, a policy pushed since 2016 by the Maryland-based Green and Healthy Homes Initiative.“The missing link,” he said, “is the level of investment that meets the scale of the problem, and would allow us to end lead’s toxic legacy once and for all.”“More support for lead surveillance and education allows public health professionals to identify areas of elevated risk for lead exposure and direct resources to primary prevention before a child is poisoned,” the congressman told colleagues.There has been a serious focus on the issue for years in Maine, but there has never been enough money. While we have yet to completely eliminate childhood lead poisoning, our state has taken major steps over the past decade that has reduced the number of cases from 1,500 to just over 300.Maine has the sixth-oldest housing stock in the country, and many homes were built before the dangers of lead and lead-based paint were known. View Jared Golden’s profile on LinkedIn, the world's largest professional community.
One child diagnosed with lead poisoning is one too many. He said it makes more sense to remove the lead before children move in rather than dealing with it after those youngsters are suffering potentially life-changing health issues.Lead paint is a bigger issue in New England and the Midwest than elsewhere because so many homes were built long before a 1978 ban on the use of lead paint.
Rather than smaller investments over an extended period of time, it would cost this country less overall to make a larger investment in lead abatement upfront before more children and families suffer from lead exposure.During his time in the Maine State Legislature, Golden made lead abatement a priority. Jared Golden(D-ME2) kicks off general election season with big fundraising lead. In a study published by Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services, Maine Medical Research Institute, and the Harvard School of Public Health, of children diagnosed with lead poisoning, 79 percent live in housing with identifiable lead paint hazards. Please note the display name will appear on screen when you participate.Use the form below to reset your password.
If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.“We cannot allow another generation of Americans to be poisoned by their homes and drinking water,” Ryan said in a prepared statement. “By taking bold action, we can eliminate lead-based hazards wherever they persist.”Earlier this year, in a letter to Carson, Golden said that spending $2.5 billion annually during a five-year period would allow for the remediation of lead in about 220,000 homes each year.In Maine alone, Golden said, “the total number of both confirmed and unidentified lead poisoned children has resulted in a potential economic loss of about $1.9 billion due to the effects of lead on their intellectual function.” For every dollar invested in lead poisoning prevention, between $17 and $221 are returned to the taxpayer.
Extrapolate that amount to the rest of the country and we are losing billions of dollars in economic productivity as a result of childhood lead poisoning.In his letter to Secretary Carson, Golden outlined three steps HUD must take to finally begin to tackle the lead poisoning crisis across the country:In short, the long-term costs of lead poisoned children are far greater than the immediate costs of the increase in funding necessary to remove these lead toxins. A Lewiston official estimated this spring it will take 80 years at the current spending level to clean up all of the lead paint in apartments and houses in the city.It’s not clear whether Golden’s bill will sway political opponents wary of its price tag.Golden said the fundamental problem is that there’s “a whole lotta lead in a whole lotta homes” that simply isn’t safe for children. According to the Green and Healthy Homes Initiative, the costs associated with addressing the effects of childhood lead poisoning is over $50 billion.LEWISTON, ME – Following the release of a report from the Maine Affordable Housing Coalition showing concerning rates of lead poisoning screening in the state, Congressman Jared Golden (ME-02) called on Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson today to take long-overdue action to protect Maine children from lead poisoning.