Lawmakers, NAACP Urging Investigation Of Lead Poisoning Study Conducted In Poor, Black Neighborhoods

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 16 Apr 2008 - 12:00 PDT

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The head of the Maryland chapter of the NAACP on Monday sent a letter to the state's attorney general requesting a criminal and civil rights investigation into a federally funded study in which researchers put sludge -- a fertilizer made from treated human and industrial waste -- in the yards of low-income black households in Baltimore to determine if the material reduced lead in the soil, the AP/Baltimore Examiner reports. Gerald Stansbury, president of the Maryland State Conference of NAACP Branches, asked Attorney General Douglas Gansler to look into whether the participants gave informed consent, if their civil rights were violated and what role Johns Hopkins University and the Kennedy Krieger Institute -- which led the study -- played in the research (AP/Baltimore Examiner, 4/14).

Stansbury made the request in response to an Associated Press article about the Baltimore study and a similar study conducted on a vacant lot near a predominately black school in East St. Louis, Ill., the Baltimore Sun reports. Also in response to the article, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee this summer will hold hearings on the use of the waste as a fertilizer, Committee Chair Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said (Desmon, Baltimore Sun, 4/15).

According to the Associated Press, "The idea that sludge ... can be turned into something harmless, even if swallowed, has been a tenet of federal policy for three decades." However, a series of reports by the EPA inspector general and the National Academy of Sciences from 1996 through 2002 called into question the EPA's regulations on sludge. Thomas Burke, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and chair of the 2002 NAS panel, said no epidemiological studies have been done to determine the safety of spreading sludge on land.

Study Details
The Baltimore study, funded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, was conducted in 2000 and involved nine low-income families living in East Baltimore row houses. Researchers sought to determine whether the waste could be an inexpensive method for cleaning up lead-contaminated soil to protect children from lead poisoning. There was no evidence that any medical follow-up was completed on the study, but researchers concluded that their hypothesis was proven, the Associated Press reports (Heilprin/Vineys, Associated Press, 4/14). Officials said the households were chosen because of the high concentration of lead found in poor, black neighborhoods in Baltimore, where families could not afford to treat their yards themselves (Baltimore Sun, 4/15). The families consented to having the sludge tilled into their yards, which were then planted with new grass (Associated Press, 4/14). The families received food coupons in exchange for their participation (AP/Baltimore Examiner, 4/14).

Researchers told the families that lead in the untreated soil could be hazardous to children and assured them that the fertilizer was safe and sold in stores, Rufus Chaney, co-author of the study and Department of Agriculture research agronomist, said. The families were told the sludge would reduce the lead hazard but were not told that there have been some safety concerns and health complaints about the use of sludge, Chaney said. The study concluded that iron and phosphate in the sludge increase the soil's ability to trap lead and other harmful metals, allowing the material to safely pass through a child's digestive system if ingested (Associated Press, 4/14).

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