Lead paint and lead poisoning, as it pertains to old houses, have long been a lightning rod of controversy. Some people even refuse to own an old home due to fears of lead paint. But lead paint may not be the national health concern you’ve been told it is.
I’d like to start by saying that lead poisoning is nothing to scoff at. For children under 6 yrs. old and pregnant women, even the smallest amount of lead can be very dangerous. I have a 4-month old son and we are vigilant about protecting him from exposure to lead paint around our old house.
That being said, I believe that the recent EPA and CDC rules and regulations concerning lead paint are completely unwarranted and accomplish nothing but increasing costs for homeowners and contractors.
My company is very careful to follow the complex array of rules laid out in the EPA’s Renovation, Repair and Painting (RRP) rule that went into effect April 2010. We take pictures, record paperwork, distribute literature, control dust and the slew of other things required by the rule.
Strangely, the NIH’s most recent testing shows that there was really no need for these regulations in the first place. Other than being a veiled attempt to bring additional money and power to the EPA’s coffers in the way of licensing fees, fines and regulatory powers under the guise of “public safety”, these rules seem to have had little, if any effect on the rates of lead poisoning among our children.
The Facts
Lead paint was banned by the EPA in 1978 for use in “child-occupied facilities” (residences, schools, daycare, churches, etc.). Prior to 1978, it was slowly being phased out as a paint additive, and the older a house is, the more likely it is to have lead paint.
Lead is dangerous because the body cannot determine the difference between lead and calcium and thus attempts to use lead in the same metabolic processes as calcium. At high rates of exposure, this causes a list of non-descript symptoms such as:
- Lethargy
- Pain, numbness or tingling of the extremities
- Muscular weakness
- Headache
- Abdominal pain
- Memory loss
- Mood disorders
In children’s developing bodies, lead is particularly damaging because it often causes irreversible learning disorders and stunted mental development.
In 2010, the EPA passed new regulations dictating how renovators must conduct their work in buildings built before 1978. Renovators must now be licensed and follow not only very stringent work rules regarding dust creation and containment, but also a barrage of paperwork that must be filed and saved ad nauseum.
Compliance with these regulations has greatly increased costs which are passed on to homeowners to help cover the extra materials, licensing costs, increased labor costs and general extra risk (fines for non compliance can be as high as $35,000 per incident!) associated with working under an RRP license.
The Hidden Truth
But the EPA isn’t telling the whole story. Lead poisoning rates in children under 6 had been falling precipitously to minuscule amounts and bottomed out between 2011 and 2013. Fast forward to 2021 (the last year stats are available) and there has been little change Most of this progress was made without the RRP regulations that have made renovations so expensive for homeowners.
In the chart above which the CDC has removed from their website over the years but we still have in our files it shows that between 2009 and 2011 there was little if any change to the number of children under 72 months old with a Blood Lead Level (BLL) of 10 mcg or more per deciliter (the previous safe limit).
What’s more interesting is what the whole picture looks like. Largely, the percentage of children testing positive (more than 10 mcg) bottomed out around 2013 and has sat largely unchanged in the ensuing decade.
The CDC has stats showing the number of cases of lead poisoning going back to 1997. In Florida, that number has decreased from 6.05% in 1997 to 0.13% in 2011.
And how about states with a huge stock of old houses covered in lead paint? Massachusetts for example has gone from 3.23% in 1997 to 0.35% in 2011, but from 2011 to 2021 the percentage has only decreased to 0.3%. Despite my searching it is hard to find any statistics state by state before 2017 on the CDC website, but here are the current stats.
Despite all the spending and regulation we have not been able to move the number much at all in the last decade which would indicate we have reached an equilibrium point. What could be causing this?
The country as a whole has made huge strides in eliminating lead poisoning in children under 6 (the group most affected by lead poisoning). Since 1997, the national numbers have gone down from 7.61% to 0.56% in 2011. Since 1997 alone, that represents a 92.6% reduction in Blood Lead Levels of unsafe levels! Fast forward to 2021 and it’s only been lowered from 0.56% to 0.3%.
When you look at numbers like these does it seem that the country is in imminent danger from lead paint? No, in fact, it sounds like something other than the RRP laws has have been making huge strides at keeping our children safe from the dangers of lead, and I have hunch of what that is.
The Real Reason for Lower Lead Levels?
For some reason the EPA and CDC don’t talk as much as they should because it seems clear to me from the data that while the lead safe work practices of the RRP rule are a good idea they don’t really make that big of a difference in keeping Blood Lead Levels low.
The biggest driver seems to be the lowering of airborne lead levels mainly from the removal of lead from gasoline. The Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 mandated the elimination of lead from all U.S. motor fuel by January 1, 1996. This important step in protecting our children has created huge gains in public health where lead exposure is concerned.
The chart below shows how airborne lead levels in the U.S. have decreased 89% between 1980 and 2010. The elimination of leaded gasoline has arguably done more for preventing lead poisoning than anything else.
What happened after 2010 you may be asking. Well, fortunately I still have these images from when this post was first written in 2013 even though the EPA has removed them from the web never to be seen again. Here is the updated chart below (and the link) which doesn’t show the full picture but only starts at 2010.
The fact that the Blood Lead Levels of children bottomed out and and have remained largely unchanged since around 2013 AND the Lead Air Quality bottomed it around the same time seems to indicate these two are more connected than kids chewing on window sills.
Supported by all this data, I think we can safely say that old lead paint, while a potential danger, is not the overly-hyped, expensively regulated, massive health problem that it has been made out to be.
Maybe it’s correlation and not causation. I’m not a scientist, but as a contractor who works around lead paint every week the answer seems clear to me. What’s more likely?
- Lowering the amount of airborne lead that children are exposed to 24 hours a day 7 days a week lowers their Blood Lead Level.
- Creating lead safe work practices that contractors are required to use during home renovations that occur only once every 3-5 years lowers the children’s Blood Lead Level.
If you have peeling paint in a house built before 1978, you should be careful. Young children like to put things in their mouths and paint chips are one possible option. Also, when embarking on old house renovations, think carefully about containing dust and protecting your family.
What I hope to accomplish thru this post is eliminate some of the fear about lead paint. Yes it’s a hazard if you’re pregnant or under 6 years old. Yes we should be careful in our renovations. But don’t let it make you loose sleep or stress out when the statistics show that we are doing excellent at keeping the most at risk safe.
If unsafe blood lead levels were designed with children in mind and with the purpose of protecting children, then why are we treating adults like children? While we’re at it, we might as well require all adults in a car to be in a car seat, since that is the safest option. How about outlawing unhealthy salts, fats, sweets and soft drinks over a certain size too? But no one would attempt that. That is just too ridiculous to even imagine. Or is it?
Founder & Editor-in-Chief
I love old houses, working with my hands, and teaching others the excitment of doing it yourself! Everything is teachable if you only give it the chance.
Well, I can tell you how we deal with it in a 100 year old house with kids: we never remove anything! Layer over everything instead. I have encapsulated all painted surfaces and keep up with any dings in the paint. Would the baseboards look so better sanded down and repainted? Who cares? Anyone looking that closely at baseboards needs to get a hobby.
We use good air filters. We don’t open the windows (too muggy here anyway). No shoes allowed in the house because there’s lead in the soil. We are careful about cleaning and not letting dust build up (and only wet dust, never dry). We wear respirators when we do anything that might kick up dust, like masonry repair.
But mostly, we live our lives and hope for the best, same as we do every time we get into a car and buckle the seatbelt.
I like that you talked about how lead is dangerous because the body cannot determine the difference between lead and calcium and this attempts to use lead in the same metabolic processes as calcium. My wife and I are thinking of buying an old house and renovating it, however, we want to make sure that the house is safe. So for that, we are planning on asking for a professional lead inspection first.
Lead Paint blocks radiation.
That’s the main reason they wanted it gone.
Children eating lead paint chips was the “cover.”
The Nixon Administration commissioned a study in 1969, which was released in 1971 or 1972, re Americans being exposed to too much radiation ALREADY at that time & said the consequences would only worsen if something was not done.
So what did “they” do? Outlaw the one thing that protects people in their homes, lead paint. Then increase the levels of radiation thereafter > increase in degenerative neuro, cardiiovascular & immune diseases, etc., beginning in the latter 1970s & 1980s.
I’d say more but you wouldn’t believe it. People have to be “woken up” on their own. 99.99% of what “authorities” (“Nanny State”) say is the opposite of what is true. You’re already slightly noticing. Ask yourself Why & keep researching.
I disagree with those who cry over-regulation. I am a contractor and have taken the RRP course for certification. I found it very useful. Lead is a unique toxin–there is no known safe level of exposure. Think of it this way: regulators are simply doing what we should all be doing–advocating for the health of our children. If it costs more to be safe, so be it.
More here:http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/02/lead-exposure-gasoline-crime-increase-children-health/
This seems to be a red herring argument. The amount of lead in paint on a house would not be a radiation shield. Have you ever seen the lead shielding in an old X-ray room? I have removed it, and it’s solid lead sheet at least an eighth inch thick. Lead in paint was never about radiation. I love a conspiracy theory as much as the next guy, but…Ridiculous.
However, I had RRP certification from 2010 to 2015 and never got a job because of it. Other contractors told homeowners they would just ignore those requirements, and homeowners went that route every time to save money. I guess the market will prevail. Mostly.
This makes more sense to me.
I’ve been digging on this subject for two days & I’ve even found “experts” saying lead leeches into the grain of the wood & this the wood is always infected regardless or refinishing. I can see that on say pine but not the hardwoods and these experts think all wood is the same.
So I just bought (haven’t swapped out yet) a really neat old Victorian cast iron bed but it has prob 4 different coats of paint on it that are cracked/showing at most of the seams where different peices of metal meet. The bed is for the grown ups but you know the kids will come in the master bed room when they need help and stuff. Youngest kid is 2. So I’m trying to figure out how to address this properly. Do I find someone to strip the cast iron bed since the kids would be one premise if I try at home? Do I spray a ton of poly on this to seal in any issues?
In researching this bed and the seriousness of the lead….. I have a old solid oak exterior Victorian etched glass door in the dining room ( rescued from a building demolition). The paint isn’t peeling at all but I’d be hard put to believe one of the many coats of paint on it isn’t lead. Makes me wonder if I should wisk it off to the furniture refinisher so the paint is removed off site.
I was planning on redoing the the door someday but I was thinking 5-6 years due to more important house repairs & the door is massive to uninstall and haul.
I appreciate your article’s balanced perspective. I would be interested to know how much lead, in what form, a child would need to ingest to be concerning. If, in a moment of mommy distraction, my child puts a handful of dirt contaminated with lead paint chips from a peeling house, in his mouth, is this one time event enough to cause alarm?
Great article with important information I was very surprised even with the comments…I have currently taken a course for both asbestos and lead and I have my license this is extremely dangerous to the public in my opinion because so many people are not educated. I had been exposed to both lead and asbestos while completing a demo job had I not taken the course I never would have known….the common sense rule of wet methods with any pealing of paint should be told to all homeowners!
I find it strange however that part of proper RRP practices interim control methods are allowed which is basically simple paint. Alternative practice methods that actually treat, seal and render lead non hazardous for disposal are available. Ecobondlbp.com
The practices of RRP have us being so very un-green. We now have huge amounts of plastic sheeting (a non-renewable petroleum product) that go to the land fills.
You’d think that would concern the EPA too, but as long as they get their RRP money they don’t seem to mind.
The EPA is being overly harsh and not too helpful at that! They will fine a contractor for using a HEPA vacuum that’s not certified for lead work, but they (the EPA) don’t have a list of HEPA vacuums that are suitable for lead-safe work practices.
If you use a HEPA vacuum for removing exterior lead paint from your house, which ones should you use? I was thinking of using Dustless Technologies, but when I called them about service, they said if I want service, I’d have to ship the vacuum to them.
No thanks. I’d rather buy a HEPA vacuum (with a sealed chassis) from a local place that has a service center. I live in southeast Louisiana…so I was thinking of getting a HEPA vacuum from Aramsco….
Thoughts?
Most of my experience with HEPA vac sis using Festool for that very reason. I wanted one that would last and had great service if it ever needed.
I bought a Festool Mini about 25 days ago. The instructions (on page 11) said “Warning: Not suitable to vacuum hazardous or toxic substances e.g., asbestos..then the instruction manual went on to say the filters will not be able to capture all particles and may exhaust them back into the environment. It’s there in black and white…
Actually if you visit the Festool website you can see that all Festool dust extractors DO meet the EPA RRP guidelines.
I just re-visited the Festool Web site: it is contradicting itself: one section (NOT a part of the instruction manual) says that it is designed for picking up lead paint chips. However, the instruction manual IS online, and it says that the Festool Mini is NOT designed for picking up hazardous materials like lead or asbestos. Here’s what Festool’s web site said about its Mini:
http://www.festoolusa.com/media/pdf/703005_002_CT_MINI-MIDI_HEPA_USA.pdf
***beginning of quoted material from Festool’s Web Site:***
Vacuuming dry materials
Not suitable to vacuum hazardous or toxic substances or dusts e.g. asbestos. The filters will not be able to capture all particlesand
may exhaust them back into the environment. (page 11 of the instruction manual which IS on the web site too)!
***end of quoted material***
I did not realize the discrepancy until yesterday because I believed what the first part of Festool’s web site said (that the mini was designed for toxic materials)…it was not until yesterday that I noticed the 2nd part where it says the mini is NOT designed for lead-safe work. I will be taking this vacuum back…I have not used it at all so that will make it easier for me to return it for a full refund. I just can’t bring myself to use it with a serious discrepancy like this…two different parts of the very same web site are saying contradictory things about the same HEPA vacuum…which makes me uncomfortable.
Thank you for putting the lead paint issue in context, Scott. There are many hazards in life, knowing what you are doing means we can keep on doing what needs doing. What frustrates me is the lack of nutritional education that is missing from the lead paint debate. If you have enough calcium and iron in your body it is very hard to absorb lead. Most lead poisoned children are also malnourished.
Great synopsis! I want to offer another perspective. I am one of those government lead inspectors types. I primarily investigate cases of poisoned children. There are still many children being impacted and there are lots of contractors brazenly ignoring the most basic parts of lead-safe work practices. I see it every single day. Lead-poisoning is the #1 preventable environmental disease. Low-level lead exposure causes permanent brain damage with lifelong neuropsychological impairment. That is a huge price to pay…
That being said, the regulations are making it hard for contractors to do their job. Absolutely. But I’m not sure where the balance is.
The real bad guys are the paint industry. A recent court case found that the big paint manufacturing companies knew the lead paint was toxic but still proceeded to make, sell, and promote their product. Now they have to pay (over 1 billion dollars).
What court case was that? I’d like to get those painting companies to pay for the expense of removing lead from my house!
Makes you wonder if we’ll see a similar reaction in 30 years to houses with PVC plumbing and vinyl flooring. We may have phthalate, DBP, BBP and DEHP abatement contractors popping up in yellow suits.
No, you have not gone too far. The recent studies published by credible sources all point to the immediate and overwhelming dangers of soda and the effects it has on our children…. but nobody is doing anything about that!! Yeah, I wouldn’t recommend that you let your kid lick the peeling walls, but as you know, so much of the building industry is nothing more than trying to find ways to make money off of people. Great post!
Thanks Kathleen!
This stems beyond lead paint, but being the sort of “hippie” mom that I am, I think the CDC is just a fear-mongering machine. People think if it’s of the government, it must be truth. But the best thing you can do as a consumer is to do your own research. I completely understand the risks associated with living in a house built over 100 years ago, but it doesn’t drive me to be scared of my house like the government says I should be. The over abundance of laws is a little sad, although I can understand why they regulate it so tight. It does make it a struggle to find a balance and unfortunately it seems the burden falls on the homeowner and restorators.
toni
I agree. I think common sense should dictate how to deal with lead paint issues, not the government. Keeping the work area sealed, and cleaning when finished is the best way to contain lead paint (or any debris, for that matter). Thanks for sharing this information, Scott!
The problem is, common sense didn’t work prior to government regulation. Lead paint poisoned (irreversibly) countless children prior to the government regulating it out of the market place. Even with the regulations, lead continues to poison children to this day. This national problem should be treated as a national emergency – I would hope innocent children having their brains permanently damaged is something that should alarm all of us regardless of our political beliefs. Sure, you cannot make everyone 100% safe, but you can accept that fact and also work hard to reduce preventable lead poisonings – like what happened in Flint and what’s happening with NYC public housing right now, and happens all over our country. So much of it preventable, but voters and politicians have not treated this as seriously as they should.
As for common sense – look at table saws. We’ve had technology since 2003 that prevents fingers from being sliced off with +99% success (they place a sensor in the blade that can tell apart fingers from building materials). Has the market embraced this common sense solution? Nope, and we see thousands of ER visits and amputations each year from table saws that could easily be avoided, and billions of dollars in medical bills. Luckily – because the free market is not full of rational consumers with perfect information – it looks like the government will step in and put in common sense. (I’m against bad regulation as much as the next person, but I think with lead, we as a society need to do much more to protect children.)
So then Stuart what would you have the government do to further protect us beyond the current regulations?
We need more funding for research on lead prevention, given how many children are poisoned each year and it will be with us for generations, but existing research shows states could be doing more.
States like Mississippi could pass laws/regulations similar to MA/OH that evidence indicates would prevent lead poisoning in kids. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4240897/
Cities could also replicate Philadelphia’s “Lead Court” – shown to speed up lead remediation. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23678927
States like NJ should also not be raiding lead hazard funds for other purposes (NJ took $50m from the fund) when that money could protect thousands of kids. They should also enforce the laws they pass, rather than pass laws but not follow through on them. http://www.app.com/story/news/premium/2015/01/02/nj-lead-hazard-fund-depleted/21193095/
We should also identify which cities have lead water pipes that pose the greatest risk and help them replace like Lansing did (and learn from those who have done this) rather than wait for a disaster to unfold like in Flint. http://michiganradio.org/post/flint-looks-lansing-lessons-lead-service-line-replacement
Lead in soil is a big issue, but we have sparse data on where it is. Many states won’t share what info they do have. The federal government could play an important role in creating a national database with the assistance of cities/states, and figuring out best practices for dealing with lead in soil. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-lead-testing/
Another regulation would be banning lead in ammunition. We enacted this ban nationwide in scatter shot ammo for waterfowl a few decades ago. CA is about to enact it statewide. Lead ammo (which often breaks into tiny fragments) poisons endangered animals, and leeches into our soil and water, and is a risk to children.
Lead is also still harming adults – mainly those who work with it – and OSHA hasn’t updated its standards in 35+ years despite decades of new research on the risks. We should have worker-safety laws that follow modern science. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/outdated-lead-standards/
Basically we need more lawmakers to
1) care about the millions of kids hurt by lead
2) fund or at least read the research pointing us to good solutions and away from ineffective ones
3) pass laws and budgets that protect kids/adults from lead as best we can.
Those are some good ideas! I agree with more education, but do feel that ultimately the responsibility falls to us parents to protect our children. According to the CDC for 2015 the national average for children with an elevated blood level is 0.5% which is down from about 7% 20 years ago.
There is always more we can do as individuals but as a government I don’t know how much more progress we can make to regulate safer practices.
I thought I laid out reforms that governments could take (that are backed by evidence of success) that could reduce lead poisoning among children more than we’ve seen. I’m glad we’ve lowered lead poisoning rates, but we still have over 500,000 kids in this country with elevated, unsafe levels of lead. We can and should do better. I don’t think we should be complacent about hundreds of thousands of kids being at high risk of permanent brain damage.
Even though my husband and I have no children and do all our own work we have still run into issues with RRP rules. We recently considered purchasing a HUD home built in 1968. Because of the age of the house HUD paid thousands for lead testing. After testing four hundred separate locations in the house they found lead paint on a basement handrail and wanted us to spend another $1500 to have it professionally remediated (ie – replace the hand rail). We bought another house rather than deal with the HUD headache.
Britten, your story is all too familiar to me. So goes the tyranny of over-regulation.
Thank you for laying this out in a logical manner. The RRP rules unduly burden owners of historic homes by adding significantly to the cost of renovation.
Thanks Jo-Anne, let’s hope I don’t anger the EPA and get some of those delightful fines. 😉