Medical Malpractice

If lead paint is so bad, where are all the insane asylums?

Lead paint was used for decades in the U.S. and was only outlawed in the late 60's. In fact, the law was written where even after it was outlawed manufacturers of paint were still allowed to sell any inventory they still had, so guess what, they stocked up. The lead in paint is suppose to affect the brain. Children had lead paint on their toys for decades----ate lead paint chips off from window sills. No telling where else they were exposed to lead paint-----in quanities greater than today. If lead paint is so terrrible, where are all the insane asylums where the brain-dead kids who were exposed to lead paint in the 30's, 40's, 50's and 60's are kept? Is this latest lead paint scare just another media over-dramatization of a problem and another media event for our Congress? Kris N-----Actually the original Tin Man was played by Buddy Ebsen, who lived after that incident (I never heard about it being the lead in the paint) and went on to pllay Jed Clampett in :The Beverly Hillbillies". Guess you never heard of that, though.

Public Comments

1. They are located in Washington D.C., They are called the House of Representatives, the White House and the Senate.
2. So what paint company are you going to sue for all the paint chips you seemed to of consumed as a child
3. america is tha asylum!!!
4. Lead has been used for thousands of years -- and has been causing problems for thousands of years. Lead exposure has been linked to such varying problems as the high rate of gout in the Roman Empire and the death of Beethoven. You cite extreme cases, but as with any issue, there's usually a full range of results -- small afflictions from low exposure, to insanity, coma, or death from high exposure. Not all sufferers went crazy or died, only the worst cases. Many mild cases likely never knew what was causing their colic, or gout, or sterility, or why their child turned out to be mildly retarded or have behavioral issues. In very mild cases, it might simply be that children didn't grow up as smart or agile or strong as they could have been, though not noticeably retarded. It's also nothing new to know that lead is problematic. Lead was used deliberately as a poison in the Renaissance. It is theorized that the insanity of the late Roman emperors was due to high lead exposure (ironically, not from the drinking water, as the minerals from the hard water coated the aqueduct pipes quickly, minimizing lead leeching, but from lead-laced wines and cosmetics). Haven't you ever wondered why gasoline was called "unleaded"? In the 1920's it was found that a lead compound made an excellent gasoline additive, enhancing car performance. However, when researchers and refiners began falling ill and going insane, journalists began calling leaded gasoline "loony gas", and it was finally phased out in the 1970's for safety concerns (and carefully called "unleaded" for the next couple decades). I would not say that lead is a recent "discovery" or that the fear of it is necessarily over-dramitized.
5. Don't you remember Jimmy Carter closing all of them when he was president, saying that he was going to establish small group homes for them instead, but then he seemed to forget this part and left them on the streets. Where they have been eversince. Happy days.
6. Hmmmmmmm....guess you never heard about the guy that played "The Tin-Man" on the original "Wizard of Oz" movie, have you? (The lead based make-up they used for his silver color killed him.) Tell me, would you be willing to hold onto a baseball sized chunk of pure plutonium? Why not? While it's very deadly in mass quantity, plutonium atoms are in the soil all around us...in very minute quantities....just like lead. While lead is not radioactive, nor nearly as deadly as plutonium, it does have PROVEN scientific physical side-effects to humans when frequently exposed to large quantities of it (like what used to be found in paints and other goods). It's pretty simple, actually. If you're exposed to any harmful material in enough quantity and/or frequency, you'll likely suffer the health complications that are attributed to the body's reaction to the material's physical properties.
7. They need reasons to take more of our money.