We can’t turn a blind eye, or a deaf ear, any longer

If you don’t see it, it won’t hurt you. That’s the theory anyway.

In the new Netflix film Bird Box, a plague has landed on earth that compels those infected to commit suicide. Alien invasion? Psychological weapon of mass destruction? We’re never told what the source is—only that if you see “it”, you’re doomed.

In true blockbuster form, the way to survive couldn’t be simpler: wear a blindfold and stay inside. And carry a bird box, because their frantic chirping signal an approaching threat—the only warning they get.

In Philadelphia, we’re living through an actual tragedy, employing the same facile strategy. Every year, 2,400 children pay the price. 

The threat is toxic lead paint, embedded in the walls of homes build before 1978, before the ban on lead paint came into effect. In Philly, that’s nearly 90% of all housing stock.

Lead doesn’t glow in the dark, but simple, inexpensive testing reveals the threat. But for too long, the City has been blindfolded by a well-intentioned but ineffective Lead Disclosure Law that was meant to encourage landlords to test their properties if tenants included young children, who are most vulnerable to the debilitating neurotoxin for which there is no cure.  

Although 62% of children are poisoned in rental properties, the existing lead law is largely unenforceable because there’s no record of tenants ages and thus no way to know which properties must be tested. Of the estimated 26,000 licensed rental units in Philadelphia believed to have children living in them, only 4,418 of them have safety certificates.

In addition to a detailed analysis of what the lead crisis looks like in the city, a new PCCY report underscores an even more disturbing statistic. While the lead crisis in Philadelphia is significantly worse than Flint, Michigan’s tainted water catastrophe, only 43% of Philly kids receive the two blood tests required by the time they are three years old.

So no matter how bad we say the crisis is, no matter what City health officials report, the truth is more kids are profoundly and permanently injured than we currently know.

It’s time to take the blindfolds off. We need to screen more children during those critical years, particularly those in poverty who are most vulnerable to poisoning.

Most of all, we need universal testing of all pre-1978 rental properties (including all Section 8 and Philadelphia Housing Authority units that are not currently covered by the law) so that we have exact data of what properties are problems as opposed to the ghoulish mapping of where victims live. These units must be identified so the lead hazards can be removed, not only to protect children today but to prevent all future poisonings.

Universal and repeated lead testing of rental properties in Rochester, NY and the State of Maryland have dramatically reduced the number of poisoned children by 75% in Rochester and 97% in Maryland.

2,400 children every year have elevated blood lead levels, not including the thousands of children who aren’t getting tested. Those aren’t birds chirping their warning as in Bird Box, those are injured children. We haven’t just been turning a blind eye, but a deaf ear as well.

READ PCCY’S LATEST REPORT: “Making Philadelphia’s Lead Disclosure Law Universal Will Improve the Health of the City’s Babies”