Getting the lead out: the metal that fueled the industrial revolution remains a danger to millions.

• Author: Farquhar, Doug
• Position: ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH

Lead can be found everywhere. For decades, it was used in house paints to make them stronger. It was added to gasoline to prevent engine knocking. It was used in solder to seal cans of food, and it was used in the pipes that carried water into homes across the country.

Now all that lead is still finding its way into the bloodstreams of young children. There is no safe level of lead in a child's blood, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Even small amounts can lower their IQs, their ability to pay attention and their academic achievement. And the effects of lead exposure are irreversible.

More than 4 million children live in homes with some kind of lead hazard. The CDC estimates that 535,000 children between the ages of 1 and 5 years have elevated lead levels in their blood. That's far fewer than in the past, but still too many.

In 1978, nearly 14 million children had elevated blood lead levels, according to the CDC. The federal government's ban on lead in gasoline, pipes and food cans, along with aggressive state efforts to control lead in paint, decreased kids' exposure risks. But inattention to the threat lead poses can put whole communities of children in danger.

Just ask parents in Flint, Michigan.

The Flint Crisis

A Rust Belt city of 100,000, where a third of the population lives below the federal poverty line, Flint was hit hard by the loss of auto industry jobs. Its fiscal health deteriorated to the point that it was declared to be in a state of financial emergency in 2011. The governor, Rick Snyder (R), appointed an emergency financial manager who recommended that, instead of paying Detroit to provide it with drinking water, as Flint had done for many years, the city could save money by providing that service for itself. Detroit then canceled its water-services contract with Flint, leaving the city in a bind.

With no water flowing from the Motor City, Flint's emergency manager and the city council decided to use a backup treatment system that drew water from the Flint River. Residents immediately complained that their water tasted bad, smelled horrible and looked unfit to drink.

But it took 18 months--and a report from local pediatrician Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha that blood lead levels were rising in her young patients who were drinking Flint River water--for the Genesee County Health Department to issue an emergency health declaration regarding the water.

"We were assured by the Michigan Department of...