Lead in the Inner Cities

In the middle of the 1970s, U.S. health officials identified what some called a “silent epidemic.” They were referring to childhood lead poisoning, a problem that is easily overlooked and underappreciated. Of all of the metal-poisoning episodes to date, none has come close in sheer numbers. Toxicology textbooks mention cadmium poisoning in Japan in the 1950s and methyl mercury poisoning in both Japan in the 1950s and Iraq in 1972. Some hundreds of deaths were attributed to each of these events. But most textbooks fail to mention lead poisoning, in spite of the fact that since the 1920s millions of American children have been quietly poisoned by lead, and thousands of deaths are attributed to this over the long term.