Most lead exposure occurs in the apartments where children live thus the interest of the real estate lobby, which complains about the expense of lead abatement and liability in civil suits brought on behalf of poisoned children. This is all politics with the real estate industry and unfortunately, the children of New York will be held hostage. By 9 o'clock last Thursday morning, the waiting room in Rosen's clinic was packed with youngsters, most under five years old, watching Teletubbies and parading about with bandages covering their arms where blood had been drawn. Among them were the sons of Mirzza Farooq Beg, Islam Muhmed, and Usama Babir. It's not like a nice measles rash.
Lead is as persistent as it is insidious.
It not only courses through the blood where it can be somewhat reduced through diet and medicine it also lodges in bones. Such deposits become mobilized if a bone breaks. Pregnancy also reactivates bone-based lead, and a mother can pass it on to her fetus and in breast milk. In the past year alone, Rosen says at least 15 lead-poisoned newborns have been treated. After Beg's sons were diagnosed, he says, DOH tested the Bronx apartment where he had lived for 11 years and found lead paint.