Lead wars
Subtitle: the politics of science and the fate of America's children
By: Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner
Contributors: Rosner, David, 1947-; Milbank Memorial Fund
Series: California/Milbank books on health and the public -- 24; California/Milbank books on health and the public -- 24.
Publisher: University of California Press; Milbank Memorial Fund
Published: 2013
Place of publication: Berkeley; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 298
ISBN-13: 9780520273252
Subjects: Lead poisoning; Lead poisoning in children; Government policy; Prevention; History
Description: In this incisive examination of lead poisoning during the past half century, Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner focus on one of the most contentious and bitter battles in the history of public health. Lead Wars details how the nature of the epidemic has changed and highlights the dilemmas public health agencies face today in terms of prevention strategies and chronic illness linked to low levels of toxic exposure. The authors use the opinion by Maryland's Court of Appeals--which considered whether researchers at Johns Hopkins University's prestigious Kennedy Krieger Institute (KKI) engaged in unethical research on 108 African-American children--as a springboard to ask fundamental questions about the practice and future of public health. Lead Wars chronicles the obstacles faced by public health workers in the conservative, pro-business, anti-regulatory climate that took off in the Reagan years and that stymied efforts to eliminate lead from the environments and the bodies of American children.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: From personal tragedy to public health crisis; title: Peeling the onion : new layers of the lead problem; title: The contentious meaning of low-level exposures; title: The rise of public health pragmatism; title: Controlled poison; title: Research on trial; title: Lead poisoning and the courts; title: A plague on all our houses.