Lead-poisoning fight championed by law's interdisciplinary clinic
By Ann Nicholson
April 20, 2001
Three students in the School of Law's Interdisciplinary Environmental Clinic
(IEC) have taken their legal and environmental expertise to the state capitol
to support bills that would require Missouri children to be tested for lead
poisoning statewide.
(From right) Second-year law students Tiffany Meddaugh
and Shannon Whelan meet with Missouri Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-59th District)
after testifying before the Senate Committee on Housing and Insurance
on bills that would require Missouri children to be tested for lead poisoning.
The School of Law's Interdisciplinary Environmental Clinic, directed by
Maxine Lipeles (left), J.D., professor of law, drafted the legislation
for the St. Louis Lead Prevention Coalition, working with Jonathan VanderBrug
(second from left), coalition executive director.
|
IEC students drafted the legislation for the nonprofit St. Louis Lead Prevention
Coalition. Missouri Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-59th District) and Sen. Patrick Dougherty
(D-67th District) are sponsoring the bills.
Last week, second-year law students Tiffany Meddaugh and Shannon Whelan testified
before the House Committee on Children, Families and Health regarding the legislation.
Earlier this month, Meddaugh and Whelan testified before the Senate Committee
on Housing and Insurance, which later recommended the bills be sent to the full
Senate for approval. Together with Heather Brouillet, a senior majoring in environmental
studies in Arts & Sciences, Meddaugh and Whelan presented their arguments to
the governor's Ad Hoc Advisory Committee on Lead Poisoning.
"We learned from our work in the community that children throughout St. Louis
are basically being used as 'lead detectors,'" Meddaugh said. "It is not until
they find out a child has been poisoned that steps are taken to remedy the situation,
but at that point there already has been irreversible damage to the child.
"Hopefully, this new legislation and our educational efforts will reverse
this trend, and as a result, stop the poisoning of so many children."
The students hope the clinic's interdisciplinary approach --melding scientific
and legal expertise --will be a winning combination. Brouillet has applied both
her knowledge of environmental justice issues and her science background to
decipher medical charts indicating micrograms per deciliter of lead levels.
The law students have been using their legal skills to research numerous local
and state laws on lead poisoning, and employing their art of persuasion in presenting
the proposed legislation.
"In testifying before the governor's committee and the state legislative committees,
we approached the issue from a public policy perspective --what is the law,
how is it being applied and how effective is it," Whelan said. "My experience
in law school with moot court competitions definitely helped; I knew my arguments
backward and forward. It was a matter of trying to get their attention since
they have so much on their plates, and convincing them of the seriousness of
the problem."
The IEC, officially launched in January 2000, provides free legal and technical
assistance to environmental and community organizations and low-income residents
in the greater St. Louis area. Law, environmental studies and School of Engineering
and Applied Science students work throughout the year on interdisciplinary teams
under the guidance of Maxine Lipeles, J.D., clinic director and professor of
law, and Judy Coyle, clinic staff scientist.
Since its inception, the IEC has undertaken projects and cases for an array
of organizations, including the St. Louis Health Department, Metropolitan Congregations
United, Churches United for Community Action, Medical Waste Incinerator Group,
Missouri Coalition for the Environment, Ozark Chapter of the Sierra Club, Grace
Hill Neighborhood Health Services, Open Space Council and the forest protection
organization, Heartwood. In addition, the IEC assisted two mothers of lead-poisoned
children in efforts to ameliorate conditions in their apartments.
While each semester eight law students and a total of eight environmental
engineering and environmental science students pool their talents to tackle
a variety of environmental and health issues, much of the clinic's work has
been on lead poisoning.
The clinic recently received a $25,000 grant from the Deaconess Foundation
and a $10,000 grant from the Middle Fund. The grants will help the clinic further
its efforts in the prevention of lead poisoning and water pollution, expand
the work of the IEC's staff scientist and fund stipends for students to continue
projects during the summer.
"The clinic has focused a considerable share of its efforts on addressing
lead poisoning in large part due to the exceptionally high rate of childhood
lead poisoning in St. Louis and the apparent low level of public commitment
to addressing this disease," Lipeles said. "Tragically, although lead poisoning
is highly preventable, once it strikes, its most devastating effect --brain
damage --is irreversible."
Lipeles added that unlike other environmental injuries, the connection between
exposure to lead and lead poisoning is widely accepted and well understood by
scientists.
"While the solutions to other environmental problems --such as groundwater
contamination and air pollution --may still be elusive, the technology for reducing,
if not eliminating, the risk of harmful exposure to lead is relatively straightforward,"
she said.
The clinic has taken a particular interest in the issue because while nationally
the average rate of lead poisoning among children ages 1-5 has been reduced
to about 4 percent, the average rate in St. Louis city is 25 percent, and one
area in north St. Louis exceeds 40 percent, Lipeles said.
To date, the clinic has:
¥ Documented for the St. Louis health department the link between lead contamination
of soil and childhood lead poisoning, identified lead-contaminated soil and offered
legal and technical advice for addressing the situation.
¥ Worked with Grace Hill nurses and parents of children suffering from lead
poisoning to develop means of encouraging landlords to remedy lead paint hazards.
¥ Investigated for the St. Louis Lead Prevention Coalition the existence and
use of public funds earmarked for remedying lead hazards in St. Louis.
¥ Evaluated for the St. Louis health department the feasibility of making
St. Louis housing stock lead-safe.
"The clinic has taken a leading role in this issue because there is no overall
public effort to prevent lead poisoning from occurring, and efforts to date
to identify and treat lead-poisoned children --and even to remedy hazardous
conditions in their homes --are underfunded, understaffed and uncoordinated,"
Lipeles said. "We hope the IEC's policy initiatives, community projects and
educational outreach will make lead poisoning prevention a public priority.
"Our goals are to increase effective treatment for children, remediate lead
hazards in homes and greatly reduce the number of children contracting lead
poisoning."
