Pressure Doomed Lead Paint Movie

I read with great personal interest the article of February 15, "State Addresses Lead Poisoning." Great interest and not a little anger. In 1997 I was asked by Pat Perterson, then director in the Dept. of Housing & Community Affairs, to write a treatment for a made-for-TV-movie about the devastating effects of lead poisoning.

She was struggling with how to protect Vermont’s children from this "old news" toxin and struck on the idea of a TV movie as a dramatic way to get the word out to the broadest range of people. To shoot it in Vermont would guarantee a Vermont audience.

As I had experienced the evil effects of lead personally, I leapt at the chance. My research put me in contact with medical experts in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Washington, D.C., Tufts University and with parent activists in Michigan, Maryland and here in Vermont. The experts were enthusiastic and supported me with detailed reports and history. The parents were passionate in their response to the script, heartbreaking in sharing their personal stories in the hopes of preventing one more lead-poisoned child.

We were on fire. We even had the backing of then Vermont Film Commissioner, Greg Gerdel and professional guidance and seal of approval from Emmy award-winning director, James Goldstone, who kindly described my treatment as, "…quite powerful and moving."

So what happened? Resistance to alerting Vermont families to this lurking poison came from many directions. Those who supported refurbishing old-stock housing were concerned the movie would "scare off" buyers; those who supported the construction/remodeling industry were concerned about fear costing jobs; as a state employee, Pat was reminded that demands for large-scale clean-up that could result from the movie’s distribution could cause a burden to Vermont taxpayers. (Never mind that the percentage of lead-poisoned children in the state matched the percentage of school-age kids that required special education. In effect, taxpayers were already burdened with after-the-fact "clean-up".)

The bullet to the heart? A movie set in Vermont that focused on the dire consequences of lead poisoning would tarnish the clean, rural image of the state and negatively affect tourism.

So, instead of taking a courageous and aggressive stance against poisoning our children and putting our money where our environmentally-conscious mouth is, here we are—a decade later—"addressing lead poisoning." Pardon me while I don’t hold my breath. Unless, of course, I am standing in front of an open window in a 100-year-old house and a breeze is blowing across the lead paint dust on the sill.

Carol L. Greene

Randolph

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