May 11, 2004
May 11, 2004
LANSING – Governor Jennifer M. Granholm today applauded State Representative Carl Williams (D-Saginaw) for sponsoring legislation that will increase lead screening rates for children in Michigan and, in turn, help health care providers identify children at risk for lifelong health complications due to lead poisoning.
Granholm joined Rep. Williams in Saginaw for a ceremonial signing of the legislation which became law last month.
“This new law will help us identify children who are in need of urgent medical care to deal with dangerous levels of lead in their bloodstreams,” Granholm said. “As many as 20,000 children under the age of 6 have high levels of lead in their blood, and they largely go undetected and, thus, untreated. I commend Representative Williams for his persistence with this legislation – he did not stop pushing for it until I put my law-signing pen down today.”
Under Public Act 55 of 2004 (HB 5119), the Department of Community Health starting January 1, 2006, must work to ensure that any provider, facility, or health maintenance organization (HMO) receiving Medicaid payments conduct screenings for lead poisoning in children as required by federal law.
Today’s signing was ceremonial; Granholm officially signed it into law last month.
“I am very appreciative that the Governor understands and embraces the fact that our children first have to be healthy in order to educate them and truly leave no child behind,” said Williams. “She has acted upon that knowledge, and it speaks well to her vision for the children of Michigan.”
The Governor also renewed her call that the Legislature send her the three other bills in the package that addresses lead poisoning in Michigan. The rest of the package contains key provisions, such as penalties for landlords who knowingly rent or lease housing that contains lead hazards; creation of a “lead safe housing registry “ to provide the public with a listing of rental housing and child-occupied facilities (i.e. child care centers and homes) that have been inspected and are lead-free; and creation of a childhood lead poisoning prevention and control commission to study the environmental threat of lead to children’s health, review the state’s prevention efforts, and recommend improvements.
“Michigan currently ranks sixth in the nation for the estimated number of children with lead poisoning,” Granholm said. “This silent epidemic must be confronted, and we must do more to identify children at risk and make sure our older homes and buildings are cleaned up.”
In 2003, more than 100,000 children under the age of six were tested for blood lead status, and 3,141 children were found to be lead poisoned. Another 747 children with preliminary findings of elevated blood lead levels await confirmation of their lead status.
Lead is a toxin that builds up in the body as it is ingested. Children often are exposed to lead through cracking, peeling, lead-based paint in older buildings. Lead-based paints were banned more than 30 years ago, but many older homes and buildings still have remnants of the paint on walls or trim. People of any age can be adversely affected by lead exposure, but young children are especially vulnerable, because their brains are still developing.
In Michigan, the highest incidences of lead poisoning are in the counties of Wayne, Kent, Muskegon, Berrien, Calhoun, Kalamazoo, Genesee, Ingham, Saginaw, and Oakland. Cities of particular concern are Detroit, where 63 percent of the houses were built prior to 1950, and Grand Rapids, which has the highest concentration of lead poisoning in the state. In some areas of Detroit, children have blood lead levels up to 10 times the national average.
