PostmodernProphet
fully immersed in faith..
I have no control over what the Democrats who run Flint do to the people that voted for them......maybe you should ask them to give back the bribes they took........
Before Flint it was Rhode Island
- Thread starter evince
- Start date
I have no control over what the Democrats who run Flint do to the people that voted for them......maybe you should ask them to give back the bribes they took........
PostmodernProphet
fully immersed in faith..
or the Democrats who run Rhode Island......
evince
Truthmatters
A decade before Flint, Michigan, there was Rhode Island, a tiny state that took a daring plunge by suing the paint industry to seek money for cleaning up a danger lurking on walls and windowsills in up to 80 percent of its homes. The landmark lawsuit reverberates today not only in Flint, but also in California, where 10 cities and counties are fighting to hold onto a $1.1 billion victory over the same industry.
Though the lawsuit remains influential, Rhode Island has little to show for its short-lived triumph on Feb. 22, 2006. Two years later, the state's highest court unanimously overturned the verdict, saying the paint industry couldn't be held responsible.
"My heart is still broken at the Supreme Court's decision that I still today cannot understand or justify," said Democratic U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, the former Rhode Island attorney general who had initiated the case.
Studies have tied lead poisoning to permanent damage to children's brains and conditions including lowered intelligence, learning disabilities and behavioral problems. Symptoms can take years to manifest and be hard to confirm.
Leaded paint, easily ingested by children whose fingers touch contaminated dust or who pick up sweet-tasting flakes that end up in their mouth, was a known danger and outlawed in the late 1970s. Rhode Island was hardly the only place with potentially exposed children, but in a compact and old state with an elderly housing stock, the threat was especially acute.
In 1999, when Rhode Island first sued, more than 2,300 children under 6 years old, nearly 7 percent of all those tested in the state, were found to have dangerously elevated levels of lead , according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
By 2014, that number had dropped to 217, just under 1 percent of all the children tested statewide — but still 40 percent above the national rate.
Education campaigns helped, health experts say, as did government subsidies for remediation and laws that put more responsibility on landlords. But blood tests still find more than 1,000 new cases each year of children with elevated levels.
Few families were immune, especially in poorer areas populated by racial minorities — a connection also seen in Flint, where the culprit is the water supply.
"Lead poisoning would have been wiped out" if the problem had been concentrated in wealthier and whiter neighborhoods, said Roberta Hazen Aaronson, founder and director of the Childhood Lead Action Project.
"It's not an equal-opportunity disease," she said.
But wealthier families did fall victim.
Donna Lizotte thought she and her husband knew what they were doing when they bought a stately Victorian a decade ago in the desirable Edgewood district of Cranston and painted over old layers.
Later, their daughter was found to have 23 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood. Federal health officials have said there is no safe level of lead in children's blood, but that anything above 5 micrograms is high.
The family found evidence she had scratched at a wall near her crib.
"I thought lead poisoning was something that happened in dilapidated rental units," said Lizotte, an educator and scientist with a doctorate in molecular biology. "Honestly, I think I was just naive."
Now 10, the girl has attention deficit disorder, something correlated with lead poisoning, and other conditions.
"Here we are, 40 years later, it's still everywhere," she said. "I think the companies owe it to the children that are sick to fix it."
Most companies began phasing out lead-based pigments decades before the U.S. banned them in residential paint in 1978. Plaintiffs have said the companies and the now-defunct Lead Industries Association, a trade group that declared bankruptcy during Rhode Island's litigation, should have stopped promoting and selling the paint earlier because some of lead's damaging effects had been known for a century.
Whitehouse — whose own two children had elevated lead levels — sued on the state's behalf in 1999. It ended in a hung jury and mistrial, and was followed by a second trial argued by Whitehouse's successor. A jury found three companies liable: Sherwin-Williams, Millennium Holdings and NL Industries.
After the industry appealed, Rhode Island's highest court recognized the long-term health consequences but dismissed the theory that a problem in homes and apartment buildings was a public nuisance for which paint companies were liable. The judges declared it landlords' responsibility to keep homes safe.
Courts and state officials elsewhere scrapped lawsuits that sought to hold manufacturers responsible for the windfall of cash needed to repair hazardous housing stock.
Only in California, where 10 cities and counties are defending a $1.1 billion victory, could paint companies still be liable for the lead in pigments they sold decades ago. Plaintiffs there are working with the same firm, Motley Rice, that Rhode Island hired and before that took on the asbestos and tobacco industries.
Though the lawsuit remains influential, Rhode Island has little to show for its short-lived triumph on Feb. 22, 2006. Two years later, the state's highest court unanimously overturned the verdict, saying the paint industry couldn't be held responsible.
"My heart is still broken at the Supreme Court's decision that I still today cannot understand or justify," said Democratic U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, the former Rhode Island attorney general who had initiated the case.
Studies have tied lead poisoning to permanent damage to children's brains and conditions including lowered intelligence, learning disabilities and behavioral problems. Symptoms can take years to manifest and be hard to confirm.
Leaded paint, easily ingested by children whose fingers touch contaminated dust or who pick up sweet-tasting flakes that end up in their mouth, was a known danger and outlawed in the late 1970s. Rhode Island was hardly the only place with potentially exposed children, but in a compact and old state with an elderly housing stock, the threat was especially acute.
In 1999, when Rhode Island first sued, more than 2,300 children under 6 years old, nearly 7 percent of all those tested in the state, were found to have dangerously elevated levels of lead , according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
By 2014, that number had dropped to 217, just under 1 percent of all the children tested statewide — but still 40 percent above the national rate.
Education campaigns helped, health experts say, as did government subsidies for remediation and laws that put more responsibility on landlords. But blood tests still find more than 1,000 new cases each year of children with elevated levels.
Few families were immune, especially in poorer areas populated by racial minorities — a connection also seen in Flint, where the culprit is the water supply.
"Lead poisoning would have been wiped out" if the problem had been concentrated in wealthier and whiter neighborhoods, said Roberta Hazen Aaronson, founder and director of the Childhood Lead Action Project.
"It's not an equal-opportunity disease," she said.
But wealthier families did fall victim.
Donna Lizotte thought she and her husband knew what they were doing when they bought a stately Victorian a decade ago in the desirable Edgewood district of Cranston and painted over old layers.
Later, their daughter was found to have 23 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood. Federal health officials have said there is no safe level of lead in children's blood, but that anything above 5 micrograms is high.
The family found evidence she had scratched at a wall near her crib.
"I thought lead poisoning was something that happened in dilapidated rental units," said Lizotte, an educator and scientist with a doctorate in molecular biology. "Honestly, I think I was just naive."
Now 10, the girl has attention deficit disorder, something correlated with lead poisoning, and other conditions.
"Here we are, 40 years later, it's still everywhere," she said. "I think the companies owe it to the children that are sick to fix it."
Most companies began phasing out lead-based pigments decades before the U.S. banned them in residential paint in 1978. Plaintiffs have said the companies and the now-defunct Lead Industries Association, a trade group that declared bankruptcy during Rhode Island's litigation, should have stopped promoting and selling the paint earlier because some of lead's damaging effects had been known for a century.
Whitehouse — whose own two children had elevated lead levels — sued on the state's behalf in 1999. It ended in a hung jury and mistrial, and was followed by a second trial argued by Whitehouse's successor. A jury found three companies liable: Sherwin-Williams, Millennium Holdings and NL Industries.
After the industry appealed, Rhode Island's highest court recognized the long-term health consequences but dismissed the theory that a problem in homes and apartment buildings was a public nuisance for which paint companies were liable. The judges declared it landlords' responsibility to keep homes safe.
Courts and state officials elsewhere scrapped lawsuits that sought to hold manufacturers responsible for the windfall of cash needed to repair hazardous housing stock.
Only in California, where 10 cities and counties are defending a $1.1 billion victory, could paint companies still be liable for the lead in pigments they sold decades ago. Plaintiffs there are working with the same firm, Motley Rice, that Rhode Island hired and before that took on the asbestos and tobacco industries.
PostmodernProphet
fully immersed in faith..
in Rhode Island?......must have been the Democrats......I doubt the Republicans ever had control there.......
PostmodernProphet
fully immersed in faith..
I am dishonest when I say I don't think the Republicans ever ran Rhode Island?.......then prove they did.......
Leonthecat
Racism Watchdog
Correctamundo Pastor. Typical racist republican.
So the companies that made lead based PAINT are guilty of something because someone decided to eat the paint....???
I guess the people that make Drano should be responsible for the damage to people that decide to drink it ?
How about the people that drown in their bathtub....is that the water authority's fault for bringing water to your house, or the people that manufactured the bathtub ?
A spark starts the fire that burns down you home and kills your wife or husband....is that the electric utility's fault ?
You're too stupid to walk and chew gum at the same time, fall and break your neck....is that gum makers fault or the school system that let you go from grade to grade ?
Starting to get the picture desh ?
I guess the people that make Drano should be responsible for the damage to people that decide to drink it ?
How about the people that drown in their bathtub....is that the water authority's fault for bringing water to your house, or the people that manufactured the bathtub ?
A spark starts the fire that burns down you home and kills your wife or husband....is that the electric utility's fault ?
You're too stupid to walk and chew gum at the same time, fall and break your neck....is that gum makers fault or the school system that let you go from grade to grade ?
Starting to get the picture desh ?
PostmodernProphet
fully immersed in faith..
Buckle humming to the tune of Jimmy cracked corn.....
Leonthecat
Racism Watchdog
Undoubtedly you silliest, harassing, off topic post to date Pastor.
Typical racist conservative.
Leonthecat
Racism Watchdog
Harassing evince with more of your silliness. Typical racist conservative.
PostmodernProphet
fully immersed in faith..
Buckly J. Ewer
Racism Whistleblower
The water pipes to homes everywhere in the US have been made of lead for centuries you fucking lying racist retard .
The crime came when repiglicons KNEW the caustic water was leaching lead into the drinking water of children and told them it was okay to drink...
You are the most disingenuous lying fucking asshole, partisan hack here pastor ass pimple...
PostmodernProphet
fully immersed in faith..
but wasn't it the Democrats in Flint that knew that and not the Republican governor in Lansing?......
Leonthecat
Racism Watchdog
PostmodernProphet
fully immersed in faith..
is that "no. I don't admit that is true" or "no, I do NOT know what's going on".........
PostmodernProphet
fully immersed in faith..
we all know that isn't true Desh.....nobody even asked him if they should shift to Flint water.......that decision was made by the Democrat Flint city council and the Democrat appointed by the governor to run things.....