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May 14, 2008

Rally shows support for state's lead paint case / Photo

Journal photo / Mary Murphy
Children hold up a 40-foot banner made by other children as activists gathered today, a day before an appeal of the historic ruling against former makers of lead paint, which has poisoned thousands of the state's youngsters over the years.

PROVIDENCE -- About 50 community activists gathered across from Superior Court shortly after noon today to show support for the state as it defends itself before the state Supreme Court tomorrow morning as three paint companies appeal their 2006 conviction of creating a public nuisance with their lead-based paints in Rhode Island.

Behind them they raised a banner colored with children's hand prints, created to represent 614 children poisoned by lead in Rhode Island in 2007.

Some 71 organizations and attorneys general filed friend of the court briefs in support of the state's position.

Leann Howell, president of the American Lead Poisoning Help Association, said propaganda from the industry caused the poisoning of generations of children.

Dr. K. Nicholas Tsiongas, president of the Rhode Island Medical Society who as a state legislator authored the state's first lead poisoning prevention act in the early 1990s, said the society's 4,000 members support the state's law suit.

He said lead has been the most "pervasive, insidious and offensive source of environmental poisoning in the history of the United States and of Rhode Island."

Referring to a pro-industry op-ed piece in The Providence Journal today, Dr. Tsiongas added, "There isn't enough ink to overturn that truth."

Clifford Montiero, president of the Providence Chapter of the NAACP, said he hoped the Supreme Court "would correct the injustices done to thousands of children."

The appeal tomorrow will be Webcast -- a first for the court -- due to high interest in the case across the country.

Extra: See Journal Environmental Writer Peter B. Lord's series on lead poisoning in Rhode Island.

-- Journal environmental writer Peter B. Lord

Posted by Brandie Jefferson  at 2:28 PM | Permalink

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