“Recommended & Specified"

In 1939, the U.S. Forest Service said that lead paint is “the best choice for house owners who wish to allow very long intervals, longer than the durability of any other white or tinted paint, to elapse between jobs."  U.S. Forest Service, “Shopping For Paint,"Consumer’s Guide, Vol. 5, No. 16, at 6 (Feb. 13, 1939).

In 1944, the War Production Board resisted the decrease of the amount of lead in paint.

“As a result of these formulation changes, the actual basic carbonate of white lead content of paints is already at an irreducible minimum.  And any further reductions in the lead content could only be made at the expense of durability."

In a 1945, Percy Walker, the chief of the Chemistry Division, and Eugene Hickson of the National Bureau of Standards, presented recommendations as to the use of painting materials to meet federal specifications.  The manual stated:

“White lead, a component of almost all white and light-colored paints, is one of the most important white paint pigments."

In 1933, the American Public Health Association wrote a publication responding to reports of childhood lead poisoning.  The association recommended not using lead-based paint on baby toys, beds and carriages.  However, it also said it otherwise had wide fields of usefulness like house paint:

“Although lead paint has many wide fields of usefulness, babies’ toys, beds and carriages are not the places to put it."

The great majority of interior lead-based paint was applied before 1930.  By 1940, very little lead pigment was being used for interior residences.  A. Hamilton, “Recent Changes in the Painters’ Trade," (Washington: Government Printing Office, (1936).  (“However, this danger is now less common since paint for inside work is so largely free from lead." (p. 38); “…the trend is very decidedly away from lead pigments of all kinds." (p. 41); “Changes in materials have resulted in the displacement of lead pigments in house painting to a certain extent, especially in interior decoration. . ." (p. 1)).  See also Letter from Twombley to E. Vogelsang (War Production Board, 1944) re: Lead Requirements for the Paint, Varnish & Lacquer Industry.  “The use of Basic Carbonate of White Lead in the paint, varnish, and lacquer industry for interior paints is negligible." (p. 1)]

In the early part of the century, the health concern in the U.S. was worker exposure to “clouds of dust" in factories.During this era, industry worked with labor unions and public health officials to minimize worker exposure to lead dust.  These actions reduced occupational lead poisoning without ending use of lead paint.

In Europe, some nations had banned interior lead-based paint to protect painters.  In this country, on the other hand, where many painters opposed such a ban, improved work practices were employed instead to address potential risks.

During the 1920s and 1930s, children diagnosed with a condition known as “pica," or an abnormal appetite for nonfood substances, were reported as having persistently chewed the lead paint off their cribs and toys and sometimes woodwork.  Doctors initially recommended that the correct approach to this risk was for children with pica to be closely supervised and for parents to be educated about the risk.  In the 1930s, that recommendation began to include eliminating lead from paint used on toys and cribs, and for parents to be educated about the risk of repainting such objects with lead paint.

A 1935 broadcast in the Baltimore Health Department’s “Keeping Well" series told parents to “make sure that the child’s furniture, his crib and toys have been finished with paint which does not contain lead.  "The broadcast recommended discouraging children from “putting toys or other objects into his mouth," wrapping crib bars, and “making sure that the child’s furniture, his crib and toys have been finished with a paint which does not contain lead."  The script concluded by noting that if its advice were followed, “no additional cases of lead poisoning in paint-eating children need ever occur."   Francis F. Schwentker, Keeping Well, “Children Who Eat Paint," 199-200 (Oct. 15, 1935).

By the late 1940s, leading medical journals noted that this effort had been successful.  As the New England Journal of Medicine noted in a 1947 editorial, lead paint was no longer used on toys and cribs, "the public has been amply warned of lead hazards," and, thus, lead poisoning was "almost wholly confined to those who are exposed in industry."

In late 1948, public health investigations in Baltimore first identified the risks to young children of chipping and peeling interior lead paint in poorly maintained homes.  Lead manufacturers helped fund Baltimore's investigation and initiated additional studies at Harvard and John Hopkins medical schools.  The results of these studies were published.  Even before publication, industry widely disseminated the results to public health experts across the country.

In addition, as the plaintiff’s expert admitted during the Rhode Island trial, none of the doctors at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore who were very aware of the childhood lead poisoning issue in the 1930s, ever advocated a ban on any kind on lead paint before 1948.

In 1951, Dr. Huntington Williams, Baltimore Commissioner of Health, adopted a regulation that banned the use of lead pigment for interior use in that city. It was the first regulation adopted by a government in the United States. The federal government did not act to ban the sale of lead-based house paint until the 1970s.

In the 1950s, after the Harvard and Johns Hopkins studies confirmed the hazards of poorly maintained interior house paint, industry worked with the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Standards Association and other public health groups to develop a voluntary national standard that interior paint contain less than 1 percent lead.  Industry adopted this standard in 1955.  Paint companies placed warnings on paints containing more than 1 percent lead indicating that they should not be used on interior residential and other surfaces accessible to children.

Statements by respected U.S. public health officials after 1955 confirm that risks from poorly maintained house paint were not understood until the late 1948 early 1950s period.

In 1956, Dr. Julian Chisholm of Johns Hopkins University wrote in an article about children over the age of one living in dilapidated dwellings in which flaking lead-based paint was readily accessible to children:

“Such intense exposure is a preventable hazard to normal small children, and, as such, constitutes a public health problem which may be more extensive than has heretofore thought to exist."

In September 1971, U.S. Surgeon General Jesse L. Steinfeld, M.D., wrote in Pediatrics:

“Lead-based paint was commonly used for interior purposes until the 1940s, when it was largely replaced by titanium-based paint; therefore, children living in dilapidated or obviously deteriorating houses built prior to that time are to be given particular attention."