Data recently made public by Philadelphia's school district showed that nearly 15 percent of water samples taken from school drinking water outlets had lead higher than the legal level for home tap water. This needs to change.
Environmental Health
In the wake of reporting from two National Fellows, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said Monday that the city will begin to enforce a four-year-old law that requires landlords to certify that their properties are lead-safe before renting to families with young kids.
With more than 90 percent of Philadelphia homes built before the nation's 1978 lead-paint ban, the city struggles to eradicate childhood lead poisoning and ranks among the top U.S. cities for children at risk.
This article was produced as a project for the National Health Journalism Fellowship, a program of the Center for Health Journalism at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.
Other stories in the series include:
Philly's shame: City ignores thousands of poisoned kids
Children who have been exposed to lead poisoning have access to the Early intervention program that offers resources ranging from speech therapy to nutrition services.
Children who were poisoned by lead are now suffering the effects as young adults. The question many parents are asking is how will the school system help these students?
While the government banned lead-based paint in 1978, more than 75 percent of houses in Chicago were built before 1970, affecting children with lead poisoning.
Drinking water have been contaminated with lead. Chicago residents and property owners are expected to deal with the problem. Experts are pressing the city to make some changes and take action.
Here we check in with prominent health journalists and experts to see what sites, newsletters and social media feeds they turn to first every morning. This week, we caught up with Liza Gross, freelance health journalist and senior editor of PLOS Biology. Here are her top morning reads.
In Philadelphia, thousands of children are newly poisoned by lead year after year — at a far higher rate than those in Flint, Michigan.