Overview

In this incisive examination of lead poisoning during the past half century, Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner focus on one of the most contentious and bitter battles in the history of public health. Lead Wars details how the nature of the epidemic has changed and highlights the dilemmas public health agencies face today in terms of prevention strategies and chronic illness linked to low levels of toxic exposure. The authors use the opinion by Maryland's Court of Appeals-which considered whether researchers at Johns Hopkins University's prestigious Kennedy Krieger Institute (KKI) engaged in unethical research on 108 African-American children-as a springboard to ask fundamental questions about the practice and future of public health. Lead Wars chronicles the obstacles faced by public health workers in the conservative, pro-business, anti-regulatory climate that took off in the Reagan years and that stymied efforts to eliminate lead from the environments and the bodies of American children.

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9780520283930

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Reviews

In Lead Wars, CUNY's Gerald Markowitz and Columbia University's David Rosner convincingly show that the Baltimore toddler study emerged from a century of policymaking in which the US government, faced at times with a choice between protecting children from lead poisoning and protecting the businesses that produced and marketed lead paint, almost invariably chose the latter. New York Review Of Books 20130321 Lead Wars clearly shows that the scandalous and tragic history of lead is one that our society is doomed to repeat over and over again unless we develop and fight for better safeguards against chemicals and new technology. -- Helen Jupiter Mother Nature Network 20130326 A fascinating new book. -- Howard Markel PBS Newshour The Rundown Blog 20130329 Thoroughly researched and clearly written, this book does an excellent job of illustrating the problem society encounters when science and industry face off over likely harm versus economic benefit. -- Richard Maxwell Library Journal 20130501 A deeply conceived and well-written book by two of America's best public health historians. It's also an important background briefing on the politics and ethics of scientific research for journalists who will be covering environmental health issues like these. -- Bill Kovarik SE Journal 20130701 Chronicles the monstrous irresponsibility of companies in the lead industry over the course of the 20th century. -- Nicholas D. Kristof New York Times 20131016 I want to thank David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz for what that they've done to bring the story of the lead paint wars to the public. -- Senator Sheldon Whitehouse 20131017 The prolific team of Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner has done it again. Lead Wars: The Politics of Science and the Fate of America's Children is a thoroughly researched, passionate, and gripping history of a major public health problem... Lead Wars challenges us to take better care of our children by fighting those industries that appear to regard them-especially poor black and Latino children-as disposable. -- Elizabeth Fee Health Affairs 20131001

In Lead Wars, CUNY's Gerald Markowitz and Columbia University's David Rosner convincingly show that the Baltimore toddler study emerged from a century of policymaking in which the US government, faced at times with a choice between protecting children from lead poisoning and protecting the businesses that produced and marketed lead paint, almost invariably chose the latter. New York Review Of Books 20130321 Lead Wars clearly shows that the scandalous and tragic history of lead is one that our society is doomed to repeat over and over again unless we develop and fight for better safeguards against chemicals and new technology. -- Helen Jupiter Mother Nature Network 20130326 A fascinating new book. -- Howard Markel PBS Newshour The Rundown Blog 20130329 Thoroughly researched and clearly written, this book does an excellent job of illustrating the problem society encounters when science and industry face off over likely harm versus economic benefit. -- Richard Maxwell Library Journal 20130501 A deeply conceived and well-written book by two of America's best public health historians. It's also an important background briefing on the politics and ethics of scientific research for journalists who will be covering environmental health issues like these. -- Bill Kovarik SE Journal 20130701 Chronicles the monstrous irresponsibility of companies in the lead industry over the course of the 20th century. -- Nicholas D. Kristof New York Times 20131016 I want to thank David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz for what that they've done to bring the story of the lead paint wars to the public. -- Senator Sheldon Whitehouse 20131017 The prolific team of Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner has done it again. Lead Wars: The Politics of Science and the Fate of America's Children is a thoroughly researched, passionate, and gripping history of a major public health problem... Lead Wars challenges us to take better care of our children by fighting those industries that appear to regard them-especially poor black and Latino children-as disposable. -- Elizabeth Fee Health Affairs 20131001

Author Information

Gerald Markowitz is Distinguished Professor of History at John Jay College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is, along with David Rosner, coauthor of Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution (UC Press), and eight other books. David Rosner is Ronald Lauterstein Professor of Public Health and Professor of History at Columbia University and Co-director of the Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health. In 2010 he was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.

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