Why Lead Paint Still Haunts Industrial Cities in the U.S.

One milligram of dust. That’s all the lead it takes to poison a child-the equivalent of three granules of sugar. Years before his death, Freddie Gray was found to have 35 micrograms of lead in his blood-seven times the amount that can impair brain development, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Though Gray would eventually symbolize a far more visible tragedy, his life also represents that of many young children in Baltimore who have been devastatingly poisoned by lead paint. In fact, lead poisoning has become so common in Baltimore ghettos that local children are often referred to as “lead kids.”