PROVIDENCE -- When defense attorney Donald E. Scott asked lead-poisoning expert Kim Dietrich if he was familiar with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's safety standards for household lead paint, he probably was expecting a yes or no answer.
Instead he got upbraided about alleged deficiencies at the agency charged with protecting the nation's environment.
"I study health hazards," Dietrich said. "I don't concentrate on EPA's rapidly evolving and often contradictory regulations on lead."
You don't agree with the EPA? Scott asked.
"I frequently disagree with the EPA when it comes to environmental health issues, particularly for children," Dietrich said.
The verbal sparring went on throughout the day yesterday as the state concluded a third week of trial over its claims that lead paint made by eight companies now constitutes a public nuisance.
Dietrich, a nationally recognized lead poisoning researcher and a professor of environmental health and pediatrics at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, may have been one of the state's most critical witnesses testifying about the dangers and harm caused by lead paint.
He testified that all lead paint, even if covered with latex paint or appearing intact, poses health hazards. He said it harms children's ability to write or draw, damages their motor skills so they become clumsy, gives them attention problems and difficulties organizing work, decreases their ability to control impulses, so they have a greater likelihood of juvenile delinquency, and causes reading disabilities.
There is no safe amount of lead and the damage it causes to a child's brain is irreversible, Dietrich said.
In cross-examination, Scott tried to test some of those assertions. But Dietrich didn't back down. At times he accused Scott of using his earlier remarks in a deposition out of context.
"Would you agree it's very rare to find a home that has lead-based paint as the outside layer," Scott asked at one point.
"I would not agree with that," Dietrich replied.
Scott pulled out the deposition, and showed the court that Dietrich told lawyers just last summer that he "probably would agree" with the assertion.
Dietrich thought a bit and pointed out he was deposed for many hours. Then he suggested in the deposition he might have been referring to the total housing stock of the United States.
"But you go into any Northeastern or Midwestern city and you'll find no lack of lead paint on the exteriors," he said.
Scott asked Dietrich if he accepted the concept of latex paint sealing lead paint and preventing hazards.
"If you consider latex a permanent, impermeable layer, I could agree," Dietrich said. "But I don't know of that ever being the case."
When Scott pulled another quote from the deposition in which Dietrich advises people they can stay in houses where lead paint is well maintained, Dietrich said that statement was taken out of context.
"I am a pragmatic man. Most of the families I deal with are of limited means," Dietrich said. He said that they can't afford to replace windows, doors and woodwork treated with lead paint so he advises them to do the cleaning and maintenance that lessens the dangers the paints will poison children.
Most of his colleagues, on the other hand, are doctors and scientists with good incomes. He tells them to get the lead out of their houses.
Dietrich testified his only compensation for testifying was having his travel expenses paid.
The trial is scheduled to resume Monday afternoon.
