The state seeks to show in its case against lead-paint companies that information about the product's safety has been available for a long time.

01:00 AM EST on Friday, November 18, 2005

BY BRANDIE JEFFERSON
Journal Environment Writer

There was ample material published in medical journals before 1950 describing the dangers of lead-based paint to children, a state's witness testified yesterday.

Dr. Michael Kosnett, faculty member at the University of Colorado, Denver, and a practicing physician, told the jury that articles published as early as 1912 said children were being poisoned in their homes and recommended that lead paint be removed from a child's environment.

In yesterday's installment of the state's trial against paint companies that made and sold lead-based paint, state's lawyer Fidelma Fitzpatrick displayed excerpts of textbooks, speeches and articles published in journals such as the Canadian Medical Association Journal and the American Journal of Public Health.

At the request of defense lawyers, Superior Court Judge Michael A. Silverstein reminded the jury several times that the documents displayed were not submitted as "proof of matters contained therein," but only as evidence of what information was available at a certain time.

Fitzpatrick crafted her questions deliberately to ensure the witnesses' testimony did not refer to the validity of the documents, only to their chronology and existence.

"Could you tell me the significance of this article to your opinions in this case?" she asked repeatedly.

Kosnett's responses were as careful and deliberate as Fitzpatrick's questions as he testified to what the authors of the publications said, not what they meant.

"This article supports my opinion that there are accurate accounts in the literature," he said, that children were poisoned by lead paint in their homes, that poisoning wasn't rare, that children were especially susceptible, that symptoms varied and that recommendations had been made to keep children away from lead.

Fitzpatrick asked Kosnett why he referred to early journal articles.

Doctors wrote much better descriptions 100 years ago, he said, because they lacked the precise technology we have today. He also said he researched old documents to establish and verify modern foundations of medicine.

Sometimes things get published in textbooks, Kosnett said, "and the next edition has it, and the next edition and the next. It's important to establish where these ideas came from."

The state is scheduled to finish questioning and the defense to begin cross-examination when the trial resumes Monday.

Brandie Jefferson has a fellowship with the Metcalf Institute for Marine and Environmental Reporting. She can be reached at bjeffers@projo.com