A historian testifies that none of the four companies being sued by the state warned their customers of the dangers lead-based paints posed to children.

01:00 AM EST on Saturday, January 21, 2006

BY PETER B. LORD
Journal Environment Writer

PROVIDENCE -- One by one lawyer Jack McConnell displayed huge copies of stories from The Providence Journal and the old Evening Bulletin about children in Rhode Island who died after being poisoned by lead-based paints.

In 1949, a 3-year-old Middletown boy died with brain swelling that occurred after he chewed on wood paneling coated with lead-based paints. His younger brother was hospitalized.

In 1951, a 4-year-old in Providence died after ingesting some silver paint that spilled while he and his brother were painting a bike. The toddler was eating crackers, and the police surmised he had paint on his fingers.

In August 1954, a 4 1/2-year-old girl in Providence was admitted to the hospital with convulsions. She died the next day. Detectives laid the blame on redecorating that was being done at her apartment. They said she was the second child that month to die from lead poisoning.

After going over each incident, McConnell asked Columbia University historian David Rosner whether any of the four companies being sued by the state ever warned their customers of the dangers of letting children chew on objects covered with lead-based paints, or painting woodwork or redecorating with such paints.

"No, they never did," said Rosner.

After six days on the stand, Rosner finished testifying yesterday afternoon. The state plans to present its last witness -- a Boston pediatrician -- Monday morning. It is expected he will be finished on Tuesday afternoon.

It is not known how many witnesses will be presented by the defendants -- NL Industries, Millennium Inorganic Inc., Sherwin Williams Co. and Atlantic Richfield Co. The trial, the state's second against the paint companies, began in the middle of October. The first trial ended in a mistrial.

Paint company lawyers cross-examined Rosner yesterday. In 2002, Rosner coauthored the book Deceit and Denial -- the Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution, which accuses a number of companies of conspiring to market lead-based while downplaying any possible health concerns.

Paul Michael Pohl, representing Sherwin Williams, asked Rosner whether he was aware of lead-paint manufacturers that had once done business less than a mile from the courthouse -- one on Matthewson Street and the other on Eddy Street. Rosner did not.

Pohl also showed Rosner a letter Sherwin Williams wrote to the U.S. Army in 1917, offering a paint for helmets that was safe because it contained no lead.

Rosner said that made him wonder why Sherwin Williams continued to sell lead-based paints for houses.

Later, McConnell asked Rosner whether he had ever heard of someone being poisoned by paint on an Army helmet. No, said Rosner.

How about from paint on houses, McConnell asked. Yes, said Rosner.

McConnell asked Rosner whether he documented the sources he used for his book.

"Extraordinarily well," said Rosner. He said there were 100 pages of footnotes or about one page of footnotes to every three pages of text.

Rosner testified that Anaconda Copper (now part of ARCO) made, promoted and sold lead-based paints from 1920 to 1946, Glidden (now Millennium) did the same from 1924 to 1958, Sherwin Williams did from 1904 to 1971 and National Lead did from 1891 to 1976.

In all of your investigations, McConnell asked, did you see the federal government require any of these defendants to manufacture, promote or sell lead for use in paint?

No, said Rosner. In fact, he said at another point, the defendants lobbied the government to specify use of their paints on government jobs.

plord@projo.com / (401) 277-8036