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News
of these presentations around the country
where I show the preview screening of my
film, I bring lead blood testing (a limited
number), I bring free lead paint test kits. I
realized, I could answer people’s questions
in Flint I can give them unbiased
information that they are looking for.
S.Z.: You recently traveled to Flint and were
on a panel with Sen. Bernie Sanders.
T.R.: In January, in the first six weeks of
the year, I went to Flint three times. The
last time, I had a Lead Safe America event
where I invited all of the (presidential)
candidates and Bernie was the only one who
said he would come.
What I said in my introduction speech is
that we need to stop blaming the citizens,
the state government, the local government
We need to blame the lead industry because
they are the perpetrators of this crime. And
nobody is blaming them.
I got a large applause at the event but
the media doesn’t seize on that.
Street Roots • April 8-14, 2016
micrograms per deciliter as the toxic blood
level in children).
S.Z.: It’s been 10 years since then. How are
the boys doing today?
T.R.: They have permanent brain damage.
My 11-year-old has a documented, significant
permanent brain damage from lead
exposure. My 13-year-old, there is a little
more grey area. He has a whole lot of issues
that correlate with lead exposure. It’s not as
black and white as my other son’s brain
injury.
My youngest, it turned out, ended up
testing positive for lead even' though we
thought we were doing everything we could.
We (made our house) lead safe, but
everybody in the neighborhood is doing
demolition or renovation. That is part of the
S.Z.: The media does seem to seize on your
story, though.
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been poisoned; outreach and intervention
and education for childhood lead poisoning
prevention and parent-advocate support.
ive years ago, Tamara Rubin founded
The idea is to help more parents to become
Lead Safe America Foundation, a
advocates, to feel empowered to tell their
nonprofit organization that offers
stories, and reach out to more parents of
education, support and advocacy for families
lead poisoned children. The ultimate goal
of poisoned children.
would be to hold the lead industry
In those few years, Rubin would never
responsible for releasing the poison into our
have guessed how her work, spurred by the
environment for decades.
poisoning of three of her children, would
This summer, Rubin hopes to connect
become so important to tens of thousands
with many more of the nation’s lead
of people across the United States. Two of
poisoned families with the release of her
Rubin’s children were poisoned by improper
film: MisLEAD: America’s Secret Epidemic.
practices of a contractor who was hired to
There is a public screening of the film
renovate her family’s home. A third child
(maybe the last one until it is released this
was poisoned by the renovations happening
summer) on Monday, April 11, at the
in her neighborhood.
Clinton Theater in Southeast Portland at
The award-winning organization works
6:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the
with young mothers and families across the
public, and will be followed by a discussion
nation, many of whom Rubin has connected
with members of the Eastside Portland Air
with on social media, mostly Facebook and
Coalition (EPAC) - the group organized of
Twitter. Last year Lead Safe America
neighbor activists after the news of
connected with 25,000 families.
concerning levels of heavy metals emissions
Rubin will talk to anybody about lead
in a number of Portland neighborhoods.
poisoning from presidential candidates to a
mom in Nowhere, Ark., or Flint, Mich.
Suzanne Zalokar: Though you were
Recently, the drummer of the band Phish,
raised in Massachusetts, you were bom in
Jon Fishman, and his wife reached out to
Saginaw, Mich., just 37 miles from Flint.
LSA. Their child suffered lead poisoning and When you became aware of the lead poisoning
they made a donation to the Portland-based
there, what was your first thought?
nonprofit In fact, Rubin’s foundation is
Tamara Rubin: There’s like 100,000
funded nearly entirely by donations received
people
poisoned. What can I do? I’m a low-
from parents of lead poisoned children.
income mom in Oregon running this
The group has three goals: emergency
nonprofit
intervention and support if your kids have
Then I realized that I have done about 85
BY SUZANNE ZALOKAR
STAFF WRITER
F
T.R.: My kids were poisoned in Irvington.
We actually moved to Portland in 2001 and
our house burnt down and we lost
everything.
We had a two-year protracted lawsuit with
the insurance company. We were on the
verge of homelessness the entire time.
My family stepped up and helped us out
and we ended up buying the house in
Irvington. We thought, “Okay, we’re going to
start over again.” We planned to live our
lives (in the Irvington house).
We got back on our feet after the fire and
were going to get our home in Irvington into
our own name, finally. In order to do that,
we needed a new appraisal, so we needed a
new mortgage in order to get the new
appraisal. Our mortgage broker told us we
should get the house repainted (as a part of)
a new appraisal.
So we got the house repainted and
refinanced in our own name and then we
were told we had to move out of the house
immediately because our kids had lead
poisoning from the repaint job.
S.Z.: My god.
T.R.: We tried to sue the contractor, but
there was no recourse, essentially. The law
was an administrative law that had no
enforcement and no fine. So basically, if you
poison someone with arsenic or any other
kind of poison, you’d go to jail, but if you
poison someone by using unsafe work
practices and poison a whole family with
lead, (nothing happens).
Our contractor had used an open flame
torch to bum the paint off the exterior of
our house. My baby, seven months old,
inhaled the fumes. Because we were
ostensibly white and middle income - from
looking at you, your doctors make
. assumptions - they didn’t test us for lead.
They never even suggested it. So for two
months my kids were violently ill.
Finally, I said, “Have them tested for
everything.” My older son was positive for
lead. They didn’t want to test the baby
because he was only 9 months old, but I
insisted. He was sick too and we needed to
know what was going on. He was acutely
blood poisoned with a blood level of 16
micrograms per deciliter. (Since 1995, the
Center for Disease Control has set 10
COURTESY OF TAMARA RUBIN
Tamara Rubin in a scene from the
documentary MisLEAD, due out this
summer.
hazard of living in the city, I tell parents.
I tested positive for lead with a blood lead
level (BLL) of 1.0. My doctor recently did a
study that shows that 0.4 - 0.5 level can
cause low birth weight in newborns and
other birth complications.
S.Z.: So is everyone living in urban areas
probably lead poisoned just because we live in
the city?
T.R.: Oh yeah. Depending on where you
lived between your birth and 1996, depends
on the level of your lead exposure.
We were lead poisoned. Some people say,
“Well it didn’t hurt me!” So I ask, do you
have thyroid disorder? Weight issues?
Kidney issues? Who has diabetes? Who has
headaches? There are all of these symptoms
that are collectively (more pervasive) health
impairments over the last 100 years since
we aggressively introduced lead into our
environment.
S.Z.: What is Lead Safe America
Foundation involved with today?
T.R.: Right now, it’s tipping the scales
with the air quality issue, so usually I’d say
20-35 percent of the families that we help
are in Portland. Right now it’s probably
closer to 50-60 percent.
We’ve got all this soil testing to do. We
have 190 test kit requests that we have to
fulfill. That’s a lot We used to get 10 to 20 a
month. Just this month, we have 193
requests.
My original goal was to help 100 the first
year, help 500 the second year and maybe
2,000 the third year. In reality, our third
year was 6,000, our fourth year was 16,000,
and then this year we helped 25,000
families.
See LEAD, page 5