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LEAD Action News Volume 22 Number 4 December 2024 Page 25 of 131

CDC’s LEPAC Calls for Groundbreaking Action to

What Happened

At a December 11 meeting, CDC’s

Lead Exposure Prevention Advisory

Committee (LEPAC) adopted an

impressive draft report that calls for

measures to protect adults from the

harmful effects of lead exposure.1 The

report makes 16 groundbreaking

recommendations with detailed

justifications for each.

received relatively sparse attention in

health professional education and

outreach to the lay public.” LEPAC was

also concerned about lead’s risk to both

pregnant people and their fetuses.

The magnitude of lead-related risk is on par with that of other prominent

cardiovascular risk factors, such as elevated cholesterol, smoking, and

hypertension, that have been the focus of extensive public health concern.

In October, EPA quantified the benefits of reducing lead-related cardiovascular disease mortality when

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LEAD Action News Volume 22 Number 4 December 2024 Page 26 of 131

• Combine adult and child blood lead surveillance systems at federal, state, and local levels;

improve national and state Adult Blood Lead Epidemiology and Surveillance (ABLES)

programs, including performance measures, data management, and funding.

• Use new California OSHA standards as a model for feasible health protection because the

federal standards fail to protect workers.

• Encourage occupational physicians to exercise their discretionary authority to recommend

medical removal and other protective measures at blood lead levels lower than OSHA limits.

• Eliminate all unnecessary workplace and commercial uses of lead where substitution of safer

alternative materials is possible and feasible.

• Increase compliance with EPA’s Lead-Safe Renovation, Repair and Painting (RRP) rule.

Why it Matters

LEPAC gave seven specific reasons to support its call for action:

• “A prominent endpoint of concern is death, as opposed to subtle or subclinical effects on

organ system function that are often sufficient for public health and regulatory action.”

• “The epidemiological evidence that associates this outcome with lead exposure is derived from

multiple large, high quality prospective cohort studies that extensively controlled for

confounding and bias.”

• “This epidemiological evidence is coherent with clinical and experimental findings that

demonstrate plausible modes of action at consistent lead doses.”

• “Because the background risk of cardiovascular mortality in populations with this ongoing

settings.”

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LEAD Action News Volume 22 Number 4 December 2024 Page 27 of 131

• “The observed risk of cardiovascular mortality associated with blood lead concentrations ≥ 10

µg/dL does not establish the absence of risk at lower blood lead concentrations.”

Our Take

We fully support LEPAC’s recommendations to CDC and encourage the agency to act with urgency

given the risks. The two years LEPAC invested in the comprehensive report was worth the wait.

We also encourage all who seek to protect people from lead to consider the recommendations now

and not to wait for federal action. These state, local, and private actions will serve as models to help

the federal government to act when it is able.

Unleaded Kids also asked CDC to:

• Encourage rather than discourage data sharing with EPA and HUD so they can take action to

protect families from lead.

• Consider redefining the Blood Lead Reference Value as an “action level” as other federal

agencies have done for dust-lead, food, water, and workplaces. This approach would better

describe the purpose of the BLRV and be consistent with other agencies, making it easier to

communicate.

areas: 1) reference EPA analysis to support lead in water and dust rules that quantified the

health benefits of reducing adult exposure to lead in terms of fewer cardiovascular disease

deaths, and fewer low birth weights; 2) drop call to link clinical lab certification to compliance