Latest news with #MichaelTotoraitis
New York Times
18-04-2025
- Health
- New York Times
Milwaukee's Lead Crisis: Flaky Paint, Closed Schools and a C.D.C. in Retreat
Milwaukee is facing a deepening lead crisis in its schools, and it suddenly finds itself without help from the country's top public health agency. Four children in the Milwaukee Public Schools have been found to be exposed to high levels of lead in the last six months. Investigators have discovered seven schools with flaking lead paint and lead dust inside classrooms and basements. Three school buildings have been shuttered so far, and officials said that more are expected to follow — as soon as next week — as the investigation expands. In the past, school districts have turned to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to help manage lead problems. But weeks ago, the commissioner of the Milwaukee health department was told that a toxicologist and epidemiologist from the C.D.C., both lead experts who were expected to assist city officials with the local response, had been fired from the agency. Then the Milwaukee health department was dealt an even sharper blow: Its request for federal assistance from C.D.C. experts to help manage the lead crisis, known as an Epi-Aid, had been formally denied. 'There is no bat phone anymore,' Dr. Michael Totoraitis, the Milwaukee health commissioner, said in an interview. 'I can't pick up and call my colleagues at the C.D.C. about lead poisoning anymore.' The C.D.C. is already reeling from layoffs targeting 2,400 employees, nearly one-fifth of its work force. The Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the C.D.C., did not respond to a request for comment. The Trump administration has said that it is cutting positions throughout the federal government to reduce spending and bureaucratic bloat. Cuts to the federal government are affecting communities all over the country in ways that few Americans could have foreseen. While lead problems in the Milwaukee schools were not caused by any federal institution, the C.D.C. had the power to help solve them. C.D.C. cuts could quickly threaten public health, experts say, pointing to reductions in agency resources to promote environmental health and prevent communicable disease. As Milwaukee officials navigate the crisis alone, they are doing so amid rising fury and fear from parents. The first case of lead poisoning was discovered late last year, when a routine blood test showed elevated lead levels in a child who attends a public school. The health department investigated the child's home but found no lead hazards present. Then they turned to the child's elementary school, Golda Meir School, and found lead dust on windowsills and floors — the dust contained six times the federal threshold of lead. It was the first known time that a child in Milwaukee had been poisoned by lead traced to a public school, health officials said. Lead is an omnipresent threat to children in Milwaukee, especially in its poorest neighborhoods. Much of Milwaukee's housing stock was built in the 19th and early 20th century, when the manufacturing industry was expanding, and along with it, rows of brick bungalows and cottages that still line city blocks today. Before it was banned in the 1970s, lead was a common material in paint, and while there have been efforts for decades to eradicate it, lead is still commonly found in water, pipes, the soil in Milwaukee backyards and in older houses that have not been renovated. Children in Milwaukee suffer from especially high rates of lead poisoning: In some census tracts on the north side, more than 20 percent of children under 6 years old had high levels of lead in their blood, according to state health data. 'Everybody in Milwaukee is aware of lead,' said Lisa Lucas, whose daughter attends an elementary school that has been closed for lead remediation. 'There's lead paint in almost all of the schools and buildings. And nobody has really stepped up, either in the city or the state legislature, to make our city safer and healthier for everybody. That's the most frustrating part of it.' But the discovery of lead poisoning tied to school buildings has shaken parents from all over the city. 'Frankly, I just sort of trusted that there would have been appropriate upkeep in the facilities, especially following what was happening with Covid,' said Kristen Payne, a parent whose oldest child attends Golda Meir. 'I was really surprised to see the extent of the problem.' Parents and advocates for safe schools say that the response from the school district has been slow and insufficient, and they have focused most of their frustration on the local government's handling of the crisis. They have asked why the district has failed to maintain its buildings and inspect for peeling lead-based paint. Most public school buildings in Milwaukee were built before 1978, when the sale of lead paint was banned. Other cities that have dealt with lead contamination have received extensive guidance and resources from experts in the C.D.C. During the lead water crisis in Flint, Mich., a decade ago, the C.D.C. helped state and local officials develop a response and recovery plan, and provided funding for a voluntary lead exposure registry. A top schools official in Milwaukee who oversaw building maintenance, Sean Kane, left his job earlier this month after the uproar over the lead contamination began to build. In the last 30 years, 85 percent of the school district's painting staff has been eliminated, allowing instances of peeling, flaking lead paint to multiply, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. Last week, the closed school buildings were locked and quiet, with trucks for a painting company parked outside. Students, teachers and administrators were conducting classes in other school buildings that had room to spare, though some parents said they were too afraid of the lead threat to send their children to school anywhere in the district. The district has already spent $1.8 million on lead remediation, a small fraction of what the costs could eventually total. Marty Kanarek, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has studied lead poisoning for nearly 50 years, said that while Milwaukee has made progress in identifying sources of lead, the threat to children, especially in low-income neighborhoods, still remains. No amount of lead is safe to ingest, and lead poisoning can cause damage to children's nervous systems and brains, as well as learning and behavioral problems. 'It's a massive problem which requires lots of money,' he said. 'Lead is the one that is the most serious for its effects on kids. Lead is this pervasive thing, and it really hurts kids' brains.' Last week, city officials held a virtual town hall meeting attended by hundreds of parents — the first one since the crisis began — to answer questions about the lead issues and try to calm worries. Dr. Brenda Cassellius, superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools, offered no timeline on when school buildings could reopen. In an interview, Dr. Cassellius said that principals had been required to take many school maintenance costs out of their own budgets. Forced to choose between fixing peeling paint or hiring more staff, for instance, they often chose to skip the maintenance. 'Schools have been so terribly underfunded for so many years,' she said. 'You're often faced with a really tough choice of whether students get additional support for literacy and a paraprofessional in the classroom to help those who are maybe needing a little bit extra help — or painting or fixing something within your building.' Some community organizations have tried to fill the gaps between the public and the city government. Melody McCurtis, the deputy director and lead organizer of Metcalfe Park Community Bridges, a community organization, has been going door to door, informing residents of the problems with lead and distributing free lead filters to hundreds of households. 'I think that this is the first time that parents and communities are really pushing back,' Ms. McCurtis said. Some assistance could be coming from the state. Gov. Tony Evers of Wisconsin, a Democrat, recently unveiled a plan to invest more than $300 million statewide to reduce lead poisoning in homes and schools. But Milwaukee officials said the price tag for fixing the schools' lead problems could be astronomical, and they are not counting on help from the federal government in the future. The work of the health department 'has not stopped,' said Caroline Reinwald, a spokeswoman for the Milwaukee health department. 'This only underscores the importance of the role local public health plays in protecting communities — and the challenges we now face without federal expertise to call on.'
Yahoo
11-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
CDC denies Milwaukee's request for help with unsafe lead levels in public schools
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has denied a request from Milwaukee's public health department for assistance in managing unsafe lead levels in the city's public schools, citing the loss of its lead experts in mass firings last week across federal health agencies. 'I sincerely regret to inform you that due to the complete loss of our Lead Program, we will be unable to support you with this EpiAid request,' Aaron Bernstein, director of the National Center for Environmental Health/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry at the CDC, wrote late last week to Milwaukee officials, according to a letter obtained by CNN. EpiAid is a CDC program providing a short-term loan of an officer from the public health agency's Epidemic Intelligence Service, or EIS. These 'disease detectives' are sent to state and local health departments to investigate urgent public health problems. In Milwaukee's case, the city requested the CDC's help March 26 with the investigation of lead exposure in its public schools, after the health department identified hazardous levels of lead contamination in multiple school buildings. CNN reported last week that Milwaukee's health commissioner, Dr. Michael Totoraitis, had been working with the CDC for two months to address the threat. Lead is toxic to the brain, and no levels of exposure are considered safe. It can be present in buildings constructed before 1978, when it was still legal to use lead in paint. On April 1 – the day about 10,000 federal health employees lost their jobs as part of a massive Reduction in Force across the US Department of Health and Human Services – Milwaukee officials received an email from a CDC epidemiologist telling them 'my entire division was eliminated today,' apologizing that she wouldn't be able to continue working with the city on the response and referring them to other points of contact within the agency. 'The new points of contact were essentially unable to say what level of support they would provide us moving forward,' Totoraitis told CNN at the time. Two days later, asked about the cutting of the CDC's lead poisoning prevention and surveillance branch, US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suggested that the program might be reinstated. 'There are some programs that were cut that are being reinstated, and I think that's one of them,' he said April 3, noting that 'there were a number of instances where … personnel that should not have been cut were cut.' A spokesperson for HHS told CNN that day that 'HHS is planning to continue the important work of the lead poisoning prevention and surveillance branch that works to eliminate childhood lead poisoning under the Administration for a Healthy America,' a newly created organization within the agency. But that same evening, Milwaukee received the email from the CDC denying its EpiAid request. 'While we're disappointed, [the Milwaukee Health Department]'s work has not stopped,' Caroline Reinwald, a spokesperson for the department, told CNN by email Friday. 'This only underscores the importance of the role local public health plays in protecting communities – and the challenges we now face without federal expertise to call on.' A spokesperson for HHS didn't immediately return CNN's request for comment. CBS News first reported that the CDC had denied the request. Milwaukee's health department, Reinwald said, 'remains committed to moving this work forward and finding solutions locally.'
CNN
11-04-2025
- Health
- CNN
CDC denies Milwaukee's request for help with unsafe lead levels in public schools
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has denied a request from Milwaukee's public health department for assistance in managing unsafe lead levels in the city's public schools, citing the loss of its lead experts in mass firings last week across federal health agencies. 'I sincerely regret to inform you that due to the complete loss of our Lead Program, we will be unable to support you with this EpiAid request,' Aaron Bernstein, director of the National Center for Environmental Health/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry at the CDC, wrote late last week to Milwaukee officials, according to a letter obtained by CNN. EpiAid is a CDC program providing a short-term loan of an officer from the public health agency's Epidemic Intelligence Service, or EIS. These 'disease detectives' are sent to state and local health departments to investigate urgent public health problems. In Milwaukee's case, the city requested the CDC's help March 26 with the investigation of lead exposure in its public schools, after the health department identified hazardous levels of lead contamination in multiple school buildings. CNN reported last week that Milwaukee's health commissioner, Dr. Michael Totoraitis, had been working with the CDC for two months to address the threat. Lead is toxic to the brain, and no levels of exposure are considered safe. It can be present in buildings constructed before 1978, when it was still legal to use lead in paint. On April 1 – the day about 10,000 federal health employees lost their jobs as part of a massive Reduction in Force across the US Department of Health and Human Services – Milwaukee officials received an email from a CDC epidemiologist telling them 'my entire division was eliminated today,' apologizing that she wouldn't be able to continue working with the city on the response and referring them to other points of contact within the agency. 'The new points of contact were essentially unable to say what level of support they would provide us moving forward,' Totoraitis told CNN at the time. Two days later, asked about the cutting of the CDC's lead poisoning prevention and surveillance branch, US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suggested that the program might be reinstated. 'There are some programs that were cut that are being reinstated, and I think that's one of them,' he said April 3, noting that 'there were a number of instances where … personnel that should not have been cut were cut.' A spokesperson for HHS told CNN that day that 'HHS is planning to continue the important work of the lead poisoning prevention and surveillance branch that works to eliminate childhood lead poisoning under the Administration for a Healthy America,' a newly created organization within the agency. But that same evening, Milwaukee received the email from the CDC denying its EpiAid request. 'While we're disappointed, [the Milwaukee Health Department]'s work has not stopped,' Caroline Reinwald, a spokesperson for the department, told CNN by email Friday. 'This only underscores the importance of the role local public health plays in protecting communities – and the challenges we now face without federal expertise to call on.' A spokesperson for HHS didn't immediately return CNN's request for comment. CBS News first reported that the CDC had denied the request. Milwaukee's health department, Reinwald said, 'remains committed to moving this work forward and finding solutions locally.'
CNN
11-04-2025
- Health
- CNN
CDC denies Milwaukee's request for help with unsafe lead levels in public schools
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has denied a request from Milwaukee's public health department for assistance in managing unsafe lead levels in the city's public schools, citing the loss of its lead experts in mass firings last week across federal health agencies. 'I sincerely regret to inform you that due to the complete loss of our Lead Program, we will be unable to support you with this EpiAid request,' Aaron Bernstein, director of the National Center for Environmental Health/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry at the CDC, wrote late last week to Milwaukee officials, according to a letter obtained by CNN. EpiAid is a CDC program providing a short-term loan of an officer from the public health agency's Epidemic Intelligence Service, or EIS. These 'disease detectives' are sent to state and local health departments to investigate urgent public health problems. In Milwaukee's case, the city requested the CDC's help March 26 with the investigation of lead exposure in its public schools, after the health department identified hazardous levels of lead contamination in multiple school buildings. CNN reported last week that Milwaukee's health commissioner, Dr. Michael Totoraitis, had been working with the CDC for two months to address the threat. Lead is toxic to the brain, and no levels of exposure are considered safe. It can be present in buildings constructed before 1978, when it was still legal to use lead in paint. On April 1 – the day about 10,000 federal health employees lost their jobs as part of a massive Reduction in Force across the US Department of Health and Human Services – Milwaukee officials received an email from a CDC epidemiologist telling them 'my entire division was eliminated today,' apologizing that she wouldn't be able to continue working with the city on the response and referring them to other points of contact within the agency. 'The new points of contact were essentially unable to say what level of support they would provide us moving forward,' Totoraitis told CNN at the time. Two days later, asked about the cutting of the CDC's lead poisoning prevention and surveillance branch, US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suggested that the program might be reinstated. 'There are some programs that were cut that are being reinstated, and I think that's one of them,' he said April 3, noting that 'there were a number of instances where … personnel that should not have been cut were cut.' A spokesperson for HHS told CNN that day that 'HHS is planning to continue the important work of the lead poisoning prevention and surveillance branch that works to eliminate childhood lead poisoning under the Administration for a Healthy America,' a newly created organization within the agency. But that same evening, Milwaukee received the email from the CDC denying its EpiAid request. 'While we're disappointed, [the Milwaukee Health Department]'s work has not stopped,' Caroline Reinwald, a spokesperson for the department, told CNN by email Friday. 'This only underscores the importance of the role local public health plays in protecting communities – and the challenges we now face without federal expertise to call on.' A spokesperson for HHS didn't immediately return CNN's request for comment. CBS News first reported that the CDC had denied the request. Milwaukee's health department, Reinwald said, 'remains committed to moving this work forward and finding solutions locally.'
CNN
11-04-2025
- Health
- CNN
CDC denies Milwaukee's request for help with unsafe lead levels in public schools
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has denied a request from Milwaukee's public health department for assistance in managing unsafe lead levels in the city's public schools, citing the loss of its lead experts in mass firings last week across federal health agencies. 'I sincerely regret to inform you that due to the complete loss of our Lead Program, we will be unable to support you with this EpiAid request,' Aaron Bernstein, director of the National Center for Environmental Health/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry at the CDC, wrote late last week to Milwaukee officials, according to a letter obtained by CNN. EpiAid is a CDC program providing a short-term loan of an officer from the public health agency's Epidemic Intelligence Service, or EIS. These 'disease detectives' are sent to state and local health departments to investigate urgent public health problems. In Milwaukee's case, the city requested the CDC's help March 26 with the investigation of lead exposure in its public schools, after the health department identified hazardous levels of lead contamination in multiple school buildings. CNN reported last week that Milwaukee's health commissioner, Dr. Michael Totoraitis, had been working with the CDC for two months to address the threat. Lead is toxic to the brain, and no levels of exposure are considered safe. It can be present in buildings constructed before 1978, when it was still legal to use lead in paint. On April 1 – the day about 10,000 federal health employees lost their jobs as part of a massive Reduction in Force across the US Department of Health and Human Services – Milwaukee officials received an email from a CDC epidemiologist telling them 'my entire division was eliminated today,' apologizing that she wouldn't be able to continue working with the city on the response and referring them to other points of contact within the agency. 'The new points of contact were essentially unable to say what level of support they would provide us moving forward,' Totoraitis told CNN at the time. Two days later, asked about the cutting of the CDC's lead poisoning prevention and surveillance branch, US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suggested that the program might be reinstated. 'There are some programs that were cut that are being reinstated, and I think that's one of them,' he said April 3, noting that 'there were a number of instances where … personnel that should not have been cut were cut.' A spokesperson for HHS told CNN that day that 'HHS is planning to continue the important work of the lead poisoning prevention and surveillance branch that works to eliminate childhood lead poisoning under the Administration for a Healthy America,' a newly created organization within the agency. But that same evening, Milwaukee received the email from the CDC denying its EpiAid request. 'While we're disappointed, [the Milwaukee Health Department]'s work has not stopped,' Caroline Reinwald, a spokesperson for the department, told CNN by email Friday. 'This only underscores the importance of the role local public health plays in protecting communities – and the challenges we now face without federal expertise to call on.' A spokesperson for HHS didn't immediately return CNN's request for comment. CBS News first reported that the CDC had denied the request. Milwaukee's health department, Reinwald said, 'remains committed to moving this work forward and finding solutions locally.'
