Doctors urge Buffalo to enforce rental inspection law

Buffalo, NY (WBEN) A group of doctors and other health professionals are calling on Mayor Brown to begin implementing a law requiring rental housing inspections for lead. The bill was passed four years ago.

The proactive rental housing inspection law was intended to reduce high rates of lead poisoning among Buffalo children and alleviate other health and safety issues in rental housing. A group of 80 health professionals and doctors sent a letter to Mayor Byron Brown and city leaders to begin implementing the law.

One of those health professionals is Dr. Melinda Cameron, a retired physician. “When this law was passed, we were very excited that it would significantly reduce lead levels in our city’s children, who have much higher levels than children in Flint, Michigan, and who are getting all the attention and money,” Cameron says. She adds that the vast majority of children with extremely high levels who need treatment almost always come from rental housing. “It was very exciting to see this law passed. Yet four years later, we’re still seeing children being poisoned in these rental housing units because the inspections and remediation haven’t been done,” Cameron adds.

Cameron acknowledges that there are several factors preventing this from happening sooner. “They obviously need funding, they need to understand this. They need to have enough inspectors to do this,” Cameron says. She also attributes some of the blame to the elements. “Our time frame to do this stuff is short because we can’t get into homes now in the warmer months to do exterior inspections, which gives them a chance to know where the problems are so they can fix them when the weather is good,” Cameron says.

Cameron says lead poisoning is so damaging to children’s developing nervous systems that it can become a lifelong problem. “Once it’s there, it can’t be reversed. We can’t reverse it with medication, and we can reduce their lead levels, but the damage is already done,” Cameron says.