Darlene Medley is just one of the hundreds of Syracuse parents who receive this news annually – that the shelter they believed to protect their children has in fact poisoned them. In 2019, roughly 500 children in the city of Syracuse were found to have elevated blood lead levels. This number isn’t an aberration. For decades, the city has grappled with high instances of childhood lead poisoning. In 2016, Syracuse was ranked firmly among the 15 regions with the highest rates of childhood lead poisoning.
Flint, Michigan didn’t even make the list.
Syracuse is facing a public health crisis, a fact Darlene knows all too well. More than one in 10 Syracuse children meet the threshold for a lead poisoning diagnosis, putting them at risk for poor attention, decreased executive functioning, poor performance in school, high propensity for risk-taking, increased aggression, lower IQ and hearing and speech problems, to name only a few effects.
Syracuse Common Council approved an ordinance in 2020 to combat child lead poisoning in the city, however, this issue and the need for community activists to continue their fight on behalf of hundreds of local children isn’t going away anytime soon.
“Our Poisoned Kids” had significant reach with a variety of audiences with a multi-platform distribution plan that included the digital presentation for the Deconstructing the Divide project, The Stand community newspaper for Syracuse’s South Side, a 4-part audio series on WAER 88.5 (Syracuse’s NPR affiliate) and republished in The Post-Standard newspaper and online with Syracuse.com.