July 4, 2008
Sun coverage: Sludge study in Baltimore
Maryland Med Hopkins compost studySun reporter David Kohn blogs about the Johns Hopkins lead abatement study controversy in East Baltimore |
NAACP to gather data on sludge
The Baltimore NAACP will meet next week to consider whether any health risks were posed eight years ago when researchers from the Kennedy Krieger Institute and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health spread sludge on several city residential properties.
Johns Hopkins raps AP story on lead experiment
For about 20 years, Dr. Michael Klag has used a fertilizer made from Milwaukee municipal sludge on azaleas and yew shrubs at his suburban Baltimore home. And Klag, dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, says he's never had any question about its safety.
Researcher faces outcry
While pursuing a public health degree in the 1980s, Mark R. Farfel visited a clinic at the Kennedy Krieger Institute where scores of lead-poisoned boys and girls spilled into the hallways awaiting treatment.
Recalling Farfel's research
Lucille Gorham remembers a quiet, "nerdy" scientist who became a regular presence in her East Baltimore neighborhood, walking down dangerous streets and alleys as if he didn't know better.
Dan Rodricks: Sludge and other theories: time to think
A black man approached me on Guilford Avenue in Baltimore the other day and struck up a friendly, walk-and-talk conversation about Barack Obama. The conversation lasted only five minutes, and, remarkably, the stranger did most of the talking, ending with this parting shot: Don't dismiss the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's suggestion that the U.S. government created the AIDS virus to kill black people as the irrational ravings of an overwrought preacher. "I mean," the man said, "look at what Johns Hopkins did with that sludge. ... Think about it."
Suspicion still simmers just under the surface
While the hospital has worked to enhance relations, spending millions on community support and to serve poor patients, recent controversy over a study conducted by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Kennedy Krieger Institute has illuminated historical tensions.
NAACP questions sludge study methods
The Maryland NAACP questioned last night the methods used in a government-funded study in which fertilizer made from treated human and industrial waste was put on lawns of East Baltimore rowhouses.
Research on lead defended
Officials from the Kennedy Krieger Institute and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health went on the offensive yesterday, defending a 2005 study where researchers spread compost on properties in East Baltimore to see if it abated lead in soils.
Md. lawmakers call for sludge study inquiry
Two Maryland lawmakers are asking the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to investigate why a study it funded spread sewage sludge on the lawns of nine East Baltimore rowhouses as part of an effort to combat lead poisoning.
Senate panel to eye sludge study
A Senate committee led by California Sen. Barbara Boxer plans to look into government funding of studies that put fertilizer made from treated human and industrial waste on the lawns of East Baltimore rowhouses and a vacant lot near a school in East St. Louis, Ill.
Sludge spread around city homes
Scientists using federal grants spread fertilizer made from human and industrial wastes on yards in poor, black neighborhoods to test whether it might protect children from lead poisoning in the soil. Families were assured the sludge was safe and were never told about any harmful ingredients.
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