42 U.S.C. § 247b–3 — Education, technology assessment, and epidemiology regarding lead poisoning

(a) Prevention (1) Public education The Secretary, acting through the CDC Director, must run a program to educate health professionals, paraprofessionals, and the general public on preventing lead poisoning in infants and children. The program must share information on the health effects of low-level lead toxicity, the causes of lead poisoning, and the primary and secondary preventive measures that can be taken. (2) Interagency Task Force (A) Not later than 6 months after October 27, 1992, the Secretary had to set up the Interagency Task Force on the Prevention of Lead Poisoning (called the "Task Force" in this paragraph), to coordinate federal agencies' efforts to prevent lead poisoning. (B) The Task Force is made up of: (i) the Secretary, who chairs it; (ii) the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; (iii) the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency; and (iv) senior staff each of those officials picks. (C) The Task Force must: (i) review, evaluate, and coordinate the members' existing strategies, including HHS's "Strategic Plan for the Elimination of Lead Poisoning" (dated February 21, 1991), HUD's "Comprehensive and Workable Plan for the Abatement of Lead-Based Paint in Privately Owned Housing" (dated December 7, 1990), and EPA's "Strategy for Reducing Lead Exposures" (dated February 21, 1991); (ii) build one combined implementation plan for federally funded lead-poisoning-prevention programs; (iii) set up a way for the agencies on the Task Force to share and spread information; (iv) identify the most promising areas of research and education on lead poisoning; (v) identify the practical and technological obstacles to expanding lead-poisoning prevention; (vi) every year, fully review federal programs that help prevent lead poisoning, and by May 1 of each year, send a report to the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, and the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, summarizing what it found and giving its recommendations on programs, policies, and budgets; and (vii) every year, review and coordinate federal departments' and agencies' budget requests for lead-poisoning-prevention activities. (b) Technology assessment and epidemiology The Secretary, acting through the CDC Director, must — directly or through grants or contracts — (1) help develop improved, more cost-effective tests for detecting lead toxicity in children; (2) help develop improved methods for assessing how common lead poisoning is, including methods that allow individual assessments for each State; (3) collect data on how often lead poisoning happens in infants and children, on the demographic characteristics (including race and ethnicity) of poisoned children, and on who pays for their treatment, including how much insurance has paid; and (4) fund any applied research needed to make lead-poisoning-prevention programs for infants and children more effective.