Lead paint was banned to protect kids, not to expose them to radiation

Lead paint was banned for use in homes more than four decades ago. Still, one social media user is alleging the substance was banned not to protect children’s health, but because lead-painted homes would have protected people from wireless technology that has proliferated in recent years.

“Here’s an angle about lead paint you probably never thought of,” the narrator of a Facebook reel shared on April 6 begins. 

The narrator said when lead paint was banned, “they used the story of children eating chips of lead paint as a justification.” He suggested the real reason could be far more sinister — a telecommunications industry plot to expose people to dangerous radiation emitted by things such as 5G technology, cellphone towers and smart meters.

That radiation, he said, is something the lead paint would have otherwise blocked. The video’s narrator hints at a conspiracy between telecommunications companies and “other entities.” However, he doesn’t explain why those companies, which would stand to benefit from their customers being alive, would intentionally want to make them sick and hasten their demise.

The video is wrong on at least three counts:

• First, lead paint was banned for use in homes in 1978. That’s about two decades before Wi-Fi, or wireless technology, was used in American homes and well before things like smart meters and 5G, which is the fifth generation of wireless networks, existed.

• Second, lead paint wouldn’t offer much protection against radiation, as it doesn’t contain enough lead, experts said.

• And finally, there’s no conclusive evidence that wireless technology is causing health concerns in humans.

Why was lead paint banned?

Paint containing lead was initially banned in federally funding housing in 1971 and later in all residential buildings in 1978, though homes built before then may still contain lead paint. Debate about the dangers of lead paint had been happening decades earlier, with some cities and states attempting bans, according to The Atlantic.

Health officials said there is no safe level of lead in children’s blood and lead can cause damage to the brain and nervous system and slowed growth and development.

When lead-based paint peels or cracks, children may be exposed to lead by eating chips of paint or breathing in lead dust, the CDC said.

“Lead paint was banned from homes and gasoline because lead is incredibly chemically toxic,” said Emily Caffrey, a program director and health physics assistant professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. “It had nothing to do with trying to limit radiation exposure.”

Can lead paint block radiation?

A home covered in lead paint will not protect you from radiation, experts in radiation told PolitiFact.

Timothy Jorgensen, a professor of radiation medicine at Georgetown University, and author of the book, “Strange Glow: The Story of Radiation,” said there’s not enough lead in paint to offer protection. He said by comparison that the lead vests patients wear when getting dental X-rays have “millions of times the lead thickness compared with lead paint.”

Caffrey agreed. “Lead paint would not block most radiation; there just isn’t enough lead in the paint to be useful for that purpose,” she said. 

Kenneth Foster, a professor emeritus of bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania, said the speaker in the video may be confusing lead-based paint with radiofrequency shielding paint, which he said “contains carbon particles or other conductor and can provide some level of shielding if it is installed correctly.”

Is wireless technology dangerous?

Although some people have expressed concerns about radiation emitted from 5G and wireless technology, there’s no clear evidence linking either to health problems in humans, though research is ongoing.

For instance, smart meters — electronic devices that record a home’s consumption of electricity and water — give off radiofrequency radiation, as cellphones and other wireless devices do. That’s a form of non-ionizing radiation, which is not considered harmful, as we’ve reported in previous fact-checks.

The American Cancer Society said on a webpage that the risk of radiofrequency radiation exposure from smart meters, typically installed outside of a home, is much less than the risk for someone using a cellphone. Therefore, it said, it’s “very unlikely” that the meters would cause an increased cancer risk to someone. 

The American Cancer Society also said there’s “no strong evidence” to show exposure to radio frequency waves from cellphone towers causes any noticeable health effects, but that doesn’t mean they are safe. Most expert organizations, it said, agree more research is needed.

The World Health Organization said that while few studies have been done at frequencies used by 5G, it said, “no adverse health effect has been causally linked with exposure to wireless technologies.”

“Health agencies uniformly conclude that there are no proven health hazards of (radio frequency) energy within internationally accepted limits, including (Federal Communications Commission) limits,” said Foster.

Foster, who said cellphones are the dominant source of radio frequency exposure for most people, said some agencies recommend precautionary measures, such as using hands-free kits.

“A very few scientists argue that RF fields from cell base stations, Wi-Fi, etc. are actually hazardous but these are far outliers in the spectrum of expert opinion on the topic,” Foster said.

Foster said some people consider themselves to be “electromagnetically sensitive” and report symptoms from radio frequency energy exposure, but that “nobody has been able to link these symptoms with actual exposure in properly done, blinded studies.”

Our ruling

A Facebook post claimed that lead paint was not banned to protect children’s health, but may have been banned because the paint would have protected Americans from dangerous radiation emitted from 5G, cell phone towers and other wireless technology.

Lead paint was banned in homes in 1978 specifically to protect children from the toxic substance’s potential health harms. The ban came decades before wireless technology was widespread in the U.S. There’s no conclusive evidence that the nonionizing radiation emitted from the technology is causing health problems, and radiation experts said there wouldn’t be enough lead in lead paint to offer any radiation protection.

We rate the claim False.