Plumbism reinvented: Childhood lead poisoning in France, 1985-1990

Although the history of childhood lead poisoning started a century ago in the United States, the first French cases were identified in 1985. Instead of merely adapting knowledge accumulated for decades, the public health professionals and activists involved had to reestablish, against incredulity from medical authorities and resistance from policymakers, all the evidence: that children were the main group concerned; that cases were not isolated but part of an epidemic; that wall paint in old, dilapidated apartments was the source of contamination; and that poor housing conditions, and not cultural practices, were responsible for the high incidence in African families. This "reinvention" illustrates more general sociological phenomena: discontinuities in medical history, strength of culturalist prejudices toward immigrants, resistance to socioeconomic interpretations of disease, and struggles between different perspectives in public health. The history shows that public health is the product of intellectual and political struggles to impose visions of the world.