Lead abatement advocates faced with new challenges.

Huge challenges await lead-poisoning-prevention advocates in 2003, including "big picture" reshifting, such as new holistic ways to ensure healthy homes, funding battles and paint-can labeling.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently estimated the number of children between 1 and 5 with blood-lead poisoning in a survey conducted in 1999 and 2000 to be 300,000, which is a dramatic drop from 890,000 in a 1991-1994 survey (see related story, p. 5).

While that is good news, some advocates are wondering whether the law of diminishing returns is at play. Traditional lead ...