A group of US senators has expressed concern to the US Army over revelations that lead paint in on-base Army housing has had life-changing medical consequences for young children living there.
Heavy metal inside an officer's house at Fort Benning, Georgia, where one Colonel J. Cale Brown served as a battalion commander, led to the metal poisoning of 10-month-old JC Brown, the young son of the colonel and his wife, Darlena.
Brown was required to reside on Fort Benning's premises as part of his military responsibilities in 2011, even though the couple owned another house nearby. The Browns' Fort Benning residence, which had housed infantry officers for eight decades, inflicted irreparable damage on the couple's child. About eight months after moving in, JC, then 18 months old, began waking up during the night in screaming fits, refused food and “stopped responding and lost most of his words,” according to an August 16 report by Joshua Scheneyer and Andrea Januta, writing for Reuters.
Medical professionals pondered for some 12 months whether JC was suffering autism, ear infections or colic. A blood test would eventually reveal abnormally high levels of lead. “He was disappearing into an isolated brain,” Darlena Brown said.
The house was managed by a contractor named Villages of Benning. After learning of JC's poisoning, the contractors ran tests and found 113 spots in the house where the paint contained lead. The Browns relocated…