Employing the same contingency-fee law firm used by other states' attorneys general to prosecute tobacco companies, Rhode Island filed a lawsuit against former manufacturers of lead paint. The suit claims the companies should pay to strip paint off all potentially contaminated walls in the state, fund a "public education campaign" on the dangers of lead paint, and reimburse the state for any medical costs incurred on behalf of children who may have suffered harm from exposure.

All this, despite the fact that paint companies voluntarily stopped marketing lead paint for interior use in the 1950s, while the federal government did not ban it until 1978. To counter this problem, the state is offering a conspiracy theory: that former manufacturers already knew their product was harming children in the 1920s and 1930s while they continued to sell it. It was not until 1949 that Baltimore health officials narrowed many regional lead poisoning problems in children to flaking paint. Average blood lead levels have fallen over 90 percent in the past two decades, also due to the removal of lead from gasoline, food, and food containers.

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