One reason seems to be that most people had no idea that this was even an issue. So kind of a "wait, what?" moment for a lot of folks.

From the original WSJ article:

>“A new, uncontrolled source of lead like old telephone cables may partly explain” why children continue to have lead in their blood, said Jack Caravanos, an environmental public-health professor at New York University, who assisted the Journal in its research. “We never knew about it so we never acted on it, unlike lead in paint and pipes.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/lead-cables-telecoms-att-toxic-...