Just an example of how lead can be anywhere...

[Former_Member]

I've been thinking a lot about this law lately -- not just its implications on small businesses like myself, but also the public policy that should be in place.

I, personally, feel the law has valid intent -- whether or not we grew up with lead and came out fine, the fact is that a lot of other children did not. I've heard some argue that a little lead isn't that bad and that they were fine... I disagree. There are quite a few smokers who don't develop lung cancer, but you won't hear people out there saying that a few cigarettes are ok or a little second-hand smoke is alright.

You want to hear a sad story?

A neighbor moved in a few months ago from a subdivision nearby. I saw a boy playing in her yard, so I went over to introduce myself and my son. She invited me inside and our two toddlers played while we had some coffee and introduced ourselves. Her son is around six months younger than my son and she explained that the reason they moved was that her son was diagnosed with lead poisoning.

Lead poisoning? From what?

From the tiles in her home. Apparently, the very act of her toddler dragging his blankie across the floor or lying on the floor, then putting his blankie/thumb in his mouth was enough to cause the lead poisoning (through ingestion). Only a very small amount of lead is necessary for irreversible problems to present themselves -- neurological defects, cardiovascular problems, etc.

Now, by saying that I'm not implying I support the law in its current form... It's to say that we really should take responsibility for this and buy only from suppliers who test, especially the imports from other countries. I was just reading how synthetic dyes from other countries have lead in them because they are cheaper to produce -- these dyes are used in the production of fabric. Especially in light of this, I feel it's the suppliers *responsibility* to test.

Also, if you have children... ask questions. Going to install tile? Ask the producer if their tile has lead in it -- do not assume that lead isn't in the tile, as it could have been imported from another country. Tile companies don't have to tell you if their item has lead in it until you ask them.

The last thing I'd ever want is to see a child damaged for the rest of their life because of lead poisoning, something that is ridiculously preventable.

Jen

Who is sad because of this and her aunt passing away.

[Former_Member]

That's terrible. I have been thinking about these new laws a lot lately. It concerns me since some of my family members have young ones and have either just moved into a new home or live in very old ones.

I will need to warn them and to have certain areas of their homes tested.

[Former_Member]

Thank you for the courage to post this.

Between lead, pythlate plasticisers the make vinyl and other plastics soft, and asbestos in basement floor tiles in older homes (pre-1980s), insulations, etc. I would be a wreak if I had had children. Or made things for children.

[PaperBloomsEtc]

aww jen thanks for the post. I am sorry to hear that your aunt passed. My condolences. I will keep your family in our prayers today. I do hope your neighbor's son will be ok. I do fear of lead as well. I have a similar view that it should be the makers of the yarn, fabric or what ever items that we craft with to test. Maybe it will be ruled that way.

[Former_Member]

Jen, I'm so sorry about your aunt. And I hope your neighbor's little boy will be alright.

[Former_Member]

That is a sad story and one that could have been prevented. I agree with you it is the suppliers responsibilty to make sure the product they are selling is safe for the public. Fabrics are not just bought by people who make and resale, they are bought and used in homes every day. They should be safe before anyone takes them into their home, for what ever reason they are going to be used for.

[Former_Member]

I was shocked by what she said... I really did labor under the delusion that lead laws were in place... but they only accounted for items produced in the United States.

The industry claims the lead is "unleachable," obviously that's a lie. It's just like the ADA saying amalgamated (amalgated?) fillings are safe because they don't release that much mercury when you chew. Right.

The old homes are scary -- I spoke with someone once who said that every time you put a nail in, or take one out, you're releasing lead into the air... even if you painted over the old paint with a new coat.

:(

Jen

Thanks, guys, for not crucifying me. :)

[Former_Member]

Crucify you? No, way!
Jen, you posted a very relevant story that we can all learn from.
I remember 15 years ago when my son was being tested for adhd and the first test was to rule out lead poisoning. I didn't live in an old house but the doctor said you'd be surprised. Fortunately (well sort of) it was adhd and not lead.

[Former_Member]

Sorry to hear abt your aunt and your neighbors little boy. I have not seen any posts from sellers that are not for this law. Of course saying that I am not on here all that much. It is a VERY important law but it needs to be reformed which I think we all can agree on. We all are out to protect our children! That should never ever be in doubt!

[Former_Member]

No! Crucifying! Lead poisoning is serious and something that is preventable, all of the public needs to be aware of this problem. Even if you don't make for children, kids touch everything in the home not just things made for them. The law needs modified to protect all of us and we as crafters, parents, grandparents, and caregivers need to be more aware of what we bring into our homes.

[Former_Member]

From all that I have read, no one is against controlling/banning lead. What we are fighting is the way the testing is being applied.

Lead is bad. Just eliminating if from items intended for children under 13 does not really protect our children. If Mom or Dad has a clothing item with buttons containing lead, the button comes off and the child finds it, the child is exposed. There are many examples where a child is exposed (if lead is present).

The law needs to be to restrict items sold here in the US containing high levels of lead and if it is present, clearly labeled on the front of the packaging. The testing needs to be done at the source - created (supplies) or imported. Not at the final assembly point. So fabric, yarn, buttons, zippers, paints, etc would be safe to use

[Former_Member]

Definitely lead poisoning is a serious issue! I cringe every time I hear the argument that "we didn't have xyz and we all turned out ok"

Minimizing the importance of lead laws isn't helpful, it completely undermines our credibility with those who have the power to change the law.

Thanks for your story!

[Former_Member]

This is a bit off topic as far as lead goes but my sister had just moved into a new construction home about 8 months ago and almost immediately had to move out because of the DRYWALL! It was imported from China and contained some chemical that made all of the metal in the house begin to corrode and gave her horrible headaches. It just seems scary that poisons are all around us. We can be careful, but as long as quality is compromised in favor of cost effectiveness nothing will be truly safe.

[Former_Member]

I heard a similar story from a friend about HER new neighbor, whose daughter has lead poisoning. Apparently even though all commercial and public watersystems had the old lead pipes torn up and replaced that didn't mean all the piping in their hundred year old home had. Now the interior plumbing was new copper pipes, but there was a water spicket in their backyard, which still had lead pipes attached to it....
so sad to hear that your Kitchen tile might not be safe

[Former_Member]

I would like to point out something said in the original post that I believe is false.

I sat through watching that hour and a half meeting at the CPSC with public testimony from different groups and their scientists reporting their testing results and attesting to the fact that there is NO LEAD IN FABRIC. You can watch the meeting for yourself here:

http://www.cpsc.gov/vnr/asfroot/apparel01222009.asx

Copying a post over from Fashion Incubator by one who attended the meeting herself (I find her explanation of how the scientists TRIED to make a dye with lead and failed much better than anything I could type on one cup of coffee):

Charlotte said: "I attended the meeting yesterday at CSPC with the American Apparel & Footwear Assn, the primary purpose of which seemed to be to lobby CSPC to exclude textiles as a whole from component testing. Not nearly broad enough in my mind, but then I was simply a peon there to observe.

There was a very interesting presentation by a scientist from the Hosiery Technology Center. (Please forgive me if I use the wrong terminology. I'm a retailer, not a manufacturer/dyer/scientist.)

They actually tried to use some very old dye formulas that used lead as mordants to try to infuse lead into a product, a square of sock material which they dyed with bright red (British redcoat) dye. They only found two of these old time formulas in all the books they checked, one of which at the end of the process left lead out of the product but as a separate compound in the bottom of the beaker (they were lab geeks...) They found inconsequential amounts of lead in the unwashed red-dyed product and none in the once-washed product.

The second formula they used was apparently abandoned in factories years ago, not because it presented a lead risk to consumers, but because it presented a lead risk to the factory workers who used it. This one yielded the same results -- no lead in the finished product, which they passed around in a baggie and all of us handled. As they explained, using lead as a mordant to help set the dye was very unsuccessful, because the control sample, using the same dye without the mordant, was much better.

For what it's worth...tossed into the discussion of dyes and textiles and testing....

I suspect, based on the other discussions that I heard yesterday, specifically that of Coats and Clarks related to dyeing of yarn, that if products are failing via XRF technology, it may either be impurities in the dyes that would likely wash out or something else in the garment that is causing them to fail."

http://www.fashion-incubator.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=24090#24090

More discussion of this meeting at Fashion Incubator:
http://www.fashion-incubator.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=4389&view=next&sid=7a314dd8ef54c2bce1022f7e7f...

[Former_Member]

The really sad thing is that the CPSIA won't do a single thing to change the fact that floor tile with lead in it is being imported. I think that's where the emphasis should be, on more stringent importing laws for everything including supplies, not on children's products.

[Former_Member]

Whimbrella, thanks for listing that. I've read that the lead issue with children is mainly with infants to toddlers, cause they stick things in their mouths and are closer to the floor where the dust from crumbled lead paint would be. I've watched 'This Old House' on pbs and they would go into older homes and remove the trim or remove the lead paint on the trim up to like 4 feet, think that's what it was. Of course , while wearing masks and there are paint removers specifically for lead paint and use a wet cleanup method. Especially, in an older home, pre mid 1970's, one would need to watch for chipping paint and practice good housekeeping.

[Former_Member]

hmmmm...

When my husband and I moved into our first apartment together, we were broke and expecting a baby. Our apartment was built in the 1950s and the manager had us sign a paper basically saying that we had been informed of the possibility of lead(we live in CA and therefore its mandatory due to prop 65 that they have to make people aware) Well, we didn't think anything of it at the time and eventually we moved because not only was the place crime ridden but bug infested as well and I am even more afraid of bugs than drive-by shootings.

Looking back I can't help but think about the kids that still live in those apartments. As in most lower income areas there were ALOT of kids. Sidenote: perhaps environmental concerns such as lead contamination may be one of the reasons that many lower income school districts have a greater pool of students who test poorly on standardized tests.

Now we live in a condo in the burbs, well I am finding that there ends up still being a risk of environmental health concerns such as lead due to building materials. The subdivisions around our little place are going up quickly. What once was an issue directly relative to economic class is now becoming a larger issue of geo-political diplomacy---"I don't want to piss off country XYZ so I'll turn my head from their lax enviromental and manufacturing standards"

I was thinking along those lines this morning because I just got a new sewing machine--a Singer. Singer has been considered the best in my family for generations...but this morning I wondered what I would find once I opened the box because Singer was the best ...when it was still made stateside. Now I'm not advocating a closed door policy, after all European countries still make some of the best products ever BUT how are you going to expect a developing country to make a top notch product up to all of the health and quality specifications of a industrialized nation when that country often times cannot even assure a clean drinking water infrastructure ---after all, its not just China that's a concern. Think about places like Bangladesh, that is an extremely poor country---the average person makes less than a dollar a day, the country itself has a decaying power grid, and their entire healthcare infrastructure is beyond failing...then the people go to work for Gap to make $50 kid jeans and we wonder why the rivets are coming off in our baby's mouths...its common sense in the final analysis. Why are we trying to make products in places where we can't even drink their water?--and I don't mean we don't want too because we have pricey bottled water instead but we actually can't because we'll become deathly ill. Bizarre.

[Former_Member]

I have a friend with a 12 year old autistic daughter that tends to put a lot of stuff in her mouth all the time.
I am not sure if the writers of this law thought of kids with disabilities that are 12 & older.

Anyway thanks for all the info.

[ElisaAlvarado]

I knew a family that the kids got lead poisoning from the clothing that their stained glass artist parents wore. The parents worked at a stained glass studio outside the home but did not change clothes before they came home. They would come home and hold the kids, pick them up etc. and the fumes & lead from working with the stained glass was on their clothes and poisoned the kids.

[Former_Member]

I think we can all come up with stories where children have been injured from Lead. I don't disagree. But, we need to police ourselves and this law is too broad. Also, we have laws on the books for paints and dyes that already ban lead. We as manufacturers have to be diligent in making sure that the products we use have been tested. I believe that the AP Seal stating that paints are without lead should be good enough for the legislators.

[Former_Member]

Maybe textiles are not printed with lead paint but I found this:
http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml09/09059.html
it says surface paints which I'm not really sure what that means but who's to say other fabric is not being manufactured or treated like this? I hate seing this because where I thought I was safe using fabrics, maybe I'm not. I found that info on this website if anyone wants to look at other recalls
http://www.uchd.com/news01recallproductsafety.htm

[Former_Member]

I don't think any of us doubt the validity of lead poisoning, or it's sad effects on families. What we do doubt is the validity of the need for testing inherently lead free items, or of requiring testing for a finished product even when each component is already certified to be lead free, or the validity of the gvernment saying that as a parent I no longer can be trusted to make the right decision and to buy or not buy the right toys or books for my children.

[Former_Member]

great post, thanks so much

[Former_Member]

I strongly resent the implications being foisted on the American public that EVERYTHING is dangerous. Everything is NOT dangerous.

The mounting hysteria this causes just feeds the fire for more government intrusion in our lives. Don't help it.