mmm...lead sammiches.

Leslie

Leslie

Communistrator
Staff member
When 5-year-old Henry Smith sat down for his lunch at Berkeley's Monteverdi pre-school his mom was certain he was getting a healthy meal until she did a home test and found his Spiderman lunch box had lead in it, CBS News correspondent Sandra Hughes reports.

"I was angry and a little bit scared," Henry's mom Carolyn Rasby says. "His wonderful organic fruit was going in there. I put the fruit directly in here to avoid more packaging."

Julie Silas' daughter Ariana is Henry's classmate.

"I can't believe there might be lead in my kid's lunch box. After all we know about lead, why is that still being part of our products sold in the U.S.?" Silas asks.

The two moms found out about potential lead in children's soft vinyl lunch boxes after a local group called the Center for Environmental Health (CEH) did independent testing on the popular new lunch totes with faces of super heroes and pretty princesses. The group says two in 10 turned up positive for lead.

The Angela Anaconda lunch box has 90 times the federal limit for lead in painting on toys. "This one's the highest one," Micheal Green, CEH's executive director says.

What can concerned parents do? Home lead testing kits cost about $8 and are pretty easy to use. Crack it open, swab the lunch box. Pink means lead. If no color appears, no lead is present, Hughes explains.

The home testing kits flew off shelves at the nearby hardware store. But, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, a federal agency that regulates lead, says the home tests can be unreliable. It recently did its own testing of vinyl lunch boxes. They would not reveal how many lunch boxes they tested, but admit they did find levels of lead in some.

"We found consistently less than one microgram of accessible lead in these vinyl lunch boxes. That is not a toxic level and it is a low level," safety commission spokeswoman Patti Davis says.

The Center for Environmental Health counters that when it comes to children "no" amount of lead should be in a child's lunchbox.
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source

wtF


funnily enough, some of the symptoms of long-term low-level lead poisoning are...

Reduced IQ
Slowed body growth
Hearing problems
Behavior or attention problems
Failure at school
source

hmmmmmmmm....

anyway. Just wanted to post this for any other paranoid and irrational parents who may want to start using paper bags again.
 
Leslie said:
funnily enough, some of the symptoms of long-term low-level lead poisoning are...

Reduced IQ
Slowed body growth
Hearing problems
Behavior or attention problems
Failure at school
source

hmmmmmmmm....

anyway. Just wanted to post this for any other paranoid and irrational parents who may want to start using paper bags again.
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I smell a lawsuit...a well-earned lawsuit...but that's just me.
 
With the amount of lead we all grew up with (and asbestos and a host of other things), those side affects don't surprise me at all. It would explain a lot of things about a lot of people. ;)

Seriously though, we need these people to fly off the handle. 90 percent the "accepted" limit is, well, unacceptable. Would they have figured this out if these women didn't kick off a scare?

And you know what, ALL fruit should be organic and it shouldn't be as damn expensive as it is. Don't even get me started on the pesticide kick again. It's just cheaper and less time consuming to use pesticides, growth hormones, etc to have a better crop.

Consider all the things we are exposed to on a daily basis, the impurities and chemicals we ingest, and you could go mad thinking about it. But where does it stop? It won't until all our food is synthetic and "natural" and "organic" food costs an arm and a leg.

I really should get that veggie garden going next year. :eh:
 
Even those of us who serve pesticide laden fruits and Doritos would probably draw the line at lead, Gonz. :p

All 3 of my kids have that type of lunch bag/box...and I'm not too happy about this, really.

The lead in the dollar store crayons a couple years back was bad enough :eek:

I'm actually surprised at the names of the companies associated with this, and then again surprised that I was surprised and seem to have felt that I trusted in them.
 
Then move out of the city. Lead is everywhere. No, it shouldn't be in kids lunch boxes but hey, our kid had a plastic box & plastics are made from what? ;)

GF said:
ALL fruit should be organic and it shouldn't be as damn expensive as it is...
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The farmer has to feed & clothe his family. If growing organic apples cost him $1.48/bu but assisted apples cost $.98/bu & he gets more & larger from the assisted, it only makes sense. A bag of apples is still cheaper than a bag of Doritos.
 
I was out of the city. But I had to move back into it. :(

I know it's everywhere. However, I didn't really want to encase their food in it on a daily basis.

I too don't necessarily wrap the stuff I put in there, such as apples and the like. Not to save the packaging so much as to save money on the packaging.
 
Gonz said:
The farmer has to feed & clothe his family. If growing organic apples cost him $1.48/bu but assisted apples cost $.98/bu & he gets more & larger from the assisted, it only makes sense. A bag of apples is still cheaper than a bag of Doritos.
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Financially it makes sense, obviously. To pump chemicals into something that is supposed to be healthy and natural does not make sense to me. Thus, I go organic whenever possible. You have a veggie garden yourself, don't tell me that you don't see the benefit.
 
Think about it this way. You give your kids immunizations to protect them from disease. Putting their ham on white (which is deadly in & of itself) in a plastic baggie & then putting the baggie in a lead lined box is immunization against city poisoning ;)
 
You lost me on the "you give your kids" part. :shrug: Don't have 'em. :D


I think the Amish have it right. And the people in "The Village". ;)
 
greenfreak said:
You have a veggie garden yourself, don't tell me that you don't see the benefit.
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Self-preservation. Hell yea I grow my own. Just because I think it should be legal doesn't mean I agree with it.
 
So essentially you and I agree, you just think it should be available because farmers should be able to save money for their families? What do you think about the families of the rest of the world? That they should all have their own veggie gardens or spend more money on organic food?
 
Your child may also need to be screened for lead poisoning if he has any of the following risk factors that place him at risk for being exposed to lead.
  • Eats or chews on nonfood things, such as paint chips or dirt.
  • Has family members that work at a place or has a hobby that involves any of the following:
  • radiator repair
  • lead industry
  • welding
  • battery manufacture or repair
  • house construction or repair
  • smelting
  • chemical preparation
  • making pottery
  • going to a firing range
  • stained glass with lead solder
  • brass or copper foundry
  • valve and pipe fittings
  • bridge, tunnel and elevated highway construction
  • industrial machinery or equipment
  • casting ammunition, fishing weights or toy soldiers
  • refinishing furniture
  • burning lead painted wood
  • automotive repair shop
    Lives or plays near an area with any of the following:
  • smelter
  • hazardous waste site
  • lead industry
  • place where batteries are manufactured or repaired
  • house construction site
  • heavily traveled major highway
  • place where cars are abandoned or repaired
  • Consumes any of the following products:
  • medicines (especially home remedies) and other products imported from another country, including:
  • paylooah (pay-loo-ah), a fever and rash treatment in Southeast Asia.
  • azarcon (a Mexican treatment for intestinal blockage or 'empacho' that is 90% lead. Also called Maria Luisa, Liga, Alarzon, Greta, Coral and Rueda. It is a bright orange powder).
  • Asian folk remedies, including Ghasard (a brown powder used to aid digestion), Bali Goli (a round, flat black bean that is dissolved in water) and Kandu (a red powder used to treat stomachaches).
  • Middle Eastern folk remedies, including farouk (teething) and bint al zahab (colic).
  • Lozeena, an orange colored food coloring used in Iraq
  • nutritional pills other than vitamins, including calcium supplements from bonemeal and dolomite.
  • cosmetics like surma or kohl, which is available as a powder, gel or liquid, and is often applied to the eyelids in many Asian countries for medicinal or cosmetic reasons.
  • Lives in a home in which the plumbing has lead pipes, lead solder or lead containing holding tanks.
  • Eats foods that are cooked or stored in imported or glazed pottery.
  • Eats foods that are canned outside the United States.
  • Frequently chews on keys (which often contain small amounts of lead).
    Other lesser known sources of lead are:
  • curtain weights
  • some candles made outside of the United States
  • pewter figurines
  • lead sinkers used for fishing
  • lead soldiers and other collectible figurines
  • imported bead necklaces and costume jewelry, especially those with metallic cubes.
  • Immigrants and refugee children from developing countries, including Vietnam and Somalia, may be at increased risk for lead poisoning as reported in the article 'Lead Poisoning Among Refugee Children Resettled in Massachusetts, 1995-1999' from the July 2001 Pediatrics journal.

    You should see your doctor for a blood test to screen for lead poisoning if your children are at risk.
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Gonz said:
Hell yea I grow my own.
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What specifically do you grow anyway? My sister grew baseball bat squash last year, that stuff is insane the way it grows. I can't wait to have my own lawn, compost bin, garden... *dreams of being a homeowner*

Technically, your garden isn't organic either what with your use of pesticides. You might get less exposure by buying from the supermarket anyway. :p
 
GF said:
So essentially you and I agree, you just think it should be available because farmers should be able to save money for their families?
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Well, if they can't make a living farming, we all go hungry.

greenfreak said:
What do you think about the families of the rest of the world?
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Let them eat cake.

GF said:
That they should all have their own veggie gardens or spend more money on organic food?
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Choices.
 
greenfreak said:
What specifically do you grow anyway? My sister grew baseball bat squash last year, that stuff is insane the way it grows. I can't wait to have my own lawn, compost bin, garden... *dreams of being a homeowner*

Technically, your garden isn't organic either what with your use of pesticides. You might get less exposure by buying from the supermarket anyway. :p
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This year, one time, I applied herbicides. Never before & after seeing the results, never again. I also didn't grow anything this year.

I always grow tomatoes (seveal varieties), onions, tomatillos, peppers (several varieties), zucchini & cucumbers. I've grown brussel sprouts, cabbage, lettuce (several varieties), okra, summer squash, eggplant & I have a permanent asparagus spot. Corn is so prevalent here there's no point in growing it & the season isn't long enough for summer fruits (watermelon, etc).
 
The reason why farmers cannot make a living with fresh, traditionally grown produce is because supermarkets have artificially forced down prices to compete with each other, and thus the only farmers who can survive in such an environment are those who use intensive, modern processes.

However, they appear to be unsustainable in the long run, and we'll have to return to local, seasonal produce at some point.

It's always great to sample the food in countries like Italy where produce is still locally grown and sold in local markets, where the fruit and veg actually has flavour. I can't stand tomatos at home, but when I was in Croatia I couldn't get enough of fresh salads.
 
I have that (farmer's markets and buy it right off the field both) down the road...they don't wherever it is you are?
 
Farmers Markets, while great for variety, don't necessarily mean organic.
 
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