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85 per cent of childrens drinks contain lead exceeding federal limits
It’s a little hard to swallow: more than 85 percent of kids’ drinks contain so much lead they may exceed federal limits for young children. Both organic and conventional juices were among the lead-tainted products, according to the Environmental Law Foundation, a Bay Area-based environmental nonprofit that used a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency certified lab to test 400 samples of 150 products marketed to kids.
Of 146 products, 125 were contaminated with enough lead in a single serving to require a warning label under California’s Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, which is also known as Prop. 65.
Besides juices in flavors like apple and grape, the products included fruit cocktail mixes, packaged pears and peaches and some baby food, according to Inhabitots.com.
The Environmental Law Foundation has sent notices to law enforcement officials as well as to manufacturers, retailers and distributors of the lead-tainted products, asking that they begin to comply with Prop. 65 or to place “clear and reasonable warnings” on the food packages.
Excessive lead exposure can cause anemia, hearing damage, behavioral problems, learning disabilities and a host of other problems in children, according to the Mayo Clinic.
For a list of the products in the study please go the following link.
There are a couple of things that aren’t clear to me after reading the article, so I’m hoping for follow-up. Is the lead getting into the juice & fruits because of the packaging? The list is horrifyingly long, but it doesn’t give detail as to what the product is in (ie plastic, can, glass). Or is the lead somehow getting into the food where it’s being packaged? All of those companies can’t be getting their food from the same source, can they?
Also, has the Environmental Law Foundation been testing for a while & this is a recent finding, or was this the first time they tested & this was the result. Either way, it’s quite alarming and people need to know.
Thanks for this, but more information please!
fight back! buy NO packaged products. Get the lead out now. Use the money you save to buy a food processor and a juicer and invest in your family’s health and the planet’s future with a commitment to all our future of organic vegan lifestyle. Yes, according to Dr. James Hansen the grandfather climatoligist on global warming, the simple biggest thing we can do as far as personal lifestyle is become a vegitarian to reduce methane from cows. While you’re at it increase your intake of raw plant based nourishment till you enjoy this healing choice 100% good life and love to you, yours and us all!
This is unacceptable! Not only do parents have to worry about their children being exposed to harmful chemicals in the products they use in their homes, they also have the worries that they will be feeding their children chemicals too! It is very clear that manufacturers have chosen profit over consumer safety, and that should make consumers extremely mad and willing to do something about it! Consumers, stand together and demand that these manufacturers do something about it. I have already taken steps to lessen the chemical burden in my home, you can too!
Something like this needs more source information, when and where was this study done?
I read the article, it was disturbing, but there was no link to follow for the list of products.
We will start to see Alzheimer’s disease in 30 year old’s.
Simple solution: Stop buying and eating processed “food.” Manufacturers will get the message.
Cleanse lead and other toxic metals from body (yes this can be done).
Eliminate other lead sources (air, paint, etc.) from home. Eliminate as many sources of toxic chemicals as possible from one’s home & life.
That’s crazy! Yes, I agree we should not buy so many packaged products. And who needs packaged juices anyway. Eat fruit, drink water; we should get most of our liquid needs from our food. But I want my meat too. God put the animals here for us and one reason for them is to eat them. Their by-products make good soil to grow our vegetables and fruits. It is the life circle. The problem is that we way overdo everything. Mass production is our worst enemy; it turns everything good to bad!
I just have one question!!!!!!!!!!!!
Why is lead allowed in any food product??????????????
Anything we ingest should be COMPLETELY free of lead.
I’m sure, due to the prior study done at Mayo, the lead comes from methyl mercury found in the processing process of HFSC.
Yes there is, at the very end of the article, where it says, “For a list of the products in the study please go the following link.” The word link is underlined & when you put your mouse over it, you can click on it to go to the list. It’s there, trust me, and you will be very surprised to see many organic companies and others that you’ve always assumed were safe, even baby food. This is very sad. The organization that did the testing has a website of their own with further information. I couldn’t leave this alone & had to do some research. I wanted to believe it wasn’t true, but unfortunately it is. I want this to hit national news & hope it does very soon.
How do you explain the high lead levels in the organic (and I assume non HFCS-containing) juices? This is terrifying!
I simply don’t purchase or drink these products. I don’t buy into the organics because I don’t believe they are really organic. If there is more than a USDA organic seal, then MAYBE, and only MAYBE are they partially organic. Just because a farm is organic doesn’t mean his neighbor is. If his neighbor crop dusts his crops, it’s like second hand smoke. We drink water as lame and boring as that sounds and we filter it and hope for the best. Also, the article is not clear, but I do know that chemicals used in packaging do not require an FDA label or warning. Perhaps they are packing the juice boxes in lead based cartons and BPA laced plastics. Everything is bad and I say, pick your poison. We aren’t ever going to escape them all, we can simply try to eliminate them whenever we find them.
Good luck.
Unfortunately, this cannot be taken seriously.
Using EPA’s “rigged” standards as a reference destroys good businesses and their products. In fact, Mother Nature can’t pass EPA standards because good organic produce gets rained on by lead-containing rain that will give it more than 0.5 mcg. Read on…..
California EPA (Prop 65) standards for lead were set up to be so tremendously low that they would allow bounty hunter lawyers the ability to sue companies and make blood money.
For instance, the EPA standard for lead in multivitamins AND in these foods — is 0.5 mcg per day. Since FDA says that four ounces of shrimp contain 23 mcg, 4 oz of brussel sprouts contains 7.9 mcg, and FDA says it is safe for drugs to contain 10 mcg per medium size 1,000 mg tablet, EPA standards are nonsense.
FDA says that its Safe and Tolerable Daily Diet Lead Intakes (PTTI) for naturally occurring lead for children is 15 mcg because 150 mcg is known to cause health problems.
EPA standards were set up by lawyers to establish standards so low that bounty hunter lawyers would be able to make money for years to come by finding all the lawsuits they could launch against good companies who have to pay them to get rid of them. This goes against all American notions of free enterprise and good business practices.
Further, FDA’s standards are far lower than the World Health Organization’s. So, when you read the WHO’s data, FDA’s data looks a little nutty.
I wrote a comprehensive fully-referenced analysis of this available at: <a href=http://michaelmooney.net/Lead_In_Vitamins.pdf.
Michael Mooney
http://www.michaelmooney.net
This article is disturbing. We think things that our kids drink and eat are safe but really are not. I read the list of products that are affected and am a bit confused. The heading states “one or more” of the items contain lead. But which ones? A list of 12-15 may only contain 1 lead-containing product. It would really help if the exact ones that contain the lead are identified from the others listed.
Please read my post. Lead is not an issue, when it is naturally occurring in the tiny amounts found.