Toxic Trinkets - Tribune Investigation Uncovers Lead In Children's Trinkets

By MARY SHEDDEN The Tampa Tribune

Published: Jun 24, 2007

They're an irresistible buy: cheap children's jewelry and toy trinkets, lining the shelves of some of the nation's best-known retailers.

And though consumers snap up these adorable items by the millions, retailers love them even more. They cost little to make overseas and can be highly profitable.

But such trinkets are exposing America's children to potentially lethal levels of lead, a cheap bonding agent.

The Tampa Tribune conducted an investigation of stores and federal regulations aimed at protecting consumers from such hazardous products. It found:

One in three children's trinkets bought randomly in Bay area stores last month contained a level of lead considered a serious health risk to children younger than 6. Two pieces were purchased after in-house or national recalls of the toxic products had been issued, but items remained on local store shelves.

Health officials, government regulators and retailers say there's no foolproof system to keep lead-tainted products out of stores, given inconsistent and lax quality controls at overseas factories.

About 9 million pieces of children's jewelry have been recalled since 2006, but an understaffed and underfunded U.S. consumer regulatory agency has failed to fine a U.S. retailer or distributor for selling jewelry containing toxic levels.

Blame the flood of potential danger on an expanding global marketplace. U.S. retailers satisfy vast consumer demand for cheap products by buying untested, unlabeled items made in places such as China and India, where safety standards are lax. China is the source of 60 percent of recent food, toy and other product recalls — including the recent recall of Thomas the Tank Engine trains decorated with lead paint. Other products from China, including ingredients in pet food and toothpaste, have recently been recalled.

Children's jewelry is particularly perilous, child advocates say. Sold in vending machines, discount stores and high-end stores, the items' flashiness can be irresistible for children, who often place them in their mouths and absorb the toxin into their systems.

"This is so pervasive that parents just don't understand that lead could be ingested from these products," said T. Allen Merritt, a California pediatrician and professor who has treated patients poisoned by children's jewelry.

"You can't blame the parents. For 50 cents, they ended up getting something that costs them thousands of dollars."

To determine the accessibility of lead-tainted trinkets for children, the Tribune bought 50 metallic items at 12 Bay area retailers. Tests were conducted using methods previously used by researchers at Ashland University in Ohio.

The purchasing criteria: The products were inexpensive, attractive to children and made in China.

Tests were conducted by Environmental Hazards, an independent lab in Richmond, Va., used by the Hillsborough County Health Department for lead testing.

The test found 19 products, or 38 percent, contained at least 0.06 percent lead by weight, one of two thresholds used by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission to trigger a federal recall. Fifteen of the items contained more than four times the acceptable lead content.

These products, however, may not be subject to recall. The commission considers a recall based on independent, two-part lab tests that check for lead and absorption, the level at which lead rubs off when touched or ingested. However, the test used by the Tribune is being considered as the lone benchmark for banning lead in children's jewelry.

The cheapest of the toxic items — 50-cent vending machine trinkets — were joined by products costing $1 to $6.99: key chains, bracelets, glittery hair clips, cute charms for backpacks and necklace sets.

The items that failed the tests came from eight of the 12 locations the Tribune visited. They were bought at places such as closeout retailers, a flea market and even a popular accessory store in Tampa's International Plaza.

The findings closely mirrored results of similar tests conducted twice in the past year by Ashland University chemistry Professor Jeff Weidenhamer. His research looking for lead in children's jewelryÖ has since been published in scientific journals and led to three product recalls.

The most toxic item in the Tribune investigation: a colorful $1.59 beaded necklace with butterfly charms from a Bealls Outlet in St. Petersburg. The delicate pink, blue and green trinket marketed under the Bejeweled brand contained 70 percent lead, the test found.

Retailers that responded to interview requests said they often rely on vendors or third parties to conduct lead tests before products hit the market. Some said they ask vendors to provide documentation that they have tested a random sample of a product.

Officials at Bealls Outlet recently identified the Bejeweled necklace as a potential lead hazard and issued an internal recall to its 470 stores, said Bill Webster, director of sales promotion for the stores owned by Bradenton-based Bealls.

Webster said the vendor, Shalom International of New Jersey, had assured Bealls Outlet that the overseas manufacturing met U.S. standards. Further discussions, however, revealed that Shalom relied on written statements from Chinese importers as the only guarantee the necklaces were lead-free. Someone along that communication chain lied, Webster said.

"When there's a law, you expect people to follow it down the line," he said. "Obviously, you can't have a lab [testing every product] in your receiving area."

Dollar General, which sold five of the 19 products surpassing the 0.06 percent lead content test, said two matching items had passed previous third-party tests following current federal guidelines. The others will now undergo similar review.

One of the Dollar General products — a colorful key chain and charms — had been the subject of a national recall before the Tribune's investigation. Company officials said that although photos of the item looked like the recalled key chain, the product code did not match. They were unsure how the item remained available a month after its April 3 recall.

"The item you purchased may very well be the recalled item and not one of the items we tested," Dollar General spokeswoman Tawn Earnest said.

The company said its third-party studies used the current federal guidelines — the lead content test and an absorption analysis.

"It is inappropriate to conclude noncompliance based on the Tribune's findings," Earnest said, referring to the test that was based on proposed standards. "That said, Dollar General is committed to being in compliance."

Retailers, distributors and manufacturers should stop assigning blame elsewhere and keep dangerous products from the flow of commerce, said Merritt, of Loma Linda University School of Medicine.

"Either these companies don't know or don't admit they know these products contain lead," he said. "There's this whole chain of events that ends with a child or their parent buying these things without knowing it contains lead."

The Federal Hazardous Substances Act, which bans children's jewelry found to cause "substantial illness," governs the content of children's jewelry sold in the United States. The law does not prevent manufacturing of the products. Instead it bans the sale of such items if they fail the government's tests for lead content and absorption.

This rule, however, has little effect on imported toys and trinkets. U.S. authorities can't look at the products until they arrive in huge cargo shipments.

Concerns that overseas plants use lax and inconsistent manufacturing standards prompted the safety commission director to visit China several weeks ago, agency spokesman Scott Wolfson said.

Even retailers acknowledge the system isn't fail-safe in keeping lead-tainted products for children out of the country.

"With all the merchandise that's coming from China, I wouldn't tell anyone that you can be 100 percent certain of anything" being lead-free, said Webster of Bealls Outlet. "That would be for us or any other American retailer."

It has been nearly three decades since the United States banned lead in house paint — the most widely known source of lead poisoning in children. Since 2001, 310,000 American children younger than 6 have been diagnosed with dangerous levels of lead in their bodies, triggering developmental, behavioral and other serious health problems.

Although federal, state and local prevention campaigns focus attention on lead paint in older homes, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates as many as 30 percent of the poisonings stem from other sources, including toys and novelty jewelry.

The presence of lead in children's jewelry has quietly gained the attention of advocates and consumers. In 2005, the Sierra Club and other groups challenged the government and manufacturers to address the quality of these products, which have been tied to the death of a Minneapolis child and other confirmed poisonings across the country.

"Why are these products making it to the shelves in the first place?" said Alexa Engleman, of the Center for Environmental Health, an advocacy group that sued 71 California retailers for selling jewelry containing lead. A settlement last year led to voluntary manufacturing standards by the retailers and triggered a stringent California law.

Illinois passed similar legislation, but Florida and most other states have not.

In the past year, the safety commission has ramped up efforts to find lead-based children's jewelry and has issued a record number of recalls.

Since January, 18 products have been the subject of voluntary recalls, targeting 6.8 million pieces of jewelry from retailers, including Limited Too, Juicy Couture, Claire's and Kmart. That's about 4.5 million more pieces than were recalled in 2006.

"It's on the front burner," the safety commission's Wolfson said of the enforcement that includes the consideration of a stronger ban. "Our investigators are pulling items off the shelf. We are testing."

As Hillsborough County's self-described "lead lady," Cynthia O. Keeton knows how the toxic metal can devastate children and families. In the past 13 years, she has worked with at least four children whose lead poisoning was linked to children's jewelry. She suspects many others were exposed the same way.

One, a 3-year-old girl who cherished a Catholic saint charm necklace, couldn't understand why she was scolded for placing the charm in her mouth, Keeton said. Health department tests showed the girl's blood contained double the acceptable levels of lead.

"She actually cried when we took it from her," Keeton said.

This family, as well as other Hillsborough County families treated by the health department, declined requests for interviews by the Tribune.

The Centers for Disease Control warns that ingesting lead can lead to learning disabilities, behavioral problems and, in some cases, seizures, coma and death. Keeton and others consider lead an invisible killer because its effects often are masked, appearing as disruptive behavior.

"It's a definite known damager of the brain," said David Berger, a Tampa pediatrician who specializes in holistic treatments for children with autism and metal toxicity. In the past five years, he has treated more than 1,000 children — about two-thirds of whom have elevated levels of metal in their bodies.

Although the CDC acknowledges there is no safe level of lead for a child's body, government agencies don't require treatment until a child's blood surpasses 10 micrograms of lead per deciliter. Keeton equates that amount to sprinkling a packet of sugar sweetener in a room, with some particles landing on one child.

Pinpointing the source of lead poisoning in children is often difficult. The way children's jewelry and other products, such as lunchboxes and baby bibs, are used can make it impossible to identify or rule them out as a sole source of lead.

Also, overseas manufacturers make inexpensive trinkets with an inconsistent mix of metals, a testament to lax manufacturing standards, said Mary Jean Brown, the CDC director of lead poisoning prevention.

As a result, a batch of jewelry tested and deemed safe could be drastically different from identical products produced in the same factory a day later.

"Even the importers and the large corporations don't know what's in them," Brown said.

Weidenhamer said his research shows many of the imports he tested indicated that scrap metal, including electronics parts, was being used to make the jewelry.

That unknown danger is what one Tampa couple suspect caused their son's severe lead poisoning and a possible misdiagnosis of autism.

A year ago, Rob and Lisa Breakiron felt trapped in their home with their young son. Noah was unable to speak or interact with another child without triggering painful, piercing screams and tantrums.

A blood test seven months ago revealed that the 4-year-old was carrying 32 micrograms of lead in his system — triple the acceptable level.

Noah has responded dramatically to treatment that leaches lead from his system. He has started speaking, is potty trained and enjoys playing with other children. Leaching lead from a child's system can sometimes take years and may reduce the presence of lead only to nondangerous levels, health experts say.

As happens in many cases, the Breakirons and the boy's pediatrician are unable to pinpoint the source of lead. The family's Tampa home, soil, toys and other environmental factors tested lead-free. They now suspect a bath toy discarded long ago was the source.

"It's very disheartening to think we may have purchased something [toxic] for him. It might have been a gift from somebody," Rob Breakiron said. "You never know what you're buying. … You just can't see lead. I would have never thought of it."

Federal agencies and retailers are aware of the danger of lead jewelry. During the past three years, a 4-year-old Minneapolis boy who swallowed a lead-tainted Reebok bracelet charm has died, and a 4-year-old in Oregon who swallowed a vending machine trinket developed near-fatal poisoning.

These high-profile cases are in part responsible for the recent increase in recalls and the safety commission's pending request to toughen its lead content standards for children's jewelry. They also prompted the CDC, the safety commission and other agencies to convene a federal task force, though no formal recommendations have been issued.

Voluntary recalls remain the federal government's only active enforcement of violations of U.S. lead content and absorption standards. The safety commission also can issue up to $1.8 million in penalties to importers, distributors or retailers, but the agency hasn't fined any companies for lead content in jewelry.

Foremost on the safety commission's agenda are ongoing recalls and the pending proposal to ban all children's jewelry containing 0.06 percent or more lead. Since December, more than 200 pages of public comments, corporate feedback and government analysis have been submitted. There is no timeline for a decision.

Regardless, consumers wanting the government and retailers to catch every toxic piece of jewelry headed to stores may play an endless waiting game. As it is, recalled items could float around in toy boxes and be resold at garage sales for years.

For someone such as Keeton, Hillsborough's lead prevention expert, the only way to keep children healthy is for buyers to avoid anything they aren't 100 percent sure is safe.

"No lead should be in a child's body," she said. "It's a silent killer."

Reporter Mary Shedden can be reached at mshedden@tampatrib.com or (813) 259-7365.