Posted on 12/01/2010 10:22:12 PM PST by LucyT
Research reported recently by the Associated Press found that lead and cadmium were present in cartoon character drinking glasses. Now a new study has found that many other items available for purchase throughout the United States – such as toys, home décor items, salvage, kitchen utensils and jewelry – contain surface lead concentrations more than 700 times higher than the federal limit.
(Excerpt) Read more at physorg.com ...
[snip]
It was possible to purchase an item that contained lead in every single store the researchers visited.
I guess I better not eat any jewelry or antique toys then.
I’ve heard this tune many times. Always a new “crisis” which the media is only to happy to breathlessly report. Always as a pretext for yet another federal power grab.
this is a good world but we are never going to be completely safe from everything .....
even our soil can be dangerous in certain circumstances....
but surprise!.....our lifespans continue to lengthen as well as our quality of life....
These people are morons. I read the entire article, and it talks about antique toys being particularly attractive to children.
Two things: They were originally played with by CHILDREN...and since we often sell them when they come out of the Estates of the original owners (or in the case of a true antique, the owner’s children), obviously either this did not pose a long term risk...or children back then were not halfwits who chewed on their painted metal toys.
Secondly, since these types of toys can command upwards of many thousands of dollars, and the sale price is 100% predicated upon condition, they are display pieces. No one is TOUCHING them, let alone playing with them.
Oh no! After typing my first post, I just remembered that I have my Dad’s metal late 1940’s Wyandotte truck sitting on the top of my china cabinet; along with an early 50’s metal top!
What should I do...do you guys think I should call HAZMAT? I’m scared to go to bed knowing that such poison is lurking in my house!!
I grew up handling lead — electronic solder. Still have a fair amount of it around. I also had cadmium and mercury at various times.
I should not be alive, huh?
Do these idiots know that in many cities lead drinking water pipes or those that contain lead exist and always will?
We just can't have nice things anymore!
Half my house is furnished with antiques. The vast majority of my kitchen is hand me downs from the 40s and 50s. I've eaten out of that very casserole bowl or it's green and yellow cousins every day for the past mumble-mumble decades and I haven't died yet. I'm drinking hot chocolate right now out of an old chipped pottery mug. What, no more second hand stores?!? But what about being greeeeen?!? I didn't see in that article that half of all mothers' milk contains cancerous cells that are being passed along to their babies. A couple days ago there was a thread here about toxins in our Thanksgiving dinners. Oh, the humanity!
BS!
Would that metal top have a red wooden handle and is painted with red, yellow, blue, and have white stars? I still have mine and I passed it down to my kids. And you know what? It doesn’t have any teethmarks on it and the paint, except for the bottom where it spins, is still in excellent shape.
Every time a story like this comes out, we always laugh about playing with the little balls of mercury from broken thermometers.
You should start a “were all gonna die” ping list.
Gosh, remember all the lead based paints, and I remember kids
chewing on those paint chips. As babygene pointed out, drinking water use to flow in lead pipes.
What about Mercury? I remember how mush fun it was to roll those little balls of mercury, and coat coins with it to make them sooo shinny.
Yup...blue, yellow, and red with a red wooden handle. Only mine (Dad’s) has an airplane theme. I played with that many times as a kid at Grandma’s house.
Many of the older toys are little pieces of artwork...these stories just infuriate me; particularly in light of the fact that they don’t spend their time on the adulterated products that are currently arriving every day on containers.
;)
Oh No! I’m doomed.
I’m an old plumber who worked with lead pipe, lead caulked joints, lead bearing solder, etc.
No wonder I can’t seem to lose weight - I’m full of lead.
I wonder if I’d set off the alarms at a TSA checkpoint?!?
When a grade schoolchild ,I often made fake dimes by rubbing copper pennies in mercury in my hand taken from broken thermometers. As an adult I worked with mixing things in PCBs. Not that I now advise for such actions , but I survived service in WWII and see no lingering or deadly health effects and my doctors have not informed me of such.
Ohh, and don’t forget, if you break one of those stupid CFL bulbs, you are to immediately call the fire department HAZMAT team to come and waste thousands of bucks to clean up a few tiny grains of mercury...What a joke.
Paint chips? Do you mean “wall candy”?
This sounds like a pretext to having you turn in all of your old unsafe consumer goods for nice shiny new government approved consumer goods, guaranteed not to put your eye out.
CFL bulbs, when burned out, go in my garbage can and are replaced with good old fashioned incandescent bulbs.
So far, I don’t think we have and CFL cops patrolling our neighborhoods. Now water-cops is another story.
Just live and enjoy your life. I don’t want to die by spending my life afraid of dying...todays expert is tomorrows snake oil salesman...
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