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Lead Safe Lunch

The Quick Facts: In July 2006, the Food and Drug Administration issued a letter to lunch box manufacturers warning them that lunch boxes lined with polyvinyl chloride (PVC) (the soft vinyl lining that help retain a cool temperature) may contain dangerously high levels of lead that could rub off on the food stored inside. As a result, many lunch box manufactures have eliminated the use of lead in their products and some large retail chains will not sell lunch boxes made with PVC. While some states have taken the initiative to legislate the issue, the only sure-fire way to be certain your child’s lunch container is safe is from lead is to be aware of the issue and purchase only items that have a clear indication of safety.

When my oldest child started pre-school choosing a lunch box was a big deal. For my daughter, owning her own lunch box symbolized the passage into “big kidhood.” We paused momentarily to consider if we should choose a pink one with princesses on it or one that I thought would be just a bit “cooler.” Not long after that, my place of employment issued a warning that one of the goodies they had given us in the past, an insulated lunch box with our company’s logo on it, may contain lead. As I examined my company’s blacklisted lunch bag, I realized that it bore a striking resemblance to the lunch box that I successfully talked my daughter into choosing. I never thought that I could be putting my child in harms way by making such a seemingly innocent purchase. I decided then that I had better learn more about the issue.

The Culprits
In 2005, the Center for Environmental Health (CEH), an environmental health non-profit that works to reduce consumer and community exposures to toxic chemicals, commissioned laboratory tests to examine the lead content in several popular vinyl lunch boxes. According to CEH the testing revealed at least 17 lunch boxes contained levels of lead between two and twenty-five times the legal limit for lead paint in children’s products. Even more alarming, the highest amounts of lead were found in the lining of the boxes where it is most likely to come into direct contact with the food stored inside. CEH brought legal action against the retailers and manufactures whose products were found to contain unsafe levels of lead. As a result several, but not all, lunch box manufacturers settled with CEH and are currently offering lead free models. Additionally, Target and Wal-mart went on record promising not to sell lead-tainted lunch boxes.

Inspired by CEH, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), issued a letter to soft vinyl lunch box manufacturers and retailers asking them to cease marketing of the lead-tainted products. The letter, drafted in July 2006, warned of the potential for migration of lead to food. The likely contamination could trigger an enforcement action by the FDA because the lead would be considered a prohibited food additive.

The Health Effects
With our focus on the link between environmental contaminants and children’s health, it’s no surprise that many of the articles we write about at Real Mama, Inc. describe the dangers of lead (see for example, Candle Safety: More Than Just Getting Burned., and Lead Poisoning - Is Your Child at Risk?). Lead can affect almost every organ in the body, and because children are much smaller than adults, it takes much lower levels of lead to damage their systems. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), an agency of the Department of Health and Human Services, describes the negative impacts of lead exposure as causing “weakness in fingers, wrists, or ankles. Lead exposure also causes small increases in blood pressure, particularly in middle-aged and older people and can cause anemia. Exposure to high lead levels can severely damage the brain and kidneys in adults or children and ultimately cause death. In pregnant women, high levels of exposure to lead may cause miscarriage. High-level exposure in men can damage the organs responsible for sperm production.”

Clearly, the negative health impacts of lead toxicity are a serious problem. As with the lunch boxes, lead contamination may rear its ugly head in places we may never expect. For that reason, it is important to know the risks associated with lead exposure and be vigilant about eliminating lead sources whenever possible.

Conflicting Federal Agency Opinions
While the FDA seems to be actively addressing the potential threat of lead contamination in soft vinyl lunch boxes, the United States Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC), has a slightly different take on the issue. CPSC is a federal department charged with protecting the public from unreasonable risks of serious injury or death from more than 15,000 types of consumer products. CPSC conducted their own test on soft vinyl lunch boxes and claim that of the lunch boxes they have found to contain lead, 90 percent were below one-tenth of a microgram, which the organization deems to be an extremely low level. Their conclusion is that the lunch boxes do not present a health hazard to children. The organization goes on to assure parents that children would have to rub their lunch boxes and then lick their hands more than 600 times a day for about 15-30 days, in order for the lunch box to present a health hazard.

While it’s unclear why the agencies have such differing approaches to this issue, it is interesting that the information used by the FDA when drafting their warning letter to lunch box manufactures was gathered from the study conducted by the CPSC. The FDA letter states in part as follows: “According to the CPSC data, a small amount of the lead present in the interior linings of the lunch boxes is transferable by a swipe test. This implies that a small amount of lead may reasonably be expected to transfer to food that contacts the interior lining and could be deemed to be an unsafe food additive …”

States such as Connecticut have a ready-made defense for dealing with these products as they enter the stream of commerce. Connecticut law prohibits the sale or promotion of any package if it is composed of any lead that has been intentionally introduced during the manufacturing or distribution of the packaging component. Sale of products with lead concentrations exceeding 100 parts per million are banned. In December 2005, Connecticut’s Attorney General, threatened legal action and demanded retailers that were stocking the lunch boxes to remove them from their shelves.

Alternatives Galore
Whether it is semantics or hard science that represents the differing views of the two federal agencies, the consumer need not spend too much time trying to understand the discrepancies, for luckily, there are many alternatives to lead-laden lunch boxes. Most large retail chains now offer insulated lunch boxes that carry a lead-safe label. Although there is no official certification program monitoring the labeling, it may offer some comfort for parents who desire the insulated-type bags. Other choices include reusable lunch sacks made from cotton or a hard plastic lunch system that has specially designed compartments for food.

In the end, I am glad that I took the time to learn about this issue. While it seems like everyday there is a new danger popping up and you could potentially spend all of your free time researching every real or perceived threat on the horizon, knowing that there are completely safe alternatives on the market is worth it for me. The good health of my children is too big a risk not to know the facts.

Websites where your might find alternatives to lead-laden soft vinyl lunch boxes

http://www.reusablebags.com (online store that offers many choices for lead safe lunch bags)

http://www.laptoplunches.com (reusable hard plastic lunch system)

Information used in this article was found at the following sources, which you can visit if you want to find out more about this topic:

http://www.cehca.org/LatestNews.htm (The Center for Environmental Health, lead lunch box issue)

http://www.cpsc.gov/phth/vinyl.html (The US Consumer Products Safety Commission, Q&A about vinyl lunch boxes)

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2005/ct_lead_lunchboxes.html (Find out about how Connecticut deals with lead in lunch boxes)

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/recalls04/2005/ny_lunch_boxes.html (Find out which manufacturers and retailers voluntarily recalled their lunch boxes)


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