Another dietary staple for infants who are not breast-fed is infant formula. As infant formulas require reconstitution before they are prepared, if lead is already in the drinking water (especially in a home more than twenty years old that may have old pipes) and the water is heated during the preparation process, infants can be exposed to dangerously high levels of lead through a diet completely reliant on formula as the main source of nutrition. While the FDA assumes that manufacturers will adhere to rules when creating a new formula product, the agency warns on its website that infant formulas may be marketed without prior FDA approval.182
Lead confirmed in more than 80 percent of food samples
Too many times, foodstuffs purchased at grocery stores across the country have later been found to be tainted with troubling levels of lead, though not enough testing is done to prevent lead from entering into the food supply. These high levels of lead are not limited to conventional or imported foods but also appear in foods raised organically. The Environmental Law Foundation commissioned a study in 2010 that sampled nearly 150 popular children’s food products, including fruit juices, fruit cocktail mixes, and even processed baby food. Foods tested were chosen from both conventional and organic sources. Using an EPA-certified lab in Berkeley, California, to test the nearly 400 samples taken, it was determined that an astounding 125 out of 146 foods contained disconcerting amounts of lead.183 The results were so damning that the FDA was compelled to respond, although the organization only tested thirteen samples of similar foods for comparison. The agency claimed that, while lead was found in the items, it was in parts per billion, and thus, was less than the 0.1 parts per million, or 100 ppb, the agency had set for candy in children.
My own testing of foods for lead has found alarming results, including:
• 500 ppb lead in cacao superfoods
• Over 500 ppb lead in certified organic rice protein
• Over 11 ppm (11,000 ppb) lead in organic mangosteen powder
• Over 300 ppb lead in turmeric supplements
• Over 400 ppb lead in green superfood powders
• Over 800 ppb in sea vegetable superfoods
• Over 150 ppb in healthy breakfast cereals
• Over 300 ppb in cilantro powder
• Over 1,000 ppb in chopped clams
• Over 300 ppb in maca root powder
• Over 100 ppb in some spirulina powders (from India)
• Over 500 ppb in common cooking spices
• Over 1,800 ppb in popular pet treats (made in China)
• Over 8,000 ppb in calcium supplements
• Over 600 ppb in some trace mineral supplements
• Over 7,000 ppb in citrus tree fertilizers
• Over 900 ppb in chlorella supplements grown in China (other samples of chlorella were far cleaner)
These are extraordinary results the FDA seems to pretend do not exist. Yet these results were derived from off-the-shelf purchases of foods and supplements consumed by people every single day.
During the government shutdown of October 2013, the FDA held off on sending out food-safety recall e-mails, so all of the releases between October 1 and October 17 were batch e-mailed on October 17. Among those were several warnings from different distributors that PRAN brand turmeric powder was contaminated with dangerously high levels of lead. Some batches reportedly contained 48 and 53 ppm, as the powder delivers a concentrated form of the root vegetable’s background exposure.184
Although the FDA began considering a limit on lead exposure from foods back in the 1930s due to lead-containing pesticides and the lead-based solder on food cans, even to this day, the agency has yet to establish a regulatory limit for lead levels in all foods across the board. Instead, the FDA has set limits on specific items in response to pressure by consumer advocate groups, such as bottled water (5 parts per billion185), children’s candy (0.1 parts per million186), and food additives (varies widely by additive). For example, the lead content in candy wasn’t even on the regulatory radar until 1994, when authorities in California discovered inks used in printed candy wrappers were seeping into the candy, causing the FDA to react in 1995 with the new standard.
In 1994, the FDA set a tentative daily limit for lead intake, which it termed the provisional tolerable total intake level (PTTIL), and included both food and nonfood sources. The bar was set so that the resulting daily lead limits in blood would be 75 µg/dL for adults, 25 µg/dL for pregnant women, 15 µg/dL for children over seven years, and 6 µg/dL for infants and children under six years.187 (It was not explained how the threshold of adulthood suddenly makes a person safely eligible for much higher levels of daily lead exposure.) Within the same document that proposed these limits, the FDA admitted studies have shown lead presence in the blood as low as 25 to 30 µg/dL could trigger high blood pressure and eventually cause cardiovascular disease.
Federal regulators have repeatedly claimed that actual daily food exposure to lead and other metals is much lower, but without tests on specific foods and production lots, how would the average individual gauge the threat from this toxin, particularly as data have shown significant harm from the bioaccumulation of this heavy metal over time?
Rare in nature, most prevalent in its inorganic form
Though it comes in organic and inorganic forms, lead is rare in nature and it is mostly the inorganic form of lead that continues to proliferate, contaminating everything with which it comes in contact. The use of leaded gasoline began being phased out in 1973, but it was not entirely banned for sale until the U.S. Clean Air Act went into full force in 1996. Although no longer allowed in formulations after 1978, lead dust from lead-based paint decay continues to be a danger in older homes, especially to growing infants and toddlers who like to crawl around on the floor. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission lists over 3,400 documents regarding the regulations and recalls of lead-contaminated items, including toys, electronics, clothing, and medicines.188
Lead was not officially banned in toys in America until 2008, when the U.S. Congress passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) following a series of high-publicity recall cases on toys and baby products found to contain dangerously high amounts of the heavy metal. Mattel Inc., the parent company of Fisher-Price, was forced to recall nearly 20 million toys worldwide including 9.5 million in the United States back in 2007. Of the two recalls announced in a two-week period, the first involved 1.5 million toys marketed to preschool-aged children. Manufactured in China, where roughly 80 percent of the world’s toys are made, Mattel’s toys were pulled from store shelves due in part to the discovery of lead-based paints that could flake off and cause harm. Considering that preschoolers like to put things in their mouths, the potential for lead poisoning went well beyond a toddler merely touching a leaded item.
Still, even today, researchers and watchdog groups continue to find lead well above regulatory levels lurking in consumer goods. For other products that come into contact with a consumer’s skin and mucous membranes, the FDA may or may not have set an allowable lead limit. For example, the agency has not set a limit on lead in cosmetics,189 but has established a maximum threshold for the color dyes used in cosmetics, which the FDA regulates to 20 parts per million lead.
Studies continue to show that, even though not directly ingested in large amounts, repeated daily application of lead-containing cosmetics can add up to significant and cumulatively dangerous exposure.190 The FDA commissioned a study of lead in popular U.S. cosmetics in 2010 and found that, of over 400 lipsticks, including samples of the most popular brands purchased at retail stores, every single one contained lead—all of them.191
Developmental impairment as neurotoxin
Science has already confirmed a link between neuropsychological damage