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Lead Lunchboxes
When your children reach into their lunchboxes each day, you expect them to find the healthy foods and snacks that you packed – not foods contaminated by a dangerous neurotoxicant.
But if your children’s lunchboxes are lined with vinyl, there’s a chance they could also contain lead that may be rubbing off onto the healthy foods you packed, and potentially entering your children’s systems.
Some lunchboxes use vinyl made with lead. Others do not. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to tell which ones do, even if the manufacturer labels them as “safe”. That’s because there are no standards for the labels manufacturers are using, and lots of disagreement among federal agencies over how much lead is acceptable.
Many scientists, as well as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, say there is NO safe level of lead, especially when it comes to children and the food they eat. The FDA has asked manufacturers and retailers to stop selling lunchboxes with lead in the liners because of its potential to leach into food.
Exposure to lead has been shown to cause serious neurological problems in children, such as loss of IQ, hyperactivity and developmental disorders. It can cause problems at very low levels, and many scientists who study its effects have come to conclude there are no safe exposure levels whatsoever. Even the “very small amounts” that manufacturers say exist in their products may be high enough to cause problems.
As the debate continues, parents have several choices. They can wrap food before placing it in the lunchbox, so that it doesn’t come into contact with the vinyl (and therefore the lead). Or they can buy lunchboxes that don’t contain vinyl liners. And of course, there’s always the old-fashioned paper lunch sack.
For more information about lead in children’s lunch boxes, please visit http://www.cehca.org/lunchboxes.htm.
To read more about this and other environmental health issues, go to: www.environmentalhealthnews.org, www.ourstolenfuture.org, or www.healthandenvironment.org
