PVC: The Poison Plastic Video and finally, some Victories!

Check out this video from the Center for Health, Environment and Justice about PVC. It's silly, informative and a good introduction to the problems of PVC plastic (known as vinyl). Click here to view the video.

I learned on this site about some great victories in protecting our children from the toxins in PVC. Target, Sears and Kmart will phase out the use of PVC in their products and packaging. Check it out for yourself. Hooray!

Also, a spokesperson from McDonald's sent me a very political email about all the great "education and nutrition initiatives" (can you sense sarcasm over the Internet?) they sponsor and that they are "re-evaluating" their advertising on report cards Seminole County, Florida. Not sure what they are re-evaluating, seeing as how they promised not to advertise to kids under 12. See this post for a way to tell McDonald's to stop their sneaky advertising campaign on report cards.

On-line activism works! I was inspired to read in the Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood's December newsletter about an online campaign to end the sale of girl's underwear that said, "who needs credit cards". Someone posted about it over at Feministing.com and the story spread quickly, prompting Wal-mart to pull the underwear off the shelves. We need to hear stories like this about real people making a difference, when sometimes (ah, most of the time) it feels like the odds are stacked against us.

Consumer Product Safety Commission Reform Act of 2007--

Another great video, but more importantly, a chance for us to do something about the influx of unsafe toys into the U.S. Check out this video from the Consumer's Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports, here.


The state of our product safety is dire, and this video clearly shows that problem. You can sign a petition at the site that will be sent to your senators and representative. Act soon, though, congress will likely be passing a bill about toy safety THIS WEEK!

Lead Updates: It's Not As Bad As We Thought--

I just realized I never shared some important developments in the lead saga you may have read about in previous posts.

Here is an update about my friend's son who played with extension cords (unplugged, of course!) before they knew they riddled with lead (see this post). His original blood test showed an alarmingly high lead rate. They were very concerned, obviously, and very worried. Then came a test at the hospital, which showed the level of lead in his blood to be safe and normal. Why the first false, terrifyingly high numbers? There was lead on his skin cells, so when he was pricked for blood on his finger, some of the lead tainted the blood sample. Lead has to be ingested to do harm, so what really counts is the amount of lead in his bloodstream, and thank goodness, there was very little. The take home message here is, if you have a child who you know is exposed to lead, go straight for the much more involved (and painful, yes) but conclusive vein blood test first. Save yourself the worry, and the waiting (it took my friend almost a week to hear about the first screening).

Then I shared I had lead in my house, on the doors to both of my girls' rooms. My older daughter sucked her fingers profusely, and this was troubling because she would push the door open (and be exposed to lead), and then put her fingers in her mouth. Also, my younger daughter, 8 months old, uses a pacifier and I would push the door open with the same hand that I would use to put her pacifier back in. Both of my girls tested in the safe and normal limits for lead after the venous tests. I was relieved, and suprised, but I still wonder what their actual limits were, other than just "safe" and "normal". Were they close to the limit? I guess I will never know.

What did we do with the doors? No, we didn't get new doors. We will be doing some renovating of the house this summer and didn't want to put any money into something new. So we found something called Lead Barrier Compound. It is a paint that seals the lead in, and creates a barrier that is safe for touching, and won't create lead dust or deteriorate in any way. The paint also has a bitter taste in case a little mouth for some reason wants to chew on it. This product wasn't easy to find. They did not have it at Sherman-Williams or Home Depot. I special ordered it from a local, independent paint dealer (yet another reason to buy independent and local when you can).

I hope this information helps anyone else who might be dealing with their own lead saga.