“More lead found in children's products”

Posted: 29 Nov 2010 12:13 AM PST

High levels of lead were discovered in a handful of children's products and adult jewelry items found at major retail stores in California, according to a news release from the Center for Environmental Health.

As part of its ongoing lead-testing program, the center bought 370 children's products and 260 pieces of jewelry from stores in San Francisco, San Diego, Hayward, Tracy and Orange County in the month of October. This season's top sellers came out clean for lead, but several products were found to contain high amounts of lead.

The five children's products that contained dangerous levels of lead were:

Center for Environmental HealthHello Kitty dress-up set

Hello Kitty doll dress-up set (Sanrio, San Francisco)
A pink and brown backpack (Big Lots, Hayward)
NFL lunchbox (TJ Maxx, San Francisco)
Panda bag (Toys R Us, online store)
A women's necklace from Styles for Less in Tracy that was marked "lead free" had a clasp that had 25 percent lead – four times the legal limit for adult jewelry in California. Bloomingdale's, Nordstrom, Sears and Walmart also had jewelry with high lead levels on their shelves.

The attorney general's office sent out a letter informing the retailers of their lead products last week, spokeswoman Rebecca MacLaren said. Sears is the only company that has responded, promising to pull the products from its shelves.

If the retailer does not remove the product, the attorney general can follow up with a warning letter or file a lawsuit. MacLaren said the attorney general's office has asked the retailers to provide the names of the suppliers of the lead-tainted items.

None of the retailers could be reached for comment. But Shane Hanstein, an employee of Sanrio, located in the Westfield Mall in downtown San Francisco, said although he did not know about the lead-tainted product found at the store, he had noticed that the previous Hello Kitty doll dress-up set was recently replaced with a newer version.

Center for Environmental HealthNecklace from Wal-Mart

Retail stores can either pull the lead-tainted items off the shelves or do a "stop-sale", which would prevent cashiers from selling the product, said Caroline Cox, research director at the Center for Environmental Health.

This year's results show improvement compared to tests done in prior years. Out of the 110 Christmas products that the center tested three years ago, about 20 had high levels of lead.

"This year is better than last year, which was better than the year before," said Charles Margulis, spokesman for the Center for Environmental Health. He said the improvement is largely due to a 2008 federal law – the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act – that set a safety standard for lead in children's products. Before that, products with dangerous levels of lead were often handled through lawsuits.

It's not the first time these big box stores have sold lead-tainted children's products. In September, the Center for Environmental Health found high levels of lead in toddlers' beanbag chairs, youth boxing gloves, toy foam beads and jewelry from Walmart.

At the end of 2008, Walmart and Toys R Us sold Hannah Montana products with high lead levels. Testing during last year's holiday season found that children's items bought from Walmart, TJ Maxx, Sears, Target and other stores had illegal lead levels.

With lead-containing jewelry, a recent California Watch investigation found that violations rarely result in financial penalties, vendors further down the supply chain aren't notified of the tainted products, and state law does not require companies to inform their customers of the potentially dangerous products.

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