How Gov't Decided Lunch Box Lead Levels

Alexa Engelman, a researcher with the Center for Environmental Health, displays some lead-contaminated lunch bags in the center's offices in Oakland, Calif., Friday, Jan. 19, 2007. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez) (Marcio Jose Sanchez - AP)

In Connecticut, where the safe threshold is 100 parts per million, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has demanded that lunch boxes must be lead-free.

"Lead, lunch and children are a perilous mix," Blumenthal said. "The discovery of lead in children's lunch boxes is appalling. Our law is clear: Lead-laden lunch boxes are illegal."

Other states, including California, New York and Illinois, have forced specific manufacturers to pull their products from store shelves after individual boxes were found to have levels above 600 ppm.

Lead is a stabilizing agent in vinyl, but there are other chemicals that can be used instead of lead. Almost every lunch box found with lead in the vinyl lining was made in China.

But they are distributed worldwide. Other information in the documents include an e-mail from Canadian health officials, who found more than 600 parts per million of lead in seven of the 11 lunch boxes they tested.

Allen Blakey, a spokesman for the Vinyl Institute, a trade association representing the leading manufacturers of vinyl, said his organization defers to the regulatory agencies.

"The CPSC was pretty clear that they did not see a danger in these lunch boxes. The FDA had a slightly different take on it. But basically, we have not seen any indication of actual harm from the lunch boxes," he said.

Public health experts consider elevated levels of lead in blood a significant health hazard for U.S. children. Studies have repeatedly shown that childhood exposure to lead can lead to learning problems, reduced intelligence, hyperactivity and attention deficit disorder. There is no lead level that is considered safe in blood, and recent studies have shown adverse health effects even at very low levels.

"I don't think the Consumer Product Safety Commission has lived up to its role to protect kids from lead," said Dr. Bruce Lamphear, a lead poisoning specialist at the Children's Hospital Medical Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. "As a public agency, their work should be transparent. And if one is to err on the side of protecting children rather than protecting lunch box makers, then certainly you would want to lower the levels."