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Sunday

LEAD POISONING DANGER from OLD BOOKS

Books published before 1985 might be a lead poisoning danger to your children. Now there's something new to worry about. Why publishers would be printing kids' books with lead based inks in the late 80s when they had long before pulled lead based paint off the shelves is beyond me.

The bottom line is that before you buy those old books for a nickel you may want to figure the long term cost of treating your kids for lead exposure. Not to mention that you may have to deal with the inconvenience of criminal behavior and low IQ which are all symptoms of prolonged exposure to lead.

So, we need to toss these mind melting tomes in the trash, right? Wrong! Not only can these vintage treasures cause lead poisoning, if they go in the landfill the lead may get into the groundwater and come back to haunt you right out of the tap. And you can't burn the things because that will taint the very air we breathe. First there's the lead laden toys from China and now when you want to share the classics with your kids you're guilty of knowingly exposing them to lead.

So what's a mom who has gone to great lengths to stock her bookshelves with children's favorites from back in the day? Or what about the local librarian who certainly doesn't have time to monitor each and every baby and book? Well, the only answer is paying close attention to the dates that books are published, watch for lead poisoning symptoms and (you're going to love this) break out the old lead test kit and test each book that was published before the cutoff date mentioned in the report.

Is there any wonder that as we speak, people are hosting lead test parties all over the country. I can imagine the invitations say something like: Come for an afternoon of fun, frolic and swabbing to test your kids' reading material for lead.

As you know I'm a careful mother and that I've often had to err on the side of pure paranoia because of my daughter's illnesses at times. So, I hope you don't think I'm careless when I tell you that I'm not rushing to quarantine the books on my bookshelves. It's just that I have bigger fish to fry than what statistics dictate is more than likely a small risk factor.

I'm going to pay close attention to the books that the littlest members of my household read because they might think it's a good idea to lick the page if there's a picture of ice cream on it. But for the older girls, I worry more about lead poisoning from pencils, toys and our water supply more than exposure from print in an old book.

Return to Oooh Baby, Family Parenting and Environmental Issues to find more stuff to worry about that will keep moms from sleeping at night.

4 comments:

Carol Baicker-McKee said...

A couple of misperceptions to correct: first, there are no cases EVER of a child getting lead poisoning from a book. While eating the book might cause lead to leach from the ink, studies show that saliva is not acid enough to get the lead to come out of the ink and get into the child - so she should be fine if she's just licking or sucking on the book and not actually eating the pages (and if she's doing that, you'll also want to monitor her for choking and intestinal blockage which would be more likely hazards before she consumed enough lead to get poisoned). In addition, not all older books or all inks contained lead, just some, and most in relatively low concentrations. Third, literacy studies even from back before lead was removed from printing inks show that greater exposure to books was associated with higher achievement in school.

One last thing, those lead swab kits are basically useless. You need to buy or rent an XRF gun, which costs about $40,000 to buy, a couple thousand to rent -- and you need to be trained in using it because it emits radiation and could pose a risk both to the user and bystander.

EVERYONE should be fighting the new law (CPSIA) which provides miniscule improvements in safety an d will likely lead to the loss or greatly increased cost of nearly every child product on the market. (Existing lead laws already covered the toys imported from China that lead to the recalls -- the CPSC just didn't have an adequate enforcement budget or plan, and still doesn't.) Visit www.overlawyered.com to learn more about the consequences of this over-reaching and unnecessarily alarming law.

Unique Baby Gear Ideas said...

Thanks for the helpful clarifications, Carol! I'm happy to report that we have had no lead poisoning symptoms or intestinal blockage from eating paper products at my house....yet.

Anonymous said...

in our home library there are hundreds of books that has been published and purchased before 1985, coming to know that they are Lead poision denger is really big worry to me. but i would linke to do more research on topic before making any decision.

Unique Baby Gear Ideas said...

According to Carol, you SHOULD do your research before dumping those wonderful books in the dumpster or restricting your kids' use of them. As I mentioned, my plan is simply to keep the older volumes away from the little ones who are prone to chew (and drool) on everything they touch. I would do this even if there were no danger of lead exposure to prevent damage to the pages. For that matter, I don't let the babies play with magazines because of the risk of paper cuts.