100s of lipsticks contain lead

Out of 20 brands the FDA tested 100s of lipsticks and found lead in every one. Red lipstick pigments are more likely to contain lead.

Lead causes irreversible brain damage, personality changes, and violent behavior and there is no safe level of exposure. Try to avoid it. 

Source
EWG.

History of "safe" products list

For years and years these products were all declared safe in the US, that there were no problems at all. And then the lawsuits started, one after the other. Each link below links to a story about the substance.

1. Asbestos.
2. Aspartame.
3. Bisphenol-A.
4. Cigarettes.
5. Food adulteration in the US.
6. Lead.
7. Thalidomide.

Other items the US gov't said was "safe": 2,4-d (2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid, a herbicide), acetamiprid, Agent Orange, asbestos, aspartame, cigarettes, DDT, DES, diazinon, epoxiconazole, flame retardant in the US, fluroxypyr, fracking, Glyphosate, imidacloprid, isoproturon, lead paint, malathion, mercury fillings, microbeads, organophosphates, parathion, PCBs, pirimicarb, prochloraz, tebuconazole, tetrachlorvinphos, thalidomide, Vioxx.

Portland Schools have lead in drinking water, results withheld from parents

Portland public schools in Oregon have higher levels of lead in their drinking water. These results were hidden from parents. From 2010-2012 the district tested 90 buildings and over half had higher levels of lead in the drinking water. Damaging effects from lead are permanent and there is not treatment for exposure. Water fountains were only turned off when the local paper, Willemette Week, exposed the results. While the EPA allows some lead in the water studies show there are NO safe levels of lead, it's a highly neurotoxic substance.

USA Today reports that there are hundreds of school districts and daycare centers that have lead in their water. That's about 20% of water systems tested have levels higher than the EPA "action level" of 15ppb. Lead is most toxic to younger children whose brains are still developing.

The EPA estimates that about 90,000 public schools and half a million child-care facilities are not regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act because they depend on water sources such as municipal utilities expected to test their own water. (In my town we get a water report once a year but it only tests for one heavy metal: lead.)

Testing for lead in blood is usually done in babies, not in school age children, but lead is dangerous for all ages. EPA "safe levels" of lead still cause vague symptoms but blood lead testing is not often done until lead levels reach much higher levels, at which point damage has already occurred. It's apparent that EPA rules have not moved ahead to keep pace with the science and research.

Since 2012, nearly 2000 water systems in the US have elevated lead levels. Schools that are tied to municipal water supplies do not have to test for lead but this is not enough. Those tests will miss any lead in the lead pipes at the actual building level, i.e. at the school. Lead can have many many sources and it needs to be tested from the spigot or drinking fountain at each building.

For more information on lead and poor gov't regulation, see here. See How to filter Lead out of Water. 


Sources

1. Food and Water Watch. Jun 1, 2016.
2. Lead taints drinking water in hundreds of schools and daycares across USA. USA Today.

How to filter lead out of your water

How to minimize lead exposure

1. If your water has been sitting for more than 6 hours, before you drink it or use it for cooking, let the water run 1-2 minutes to flush out any water that might have accumulated lead. Lead accumulates slowly in standing water.
2. Water filters in the US should be certified by NSF or the Water Quality Association. 

Placement of water filters

1. Water filters can be attached to a faucet, sit on top of a sink, be attached below a sink to the water supply line, or be in a tabletop pitcher, which can come in all shapes and sizes.
2. Berkey's are some of the best, larger, tabletop filters on the market. They have a low cost per gallon of filtered water.

Types of water filters

1. Reverse osmosis filters out almost everything in your water, but that includes minerals. Drinking RO water for too long will leach minerals out of your body and could cause problems. 
2. Activated carbon/charcoal filters filter out most substances by "catching" it in millions of tiny pores. These pores eventually fill up so the filter must be replaced once in a while. But they come in a variety of placement options. While carbon from a firepit can be used in a survival situation to filter water (and it has been shown to work to remove dye), activated charcoal can only be made in a factory under high pressure and high temperature steam. It cannot be made at home.
3. Multi-stage water filters. An example is the ZeroWater filter, where each filter unit has 5 stages. However these got very bad reviews on Amazon.

Filtering dissolved lead (which activated charcoal filters will do) is not the same as filtering out tiny lead particles. Get a filter with a small pore size AND activated charcoal. The best is Berkey systems filters.

There is some disagreement as to how well AC filters filter out lead. Some just reduce lead a bit, some remove 99% of lead. 

How to filter lead out of water

1. Use one of the activated carbon or RO filters above. Boiling the water does not remove chemical toxins, it only kills living pathogens.
2. Lead removal by AC (activated carbon) filters varies a lot. Look for test results for your specific model.

See this Important test!
Good Housekeeping tests water filters to filter out pharmaceuticals, PFOA, BPA, estrone, fluoxetine, ibuprofen, atrazine (pesticide), tonalide, TCEP, DEET and other contaminants. Feb 2012.

Sources

1. Charcoal filter video. 
2. Consumer Reports overview of filter types.  
3. Consumer Research water filter testing. Mar 2016.
4. Good Housekeeping tests water filters to filter out pharmaceuticals, PFOA, BPA, estrone, fluoxetine, ibuprofen, atrazine (pesticide), tonalide, TCEP, DEET, sucralose and other contaminants. Feb 2012.
5. What you need to know about water filters to remove lead. USA Today. Mar 20, 2016. 
6. Google Search for water filter testing.
7. "Rough Science" series video where they make a charcoal (not activated carbon) filter. 
8. Natural News tests water filter removal of many heavy and radioactive metals such as: Aluminum,  Copper, Arsenic,  Strontium,  Cadmium,  Cesium,  Mercury,  Lead,  Uranium. Enter your email to see the actual results. Another page for results. Zero Water brand filters removed the most heavy metals in this test but got bad reviews on Amazon. 
9. NSF certified water filter models are here. "Water filters are tested and certified to NSF/ANSI 53 and 58 to ensure they reduce contaminants, including lead, per the requirements of the standards."
10. Youtube search for charcoal filters. 
11. Big Berkey lab results for filtration. 
12. Independent water filter results from Water Filter Labs. by Mike Adams. Also tested filtering out radioactive items.

A history of "safe" products, lead

A new series!

A new series I will be making, called "A History of 'Safe' Products" will show a history of US industry defending poisonous products. It will also show how the US gov't has a long history of doing too little too late when it comes to citizens' health.

Whenever you have industry vigorously defending a product with millions of dollars, you know something is wrong. Past examples of items industry defended as "safe" for people and the environment: asbestos, lead (in paint, gasoline, water supply pipes), cigarettes, phthalates, coal emissions, thalidomide, etc.

Lead

Lead is generally believed to play a  part in the disintegration of Roman culture, though there were many issues that lead to the end of Rome, such as corruption, hubris, poor leadership, waste, inefficiency, and lead as a poison. The same is going on in the US today with high levels of corruption, waste, selfishness by leadership, and poisoning from a variety of sources like phthalates, artificial sweeteners, chemicals in meats and produce, hormones and unmetabolized drugs in the water supply (water companies are not required to remove these contaminants) etc.

OSHA says: "(Lead) Workers may develop a variety of ailments, such as neurological effects, gastrointestinal effects, anemia, and kidney disease. See the Health Effects section of this webpage for more information."

The CDC says there is no safe level of lead in drinking water, but the EPA says lead is fine and dandy. Even the US gov't can't agree about lead levels. When in doubt, be safer. Lead causes irreversible brain and other damage.  But the CDC doesn't regulate water, the EPA does.

EPA: If more than 10 percent of tap water samples exceed the lead action level of 15 parts per billion, then water systems are required to take additional actions including...

CDC says: No safe blood level has been identified and all sources of lead exposure for children should be controlled or eliminated. Lead concentrations in drinking water should be below the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency’s action level of 15 parts per billion.

Please note: It's very difficult to prove causation, but showing correlation is the next best thing. Correlation means the issue should be taken seriously, and more detailed studies should be done.

Blood lead levels

As early as 1943 a study showed that children eating lead paint chips showed correlation with behavior problems, learning, and intelligence problems. Yet US industry fought for decades to keep lead in paint and other products. In 1971, lead-based house paint was phased out. Houses painted before then could still contain lead, mostly likely covered by newer coats of paint, but still there. This same link also has a timeline of the effects of lead that researchers found.Poor people, in older housing, are still exposed to lead paint chips that have fallen off painted sources. Children don't know any better and can still eat lead paint chips. Poor areas also have older schools with lead pipes for certain parts of the water supplies.Thus poor people are affected the most.

Lead in gasoline (tetraethyl lead) was found to reduce engine knock. In 1923 Du Pont started making TEL and in the same year gasoline with lead started being sold. In 1965 a report found that high levels of environmental lead were caused by lead gasoline. When the lead gasoline burns, it is sent out in the air as exhaust, and people breathe it in. The lungs are especially good at absorbing many substances into the blood stream. That's the purpose of lungs: absorb oxygen into the bloodstream. In 1972 the EPA gave notice that lead gasoline would be phased out, but lawsuits by industry kept this from happening until 1980.

In 2010, Innospec, based in Britain, under the name of Associated Octel, admitted that it paid millions of dollars in bribes to officials in Iraq and Indonesia to keep selling TEL.

A simple activated carbon filter (like a Brita) can remove 99% of lead from water. For $35, it's worth it.

Symptoms of lead exposure

1. Learning disabilities.
2. Problems with impulse control.
3. Aggression. 
4. Delinquincy.
5. Anti-social, violent, criminal, or bully behaviors.
6. Hyperactivity. Could lead poisoning be related to ADD and ADHD? 

Some sources of lead

1. Imported clay pots. Some clay from China has naturally occurring lead but these items are often 100% glazed. Still you can buy a test kit where you rub a swab on the item and look for changes in color to indicate lead. 
2. Drinking water from older houses and older schools.
3. Lead paint chips inside or outside the home. Especially those on the ground that small children can eat.

Studies and Articles

• 2008, Minneapolis Dept of Health and Family Support. PDF here. Contains multiple study citations.
• 2011 Wired. The Crime of Lead Exposure.
• 2013 Forbes: How lead caused America's violent crime spree. Contains a graph of violent crime vs lead levels. The graph is difficult to read since the X axis shows 2 date ranges, but the graph does show a 20 year delay from more lead in the environment to the crime spree. 

When in doubt, be cautious. This is your health we're trying to keep.