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A lady named Tamara Rubin has spent years testing household products and other commonly handled objects for lead. She uses an XRF tester, which is the gold sta

A lady named Tamara Rubin has spent years testing household products and other commonly handled objects for lead. She uses an XRF tester, which is the gold standard for high accuracy lead testing. She has thousands of items listed, from dishes to door hardware to childrens toys, and a lot of these will put a family at high risk of lead poisoning. There's some woo-y stuff on her website, but her XRF data is a gold mine: https://tamararubin.com/ https://tamararubin.com/ I personally have used both XRF and swabs on various objects around by home, and I found some really scary shit. The scariest were the older Lenox dishes we used for years; the decorative glaze on the eating surface tested high in lead via XRF, and the swab lit up bright red which means that lead was also coming off in our food. I threw away all our dishes and bought new Corelle. Other problems I found include old electrical cords and things made out of brass, including all plumbing fittings made before about 2012. These will also turn a swab red, especially if there's any corrosion, which means the lead is mobile.

giantg2 5y ago
I think it can depend on other factors too. For example, lead crystal drinkwater is considered safe as long as you aren't leaving the liquid in there for long periods of time. It's possible that's similar to the dishes. Stuff like leaded fuel exhaust or paint flakes are more likely to be ingested/absorbed.
- nate_meurer 5y ago
  This is why the swabs are an important tool in addition to the XRF. If the swab turns red, then by definition it's wiping mobile lead from the surface of the object you're testing. Using electrical cords as an example, years ago I went through my house and swabbed all of the cords. If I found a cord that turned a swab red, I either threw the thing away if it was cheap, like an old coffee grinder, or I replaced the cord if I didn't want to replace the whole machine, like the cords on all of our Oreck vacuum cleaners. A lot of newer cords have lead in the insulation as indicated by XRF, but won't turn a swab pink. These I don't worry about too much, but I still tell the kids to wash their hand after handling them. EDIT: The LeadCheck swabs are pretty expensive, and using a whole swab for just one or two objects is ridiculously wasteful, but I have a trick that makes them cheap. I cut the cotton head off of a Q-tip cosmetic swab so that it's just a rolled paper rod. I activate the LeadCheck swab and squeeze out a drop of the liquid onto the upright surface of the swab. I dab the end of the decapitated Q-tip in the liquid, and I use that to swab the surface of whatever I'm testing. If something turns the paper red, I clip the end of the shaft off with nail clippers to get a fresh end, and continue to the next object. I can get dozens of tests out of a single swab this way. I make a list of things to test in one afternoon, and I can get the whole pile done for the cost of a single swab, instead of spending hundreds of dollars it would take to use a new LeadCheck swab for each object. Plus, the hard paper Q-tip shaft works better for aggressively rubbing on surfaces.
  - Metacelsus 5y ago
    You can also make your own with sodium rhodonizate (which you can get at many chemical supply companies)
    - nate_meurer 5y ago
      The LeadCheck swabs are super nice because they package the reagent in binary form in separate sealed glass capsules. As far as I know, this gives the product an indefinite shelf life. I'm still using a batch of LeadChecks that bought from Ebay fifteen years ago.
reducesuffering 5y ago
Yes, great callout. Relevant to many of us, is that many ceramic coffee and tea mugs also leech lead, especially if they have the colored glaze. I'm using specifically lead-free glass now.
- fighterpilot 5y ago
  "lead-free glass" I assume glass is just lead-free by default and I don't need to go out looking for a special lead-free version of glassware, right?
  - edwcross 5y ago
    Crystal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_glass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_glass) does contain lead, but apparently "crystal glass" does not. So, by default, "glass" is indeed lead-free, unless you're talking about some fancy older glassware.
    - giantg2 5y ago
      Some older ceramics have lead too (mugs, crocks). I think some coming from China in more recent years have tested positive (plus toys and more).
- effingwewt 5y ago
  Also, cheap glaze rubs off with the softest of scrubbing. I remember begging my grandmother to stop using her cheap boil-in coffee pot. Cheap glaze wore down, then the paint, then the metal of the pot. Aluminum just leeching into all the coffee. Didn't matter, she loved the flavor. The replacements I got her were used once because she loved me, then relegated to the cupboard. She had really bad alzheimer's by the end. I'll never know if any of the cheap dishes and pits/pans('teflon' coatings etc), but it's always made me super paranoid about this stuff, I bought some testing kits tonight after reading all this.
sayhar 5y ago
So I went into a big rabbithole of writing up a long email to my family warning them about specific plates and so on. Then I paused -- was any of this real? I looked up on Snopes -- they didn't seem to be too convinced that she's legit[0]. Some more googling didn't seem to show any reputable site repeating her claims. It's hard to tell if any of this is true or not. (Especially since there's a difference between a _cracked_ or chipped plate vs a normal one) [0] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/vintage-pyrex-contains-unsafe-levels-of-lead/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/vintage-pyrex-contains-uns...
- nate_meurer 5y ago
  That snopes article is one of the worst ones I've ever read. Snopes does some good work, but they also do some really terrible work, and this is a good example. The writer, Kim LaCapria, is clearly way out of her depth on technical topics. Notice that the article doesn't provide one single piece of evidence of its own. Kim offers only a contorted narrative about FDA regulations and manufacturer denials, and complains about being unable to find "alternative sources". But the widespread use of lead pigments in ceramic glazes and paints is so well known, and so easily verified, that this is a bit like complaining about alternative sources for the color of the sky. Tamara's XRF results can be easily verified by anyone with access to an XRF machine. You can take your dishes to any county health department and have them tested by XRF, and you'll see similar numbers. This is what I did with my old Lenox dishes, and the XRF revealed over 5000 ppm lead in the surface glaze. I've had dozens of pieces tested this way, including pyrex, corningware, radom kids cups, etc, and the numbers I get match Tamara's. And of course they do. It would be stupid for anyone to fabrinate this data, because it's so easy to verify. Anyone can buy a LeadCheck swab for a buck or two and test for mobile lead at the surface. This is mostly how I test the stuff in my house, and it's how I know that my contaminated dishes were an actual poisoning hazard. If the lead comes off on a swab, then it will come off on your hands, in your food, and in your baby's mouth. It's a similar story with cords and brass plumbing fittings. The facts of lead-based heat stabilizers used in PVC cable jackets, and the high lead content of traditional water works brass, are as incontrovertable as the sky is blue. Kim LaCapria at Snopes doesn't seem to understand any of this. There's no indication that she even knows what XRF is, or how widely available these devices are.
annoyingnoob 5y ago
Its in so many older city water pipes that you cannot see, only to be let out when the water chemistry changes a bit.
comboy 5y ago
Can anybody explain to me or give me some materials to read? Say toy has 5000ppm Pb, how does that translate to it being dangerous? Child only touches it. Assuming soil have a ballpark of 100ppm Pb and we all love fresh vegetables.. how is this toy or even a dish doing any damage?
- nate_meurer 5y ago
  Not sure what you're asking. You want an explanation of how lead pigments chalking off the surface of an old dish get in your mouth? Or how lead paint on a toy gets into a baby's mouth?
  - comboy 5y ago
    You don't give your kids toys which fall apart and your dish is not losing 1% of its mass with your every meal. So I'm asking how much is it losing? How many grams of your dish may stay on your food? From a quick look carrot has like 0.1mg/kg with up to 10mg/kg of lead [1][2]. We just eat it and give it to babies so they're healthy. So how much mass does a toy or a dish lose and how much of it ends up in somebody's mouth? Based on the data above if you ate 10g of your 5000ppm dish that seems equivalent to 5kg of carrots. And I do love to make a carrot juice, that's like a few servings. 10g of dish seems like a lot to swallow. I'm just trying to explain my lack of understanding here. I have just learned about these measurements and I'm clueless about the topic. 1. https://www.scielo.br/j/hb/a/PSXVNhx63TkLq9rFKVFNfjr/?lang=en&format=pdf https://www.scielo.br/j/hb/a/PSXVNhx63TkLq9rFKVFNfjr/?lang=e... 2. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0167880985901021 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/016788...
    - nate_meurer 5y ago
      It sounds like you're overthinking this a bit. Kids chew on and swallow all kinds of weird shit. I've seen young kids chew the paint off whole sets of pencils. Babies put literally everything they can in their mouth. I've watched children lick window sills for fucks sake. If there's lead glaze on the eating surface of a plate or bowl, and if you know it's mobile, as it was on my dishes, then it's a safe assumption that it's mostly going in your food. Someone could spend a ton of time and money studying and quantifying the transfer of lead in all kinds of different scenarios, but what would the purpose be, when it's a relatively simple matter to abate or remove the hazard completely? Food is a different matter, and I believe tested regulation of heavy metals in foods is sorrowfully lacking.

giantg2 5y ago

I think it can depend on other factors too. For example, lead crystal drinkwater is considered safe as long as you aren't leaving the liquid in there for long periods of time. It's possible that's similar to the dishes. Stuff like leaded fuel exhaust or paint flakes are more likely to be ingested/absorbed.

nate_meurer 5y ago
This is why the swabs are an important tool in addition to the XRF. If the swab turns red, then by definition it's wiping mobile lead from the surface of the object you're testing. Using electrical cords as an example, years ago I went through my house and swabbed all of the cords. If I found a cord that turned a swab red, I either threw the thing away if it was cheap, like an old coffee grinder, or I replaced the cord if I didn't want to replace the whole machine, like the cords on all of our Oreck vacuum cleaners. A lot of newer cords have lead in the insulation as indicated by XRF, but won't turn a swab pink. These I don't worry about too much, but I still tell the kids to wash their hand after handling them. EDIT: The LeadCheck swabs are pretty expensive, and using a whole swab for just one or two objects is ridiculously wasteful, but I have a trick that makes them cheap. I cut the cotton head off of a Q-tip cosmetic swab so that it's just a rolled paper rod. I activate the LeadCheck swab and squeeze out a drop of the liquid onto the upright surface of the swab. I dab the end of the decapitated Q-tip in the liquid, and I use that to swab the surface of whatever I'm testing. If something turns the paper red, I clip the end of the shaft off with nail clippers to get a fresh end, and continue to the next object. I can get dozens of tests out of a single swab this way. I make a list of things to test in one afternoon, and I can get the whole pile done for the cost of a single swab, instead of spending hundreds of dollars it would take to use a new LeadCheck swab for each object. Plus, the hard paper Q-tip shaft works better for aggressively rubbing on surfaces.
- Metacelsus 5y ago
  You can also make your own with sodium rhodonizate (which you can get at many chemical supply companies)
  - nate_meurer 5y ago
    The LeadCheck swabs are super nice because they package the reagent in binary form in separate sealed glass capsules. As far as I know, this gives the product an indefinite shelf life. I'm still using a batch of LeadChecks that bought from Ebay fifteen years ago.

reducesuffering 5y ago

Yes, great callout. Relevant to many of us, is that many ceramic coffee and tea mugs also leech lead, especially if they have the colored glaze. I'm using specifically lead-free glass now.

fighterpilot 5y ago
"lead-free glass" I assume glass is just lead-free by default and I don't need to go out looking for a special lead-free version of glassware, right?
- edwcross 5y ago
  Crystal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_glass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_glass) does contain lead, but apparently "crystal glass" does not. So, by default, "glass" is indeed lead-free, unless you're talking about some fancy older glassware.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    Some older ceramics have lead too (mugs, crocks). I think some coming from China in more recent years have tested positive (plus toys and more).
effingwewt 5y ago
Also, cheap glaze rubs off with the softest of scrubbing. I remember begging my grandmother to stop using her cheap boil-in coffee pot. Cheap glaze wore down, then the paint, then the metal of the pot. Aluminum just leeching into all the coffee. Didn't matter, she loved the flavor. The replacements I got her were used once because she loved me, then relegated to the cupboard. She had really bad alzheimer's by the end. I'll never know if any of the cheap dishes and pits/pans('teflon' coatings etc), but it's always made me super paranoid about this stuff, I bought some testing kits tonight after reading all this.

sayhar 5y ago

So I went into a big rabbithole of writing up a long email to my family warning them about specific plates and so on. Then I paused -- was any of this real? I looked up on Snopes -- they didn't seem to be too convinced that she's legit[0]. Some more googling didn't seem to show any reputable site repeating her claims. It's hard to tell if any of this is true or not. (Especially since there's a difference between a _cracked_ or chipped plate vs a normal one) [0] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/vintage-pyrex-contains-unsafe-levels-of-lead/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/vintage-pyrex-contains-uns...

nate_meurer 5y ago
That snopes article is one of the worst ones I've ever read. Snopes does some good work, but they also do some really terrible work, and this is a good example. The writer, Kim LaCapria, is clearly way out of her depth on technical topics. Notice that the article doesn't provide one single piece of evidence of its own. Kim offers only a contorted narrative about FDA regulations and manufacturer denials, and complains about being unable to find "alternative sources". But the widespread use of lead pigments in ceramic glazes and paints is so well known, and so easily verified, that this is a bit like complaining about alternative sources for the color of the sky. Tamara's XRF results can be easily verified by anyone with access to an XRF machine. You can take your dishes to any county health department and have them tested by XRF, and you'll see similar numbers. This is what I did with my old Lenox dishes, and the XRF revealed over 5000 ppm lead in the surface glaze. I've had dozens of pieces tested this way, including pyrex, corningware, radom kids cups, etc, and the numbers I get match Tamara's. And of course they do. It would be stupid for anyone to fabrinate this data, because it's so easy to verify. Anyone can buy a LeadCheck swab for a buck or two and test for mobile lead at the surface. This is mostly how I test the stuff in my house, and it's how I know that my contaminated dishes were an actual poisoning hazard. If the lead comes off on a swab, then it will come off on your hands, in your food, and in your baby's mouth. It's a similar story with cords and brass plumbing fittings. The facts of lead-based heat stabilizers used in PVC cable jackets, and the high lead content of traditional water works brass, are as incontrovertable as the sky is blue. Kim LaCapria at Snopes doesn't seem to understand any of this. There's no indication that she even knows what XRF is, or how widely available these devices are.

annoyingnoob 5y ago

Its in so many older city water pipes that you cannot see, only to be let out when the water chemistry changes a bit.

comboy 5y ago

Can anybody explain to me or give me some materials to read? Say toy has 5000ppm Pb, how does that translate to it being dangerous? Child only touches it. Assuming soil have a ballpark of 100ppm Pb and we all love fresh vegetables.. how is this toy or even a dish doing any damage?

nate_meurer 5y ago
Not sure what you're asking. You want an explanation of how lead pigments chalking off the surface of an old dish get in your mouth? Or how lead paint on a toy gets into a baby's mouth?
- comboy 5y ago
  You don't give your kids toys which fall apart and your dish is not losing 1% of its mass with your every meal. So I'm asking how much is it losing? How many grams of your dish may stay on your food? From a quick look carrot has like 0.1mg/kg with up to 10mg/kg of lead [1][2]. We just eat it and give it to babies so they're healthy. So how much mass does a toy or a dish lose and how much of it ends up in somebody's mouth? Based on the data above if you ate 10g of your 5000ppm dish that seems equivalent to 5kg of carrots. And I do love to make a carrot juice, that's like a few servings. 10g of dish seems like a lot to swallow. I'm just trying to explain my lack of understanding here. I have just learned about these measurements and I'm clueless about the topic. 1. https://www.scielo.br/j/hb/a/PSXVNhx63TkLq9rFKVFNfjr/?lang=en&format=pdf https://www.scielo.br/j/hb/a/PSXVNhx63TkLq9rFKVFNfjr/?lang=e... 2. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0167880985901021 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/016788...
  - nate_meurer 5y ago
    It sounds like you're overthinking this a bit. Kids chew on and swallow all kinds of weird shit. I've seen young kids chew the paint off whole sets of pencils. Babies put literally everything they can in their mouth. I've watched children lick window sills for fucks sake. If there's lead glaze on the eating surface of a plate or bowl, and if you know it's mobile, as it was on my dishes, then it's a safe assumption that it's mostly going in your food. Someone could spend a ton of time and money studying and quantifying the transfer of lead in all kinds of different scenarios, but what would the purpose be, when it's a relatively simple matter to abate or remove the hazard completely? Food is a different matter, and I believe tested regulation of heavy metals in foods is sorrowfully lacking.