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Today there is a one woman campaign against lead in consumer products by Tamara Rubin. [1] Unfortunately she doesn't know how to make a professional looking web

Today there is a one woman campaign against lead in consumer products by Tamara Rubin. [1] Unfortunately she doesn't know how to make a professional looking website and doesn't have a degree as a doctor (which would be of no value in her endeavor- operating an XRF tester and posting the results). She is however trained and certified in performing XRF tests and has probably done more XRF testing of consumer products than any other human being. Her testing has been verified independently when the CPI initiated recalls of for example baby bottles after her initial reporting. I found her information after one of my children tested high for lead levels even though there are no lead paint issues in our neighborhood. The highest risk for severe lead contamination is still things from our past. Painting can still be dangerous- some houses still have original lead paint that has been painted on top of or they could have a deck that was painted with marine paint (which is still allowed to have lead). Another higher risk level is antique dishware. In modern products lead and other heavy metal contamination issues are still somewhat widespread, but thankful at much lower levels than in the past- to the point that most people won't test high for heavy metals. But unfortunately it's possible to accidentally buy the wrong products and get unsafe exposure levels. We only really have safety standards for products marketed to kids (e.g. baby bottles). If the same level of contamination exists on a small plate that is used by a child, it won't be recalled. For consumers it is often impossible to know if there is heavy metal contamination in a product. California's Prop 65 warning often indicates an issue with lead, but the issue could just be that the company didn't want to bother testing for lead in their product. I think it is worthwhile to try to transition cookware and drinkware towards materials that are known to almost always be lead and heavy metal free- Stainless steel, cast iron, and clear glass. Additionally, this becomes another reason to eat whole foods since the manufacturing processes can also cause low levels of contamination. [1] https://tamararubin.com/ https://tamararubin.com/

MetaWhirledPeas 2y ago
Wow! This is a great website. And it looks fine. And she replies in the comments. Sad quote: > If you look above in this article there is a list of 49 things we have tested so far (49/245 published articles, and that is going to bump to 55 this week) that have all tested safe by the strictest standards – that’s about 20%. https://tamararubin.com/2025/01/daves-killer-bread-thin-sliced-21-whole-grains-and-seeds/ https://tamararubin.com/2025/01/daves-killer-bread-thin-slic...
- jollyllama 2y ago
  Note that that includes prenatal vitamins. None tested so far, including some of the most high-end ones on the market, meet the standard.
pc86 2y ago
I think the site UX is more a feature than a bug (though probably unintentional, regardless). If she had some super-slick SPA website that looked like a million bucks, I'd wonder where her funding was coming from. Whether it's true or not, this looks much more like someone who doesn't really know what they're doing just threw the site up to get the message out and cover her costs w/ some affiliate sales. I'm inclined to trust this more than something more "professional."
- autoexec 2y ago
  > this looks much more like someone who doesn't really know what they're doing just threw the site up to get the message out It's a typical wordpress blog. I wouldn't expect someone who doesn't really know what they're doing to end up with a functional blog full of CSS/JS, with a comment section, that's also optimized for performance and SEO There are some curious design/graphics choices, but we've certainly come a long way from what people who didn't really know what they were doing were accomplishing on geocities (https://geocities.restorativland.org/RainForest/Vines/ https://geocities.restorativland.org/RainForest/Vines/)
  - araes 2y ago
    > we've certainly come a long way from what people who didn't really know what they were doing were accomplishing on geocities (https://geocities.restorativland.org/RainForest/Vines/ https://geocities.restorativland.org/RainForest/Vines/) You may not be criticizing the Geocities folks (little difficult to tell with the word choice), yet I never really get why people rag on these types of Geocities sites so much. Sure, there were a large number that were "perpetually under construction." In many ways, I'd still prefer if a larger portion of the web had the freedom to simply put up this kind of site, about whatever they happened to be personally interested in, and if sites like Geocities had continued to prosper, rather than being sold to the rancor pit. It's all so homogenized now. Looking through the site listed, there's almost nothing to condemn. Coral reef page [1], mostly somebody who likes coral reefs and provided links to university references. [1] An attempt at a photo blog or vacation photo site before there were any public places available to host, using their own design. [2] A quick page somebody threw up for a marketing summit. [3] A fan-zine website about a band from the 90's [4] A personal website (with a slightly garish color design) yet attempts at personal info, photos, and blogging. [5] They're all rather different, there's a bunch of ideas about how to structure a website, they use a bunch different concepts about what it means to have your own "personal" location on the world wide web. They're far less homogenized than most of what amounts to current social media. And out of the ~1000, there's very few that looking back on after 20-30 years are anything to be especially embarrassed about creating or attempting to maintain. The entire platform gave 1000's (maybe larger) a chance to experiment with a new technology in a relatively "free" environment, that probably resulted in many going on to develop further in their own web design skills and perspective on the world wide web. How much does almost anybody get these days (especially in terms of personal skills) by putting up a text message social media repository location, or a FB / Meta page? Anyways, large aside. TL;DR "would prefer if more of the web had the free-form nature of Geocities with less condemnation of newbies attempts." [1] https://geocities.restorativland.org/RainForest/Vines/1655/ https://geocities.restorativland.org/RainForest/Vines/1655/ [2] https://geocities.restorativland.org/RainForest/Vines/1775/index.html https://geocities.restorativland.org/RainForest/Vines/1775/i... [3] https://geocities.restorativland.org/RainForest/Vines/2072/ https://geocities.restorativland.org/RainForest/Vines/2072/ [4] https://geocities.restorativland.org/RainForest/Vines/2393/ https://geocities.restorativland.org/RainForest/Vines/2393/ [5] https://geocities.restorativland.org/RainForest/Vines/2581/ https://geocities.restorativland.org/RainForest/Vines/2581/
apt-apt-apt-apt 2y ago
Lead in Sensodyne toothpaste? How does this even happen?
- autoexec 2y ago
  corporate greed and a lack of adequate government regulation.
ComputerGuru 2y ago
> some houses still have original lead paint that has been painted on top of I was under the impression that various governmental safety bodies said that was safe so long as it remained undisturbed?
- relaxing 2y ago
  And then the owners start renovating and disturb it.
- gregwebs 2y ago
  It’s unlikely to be a truly safe situation since paint wears down and chips off. It’s most dangerous though whenever there is repainting which involves sanding existing paint.
  - ender341341 2y ago
    those cases are usually what's called out as when it becomes unsafe. It's safe as long as it's on the wall but chipping needs to be addressed and for sanding/demo proper PPE/followup cleaning needs to happen. If you maintain the surface you're fine as far as any existing testing shows, usually you want to just remove any loose chips, clean the surface and paint over it so you don't need to deal with more in depth remediation. If you have particularly destructive kids/pets/people around you may want to do more.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

MetaWhirledPeas 2y ago

Wow! This is a great website. And it looks fine. And she replies in the comments. Sad quote: > If you look above in this article there is a list of 49 things we have tested so far (49/245 published articles, and that is going to bump to 55 this week) that have all tested safe by the strictest standards – that’s about 20%. https://tamararubin.com/2025/01/daves-killer-bread-thin-sliced-21-whole-grains-and-seeds/ https://tamararubin.com/2025/01/daves-killer-bread-thin-slic...

jollyllama 2y ago
Note that that includes prenatal vitamins. None tested so far, including some of the most high-end ones on the market, meet the standard.

pc86 2y ago

I think the site UX is more a feature than a bug (though probably unintentional, regardless). If she had some super-slick SPA website that looked like a million bucks, I'd wonder where her funding was coming from. Whether it's true or not, this looks much more like someone who doesn't really know what they're doing just threw the site up to get the message out and cover her costs w/ some affiliate sales. I'm inclined to trust this more than something more "professional."

autoexec 2y ago
> this looks much more like someone who doesn't really know what they're doing just threw the site up to get the message out It's a typical wordpress blog. I wouldn't expect someone who doesn't really know what they're doing to end up with a functional blog full of CSS/JS, with a comment section, that's also optimized for performance and SEO There are some curious design/graphics choices, but we've certainly come a long way from what people who didn't really know what they were doing were accomplishing on geocities (https://geocities.restorativland.org/RainForest/Vines/ https://geocities.restorativland.org/RainForest/Vines/)
- araes 2y ago
  > we've certainly come a long way from what people who didn't really know what they were doing were accomplishing on geocities (https://geocities.restorativland.org/RainForest/Vines/ https://geocities.restorativland.org/RainForest/Vines/) You may not be criticizing the Geocities folks (little difficult to tell with the word choice), yet I never really get why people rag on these types of Geocities sites so much. Sure, there were a large number that were "perpetually under construction." In many ways, I'd still prefer if a larger portion of the web had the freedom to simply put up this kind of site, about whatever they happened to be personally interested in, and if sites like Geocities had continued to prosper, rather than being sold to the rancor pit. It's all so homogenized now. Looking through the site listed, there's almost nothing to condemn. Coral reef page [1], mostly somebody who likes coral reefs and provided links to university references. [1] An attempt at a photo blog or vacation photo site before there were any public places available to host, using their own design. [2] A quick page somebody threw up for a marketing summit. [3] A fan-zine website about a band from the 90's [4] A personal website (with a slightly garish color design) yet attempts at personal info, photos, and blogging. [5] They're all rather different, there's a bunch of ideas about how to structure a website, they use a bunch different concepts about what it means to have your own "personal" location on the world wide web. They're far less homogenized than most of what amounts to current social media. And out of the ~1000, there's very few that looking back on after 20-30 years are anything to be especially embarrassed about creating or attempting to maintain. The entire platform gave 1000's (maybe larger) a chance to experiment with a new technology in a relatively "free" environment, that probably resulted in many going on to develop further in their own web design skills and perspective on the world wide web. How much does almost anybody get these days (especially in terms of personal skills) by putting up a text message social media repository location, or a FB / Meta page? Anyways, large aside. TL;DR "would prefer if more of the web had the free-form nature of Geocities with less condemnation of newbies attempts." [1] https://geocities.restorativland.org/RainForest/Vines/1655/ https://geocities.restorativland.org/RainForest/Vines/1655/ [2] https://geocities.restorativland.org/RainForest/Vines/1775/index.html https://geocities.restorativland.org/RainForest/Vines/1775/i... [3] https://geocities.restorativland.org/RainForest/Vines/2072/ https://geocities.restorativland.org/RainForest/Vines/2072/ [4] https://geocities.restorativland.org/RainForest/Vines/2393/ https://geocities.restorativland.org/RainForest/Vines/2393/ [5] https://geocities.restorativland.org/RainForest/Vines/2581/ https://geocities.restorativland.org/RainForest/Vines/2581/

apt-apt-apt-apt 2y ago

Lead in Sensodyne toothpaste? How does this even happen?

autoexec 2y ago
corporate greed and a lack of adequate government regulation.

ComputerGuru 2y ago

> some houses still have original lead paint that has been painted on top of I was under the impression that various governmental safety bodies said that was safe so long as it remained undisturbed?

relaxing 2y ago
And then the owners start renovating and disturb it.
gregwebs 2y ago
It’s unlikely to be a truly safe situation since paint wears down and chips off. It’s most dangerous though whenever there is repainting which involves sanding existing paint.
- ender341341 2y ago
  those cases are usually what's called out as when it becomes unsafe. It's safe as long as it's on the wall but chipping needs to be addressed and for sanding/demo proper PPE/followup cleaning needs to happen. If you maintain the surface you're fine as far as any existing testing shows, usually you want to just remove any loose chips, clean the surface and paint over it so you don't need to deal with more in depth remediation. If you have particularly destructive kids/pets/people around you may want to do more.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]