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Well put. The argument the testers want to make is that the allowable levels set by the FDA are too high, but they don't seem to be providing evidence (in this
by coldpie 2y ago
Well put. The argument the testers want to make is that the allowable levels set by the FDA are too high, but they don't seem to be providing evidence (in this particular study) to back that up. Per the article, they've only shown that the levels in toothpaste are indeed below the allowable threshold.
- pogue 2y agoThe group, Lead Safe Mamas, seems to be advocating for products to be lead free & I think that's a perfectly reasonable position to take. But, it's not possible for some food and other products to be free of lead and other heavy metals. AFAIK, there's no way to filter heavy metals out products, unfortunately. The only other issue is that the Lead Free Mamas is providing affiliate links to sell some of the products they test and could definitely be seen as a conflict of interest.
- Blackthorn 2y agoI don't think it's reasonable to ding them for the second part. She has to actually fund herself somehow, and doing it by promoting products that actually meet the standard is by far the least offensive way of doing it. Watching this comment tick down with more and more downvotes from people who get paid cushy software engineer salaries is absolutely comical.
- im3w1l 2y agoIt's not that it's wrong, but when someone stands to make money the assumptions we make about their motives change. If their whole business relies on advocating a fringe position I will not start with an assumption of good faith, or that they are just misinformed.
- Blackthorn 2y agoGiven that money is required to both live and do this research, I'm curious to hear what the alternative is.
- pogue 2y agoI don't know the economics of it, but they could run ads on their site, become a non profit & only accept donations, etc etc. This is slightly unrelated, but I remember in the 2000s, there was a vendor of protein powders who started testing his and other vendors protein powders to see if their labels were true & they weren't protein spiking (adding cheaper collagen instead of whey lying on the labels, essentially). He almost immediately got sued from several large mfgs and had to shut down. So, for this group, and the fact that they're ignoring cease & desist letters from the toothpaste mfgs they're testing puts them in HUGE legal risk, I suspect, and would not be the least bit surprised if all the funds they're collecting are going to end up in lawyers pockets.
- Blackthorn 2y ago> but they could run ads on their site My dude, what do you think those affiliate links are?
- pogue 2y agoI mean like Google Adsense or any other type of advertising that do not use affiliate links for the specific products they mention.
- im3w1l 2y agoAs I said it's not wrong itself. They just have a steeper hill to climb in terms of evidence for their position.
- pogue 2y agoYou could make either side of the argument, tbh. If you wanted a completely independent and unbiased testing, you wouldn't want the group to sell/promote the products they test. It definitely presents potential conflicts of interest. But, I went on Consumer Reports recently looking for a good smoke detector and saw they are now using affiliate links for the products they test as well, and I consider them well established and above board. So, everyone will have to make their own ethical judgment on how to take the results.
- Blackthorn 2y agoSure, you would definitely want that in an ideal world, but that isn't the world we live in. An ideal world would have the government funding this research, but that's laughable now. So with the reality we have to live in, this research has to get funds somehow.
- tmerc 2y agoConsumer Reports was not honest about their testing for the Suzuki Samurai back in the late 80s. https://www.motorbiscuit.com/the-90s-scandal-consumer-reports-hopes-you-forgot-about/ https://www.motorbiscuit.com/the-90s-scandal-consumer-report... Summary, the samurai passed all their standard rollover tests and got great remarks from the test drivers about its handling and maneuverability. So they changed the test specifically to make it fail, and kept trying until it failed. Then they presented that failure as happening under normal conditions, singled out the samurai by name, and said it easily rolled in cornering despite their own testing showing it was actually quite difficult to make it roll. As a result, Suzuki and Isuzu both left the usdm. Today, the Suzuki Jimny is one of the most popular SUVs in the world and America can't have it because consumer reports lied deliberately to American consumers.
- hammock 2y ago>AFAIK, there's no way to filter heavy metals out products, unfortunately. For food, you can use lead-free soil in clean-air areas to grow practically lead-free food/feed. You can't well filter it out of the finished product, that's right.
- coldpie 2y ago> seems to be advocating for products to be lead free & I think that's a perfectly reasonable position to take Is it? What harms would that prevent? How much would preventing those harms cost? Is the cost worth the gain? They may be right that the limits are too high! Lead is really bad! But an article telling me that toothpaste is within the limits considered acceptable by the FDA, with no argument that those limits are too high, is not answering the questions I'm interested in.
- pogue 2y agoYou'd want to do a deep dive on lead and it's negatives. The human body sees it as calcium and it can accumulate in the body and brain over time and cause a variety of health problems. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead#Biological_effects https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead#Biological_effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_poisoning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_poisoning In an ideal world, we would want no lead in our food and toothpaste (etc). But, I'm sure it's not economically possible for manufacturers/farmers to completely eliminate it, but it would be wise to avoid products that contain high levels of it. Recall the Flint, Michigan lead pipes environment disaster, for example of a worse case scenario https://www.nrdc.org/stories/flint-water-crisis-everything-you-need-know https://www.nrdc.org/stories/flint-water-crisis-everything-y...
- coldpie 2y agoAgreed. My point is this study & this article are not making the case for the policy change that the authors desire.
- sorokod 2y agoThe article indicates that it is possible: Several children’s toothpastes, like Dr Brown’s Baby Toothpaste, did not test positive for any metals and did not contain the ingredients in question.
- lostmsu 2y agoIt also does not have fluoride, which likely makes it relatively ineffective.
- jerotas 2y agoHowever, several brands score 5 PPB that do have flouride. That's a helluva lot better than 200 or 300+.
- iamthepieman 2y agoDepending on where you live, you get it in your water and you don't need both sources of fluoride.
- jerotas 2y agoI don't know anyone who drinks tap water, so that's irrelevant.
- elif 2y agoThat's really not true. Plaque bacteria are best killed by mouth wash, not by toothpaste, and fluoride doesn't remove plaque itself any better than grit does. With CPC mouthwash available the "but we need to microdose neurotoxins" arguments sound like 1950's doctors advocating cigarettes more every year.
- antisthenes 2y agoInfants and toddlers don't have permanent teeth anyway. Once the teeth start coming in, feel free to switch them to fluoride toothpaste?
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- hedora 2y agoThis is misleading. They didn't pluck the numbers from thin air. They provide links to evidence from third parties. Also they show that the levels in some toothpaste exceed FDA standards: "The numbers are juxtaposed (in blue) to the “Action Level” proposed by the medical and scientific community in 2021 as part of the Baby Food Safety Act. ... The legitimacy of these levels as “Action Levels”/ “Levels of Concern” (even though they were not adopted as law) is mirrored by the legitimacy of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ level of concern for Lead in water, which is 1 ppb despite the FDA’s official “level of concern” for Lead in water being 15 ppb (you can read more about that here)." From here: https://tamararubin.com/2025/02/crest-regular-toothpaste/ https://tamararubin.com/2025/02/crest-regular-toothpaste/ I only checked crest because I like fluoride. Crest is at 7980% of the action level for lead, 300% for mercury, and 60% for arsenic. For lead, later they say they detected 0.399mg/kg, which is 399 ppb by mass. The molecular weight of lead is 207.2. The molecular weight of water is 18.015. I'm not sure how the regulators calculate PPB, but dividing that out, I get 35.5 lead atoms per billion water molecules, which is above 15.
- coldpie 2y agoThanks, the two sentences you quoted are way more relevant to the problem than the entire Guardian article. I'd be interested to see the peer reviewed studies backing up the numbers proposed in the linked Act. I didn't see a study like that on the page you linked, but it's pretty long, so maybe I missed it.
- ajross 2y agoYour quote for that FDA standard is for water, which is consumed by typical people at a level around 1000mL/day (varies widely). The testing is done on toothpaste, which is not consumed at all when used correctly, and even if directly swallowed would be something around a 100mL tube every few months, so 2-3 orders of magnitude less exposure at worst. Which would put even the most contaminated products in their chart at the "safer than water" level. I think it's fair to say we're looking at junk science here.
- instagib 2y agoOne notable aspect of lead content is that the dosage of products can make them of interest to the FDA if they exceed interim reference levels (IRLs). For instance, a supplement I examined contained a nominal amount of lead, yet individuals began consuming double or triple the recommended dosage. This resulted in exceeding daily limits. This is a specific example of a single supplement. What consequences arise if the lead content of all supplements, toothpaste, food, water, and other substances is comprehensively calculated? https://www.fda.gov/food/environmental-contaminants-food/lead-food-and-foodwares https://www.fda.gov/food/environmental-contaminants-food/lea... The action levels for processed foods intended for babies and young children are as follows: * 10 parts per billion (ppb) for fruits, vegetables (excluding single-ingredient root vegetables), mixtures (including grain- and meat-based mixtures), yogurts, custards/puddings, and single-ingredient meats; * 20 ppb for single-ingredient root vegetables; and * 20 ppb for dry infant cereals. The FDA has not established a specific, legally binding limit for lead content in dietary supplements, but it has developed interim reference levels (IRLs) for daily lead intake. These IRLs are 2.2 mcg per day for children and 8.8 mcg per day for females of childbearing age.