Bio-Tag: Lead

via youtube

Recently covered in the news, massive recalls of toys and baby products have raised the concerns of parents everywhere. Dr. Philip J. Landrigan of Mount Sinai's Children's Environmental Health Center talks on lead in toys from China giving parents practical advice on how they can protect their children and themselves.

Lead in toys has become a major problem in the USA. Lead-painted trains, lead-painted dolls and lead-contaminated plastic lunch boxes imported from China and other nations have become a major new threat to the health of American children. This is a very serious issue. Tens of thousands of children have been placed at risk of lead exposure this year because of contaminated imports. Millions of toys have been recalled. This situation reflects the grave weakness of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and the lack of federal controls on imported toys.

What can parents do? Most importantly, parents should avoid all painted toys this holiday season. Also they should avoid brightly colored plastic toys, because some of them have been shown to contain high levels of lead. Our recommended toys this year are:
• unpainted wooden toys
• sports equipment such as balls and gloves
• books
Parents should consider writing letters or sending emails to their Senators, Congressional representatives, state and local officials, and the White House to complain about the current situation. It is simply not right that this country should allow the entry of millions of dangerous toys in the weeks before the holidays.

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Bio-Tag raises awareness of dangerous toxins present in the physical environment through the deployment of searchable word “markers” made from natural materials. Hopefully, these typographic deployments will solicit a curiosity that will draw people into personal research and action. The motivation for these actions is to address the lack of public knowledge and the hopeful elimination of toxins that are present in food, the body, the home, and the environment. The scope of the project includes these toxin categories: Agricultural Toxins, Air Pollutants, Biological Contaminants, Carcinogens, Chemicals, Extremely Hazardous Substances, Microorganisms, Multimedia Pollutants, Ozone, Radiation, Soil Contaminants, Toxic Substances, and Water Pollutants. This is an ongoing project www.finishing-school.net/biotag.html