TITLE: What to Know About Heavy Metals in Baby Foods
https://www.bonappetit.com/story/heavy-metals-baby-foods
EXCERPT: For most of my years on this earth, heavy metal has had nothing to do with food and everything to do with Black Sabbath and teen angst. But recently, the term has taken on a more concerning timbre. Thanks to years of research by public health, consumer, and government experts, studies have revealed elevated levels of arsenic, lead, mercury, and cadmium in a wide variety of baby foods—those generally marketed for children aged two and under.
Heavy metals, which include those listed above as well as zinc, iron, and others are so prevalent in our soils and waterways—naturally, and due to human activities such as mining and pesticide use—that it’s inevitable that they’re taken up by plants we eat. Even in small quantities, lead, arsenic, mercury, and cadmium are known to pose a risk of neurological and developmental impairment in children, who are still growing and eat more food proportional to their body weights than adults do.
In November, a slew of products were recalled when the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cited 86 confirmed cases of lead poisoning after (mostly) children ate certain brands of apple purée likely spiked with contaminated cinnamon. This past June, Consumer Reports testing found concerning levels of arsenic, cadmium, and lead in baby food products, particularly those made with rice, sweet potatoes, and, to a lesser extent, carrots. (Elevated levels of heavy metals have also been found in fruit juice, chocolate, and more.) And in February 2021, the US House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy released a 59-page report declaring various packaged baby foods tainted with “dangerous levels” of heavy metals.
The slew of findings have “shed light on how little regulation has been in place for setting industry standards,” says Maya Deyssenroth, DrPH, an assistant professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University. Though the FDA has only recently started setting stricter standards for heavy metals specifically found in baby foods, the agency does seem to be tightening guidelines for manufacturers in the US.
With California Assembly Bill 899 recently being signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom, baby foods produced in the state started requiring heavy metal testing before sale as of January 1. Minimizing these heavy metals in the diet, particularly those of kids, has also become an apparent federal priority. The FDA sets action levels for contaminants, like heavy metals, in various foods, defining the maximum permissible amount before federal intervention. While the agency regulates metals like lead in bottled water, it only recently proposed limits for baby and toddler foods. (The exception is arsenic in rice cereal. The FDA set a limit of 100 ppb in 2021, prompting immediate criticism for being not stringent enough to protect vulnerable populations; the European Commission, by comparison, only allows 0.1 ppb or arsenic in “rice destined for the production of food for infants and young children.”)
Earlier this year, as part of its Closer to Zero campaign—a bid to reduce childhood exposure to contaminants—the FDA proposed draft guidance, which, if adopted, would allow the agency to take action against companies that sell products containing more than 10 to 20 parts per billion (ppb) of lead. (For reference, 10 ppb is equal to 10 micrograms per liter/kilogram—think of it like one second in 32 years or one sugar cube dissolved in a swimming pool.) Action plans for arsenic, cadmium, and mercury won’t be announced until 2024 at the earliest.
Still, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said there’s no safe level of lead for children—even trace amounts, when consumed over time, can have lifelong consequences. And the FDA’s draft guidance has drawn criticism for being too soft on manufacturers, essentially codifying the industry standard. “These [proposed] levels are not low enough to protect kids,” says Jane Houlihan, the research director at Happy Babies Bright Futures (HBBF), which has extensively researched heavy metals in infant and toddler foods.
According to an FDA spokesperson, the FDA goes through “a thorough process” to set its action levels, seeking to “understand the levels of contaminants in the food supply, the potential for health risks from dietary exposure to the contaminant, and what levels are feasible for industry to achieve.” The spokesperson says the draft lead guidance also includes a tenfold safety factor, meaning that it’s proposed 10 to 20 ppb is nearly 10 times less than the actual amount of lead intake from food that would be required to reach the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) blood reference level (the level at which CDC recommends health care providers monitor children).
TITLE: What DC Water's Boil Advisory Fumble Teaches Us About Lead
https://www.nrdc.org/bio/valerie-baron/what-dc-waters-boil-advisory-fumble-teaches-us-about-lead
EXCERPT: Boiling water is a necessary step if there is possible bacterial/pathogen contamination, but when homes have lead service lines or internal lead plumbing, boiling can actually cause the dangerous neurotoxin to concentrate in the water. This happens because some of the water evaporates, but the heavy metals stay behind and can find their way into a drinking glass or cooking water. In addition, when there is a boil water advisory, sometimes people use less water, letting the water sit in the pipes for long periods of time. This can cause water sitting in contact with lead pipes to absorb more of the dangerous metal. The utility advises residents to address this by flushing their system after the advisory is over, but there is little reason to believe that many people would be aware of and follow that suggestion without better communications.
In 2019, a new law went into effect that finally stopped DC Water from engaging in the dangerous practice of partial lead service line replacement in most instances. When customers couldn’t pay (sometimes thousands of dollars) on short notice DC Water’s historical practice was to only replace the pipe to the property line. To do this, they would fuse the new copper pipe to the old lead one; this was shown in research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to cause more lead exposure than even a full lead line. The disturbance to the pipe from the construction shakes up lead flakes and causes an electrochemical reaction, an interaction from the two metals fusing together that causes long-term leaching at the joint. However, right up until practically the day that the new law went into effect, DC Water continued to use this practice frequently. Since then, it has taken advantage of a loophole that allows it to do partial lead pipe replacements in “emergency” circumstances. From 2019 to 2023, DC Water has added 190 partial lead pipes to the system, largely through this loophole. To make matters worse, we only know about this because advocates were forced to go to D.C. Council to ask for a law requiring the utility to disclose this information (and DC Water opposed that law as well).
It is not yet known whether DC Water had to conduct any emergency repairs that resulted in partial lead lines from this latest incident. However, the type of events that can lead to a boil water advisory (such as a main break) also often come with emergency construction and line replacement. Construction itself can shake up lead pipes, causing exposure. Only fully removing the lead pipes from our system can take care of these risks.
TITLE: We can solve the widespread problem of lead in school water
https://www.bangordailynews.com/2024/01/23/opinion/lead-school-water-widespread-problem-joam40zk0w/
EXCERPT: Lead exposure is especially dangerous for children. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, “even low levels of lead in blood have been shown to affect IQ, ability to pay attention, and academic achievement.” The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) states that any amount of lead in children’s bloodstream is unsafe.
Unfortunately, lead is a hidden contaminant — lead-tainted water looks, smells, and tastes just like clean water. This is why the law that required schools statewide to test drinking water sources was so important.
We now know which school water sources are unsafe. The question is, what should we do about this problem?
Schools have been asked to prohibit access to contaminated faucets and drinking fountains. This is prudent, but it is not a long-term solution. It is also difficult to implement if most or all of the water sources in a school have elevated lead levels.
To solve the problem, we need to stop lead exposure at its source. Lead enters the drinking water supply in two main ways.
First, in communities with centralized water utilities, treated drinking water flows through underground service lines on its way to homes and schools. In communities with older infrastructure, like many in Maine, there is a good chance that these service lines are made of lead.
Lead service lines corrode under certain conditions and release lead into the water they carry. This is what happened in the Flint, Michigan, case of lead contamination, which made national news in 2016. It has also occurred in other locations, such as Newark, New Jersey and Washington, D.C.
Progress is being made in replacing lead service lines with safer materials. For example, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal, passed by Congress in 2021, earmarks $15 billion for states to identify and replace lead lines.
The EPA has proposed that states and water utilities finish replacing lead service lines within 10 years. This is an ambitious timeline and accomplishing this goal will require additional resources. But it is a measure that the public should support.
Second, lead contamination can also be caused by solder and piping that contain lead within homes and buildings. These indoor plumbing components can cause lead contamination even if in-the-ground service lines are safe.
So far, federal policymakers and regulators have not addressed the problem of lead contamination from indoor plumbing. This is an area where states should act. Policymakers in Maine can look to the state of Michigan for inspiration.
Last October, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed bipartisan “Filter First” legislation. The new laws require schools and daycare centers to install lead-removing filters on faucets and drinking fountains, whether or not they have been documented as contaminated. These filters are effective and enable schools and daycare centers to avoid higher costs associated with replacing indoor plumbing systems.
Ending children’s exposure to lead in drinking water will take work and investment. But no child should risk lead exposure from a school water fountain. We understand the problem, we know how to solve it, and the time to act is now.