Health & Welfare | Daily Report

Center for Environmental HealthWalmart sold these bean bag chairs, foam jewelry beads and toy boxing gloves with high levels of lead.

Lab tests showed high levels of lead in children's products sold at Walmart and Target, an Oakland-based environmental group said yesterday.

The Center for Environmental Health found that kids' chairs and bean bags, foam jewelry beads and toy boxing gloves all exceeded the federal limits for lead – for one of the chairs, lead levels were 70 times the limit. The California attorney general's office, which funds a grant for the center to test children's products for safety compliance, asked both retailers to remove the products from their shelves. 

While Target agreed to stop selling the two colorful kids' chairs it offered exclusively online, Walmart is pulling items online and in its California stores only. In an interview with the Associated Press, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. spokeswoman Melissa Hill said the company was not issuing a recall on the items and would "investigate this matter further."

California cannot mandate that Walmart remove the items nationwide, but retailers often do when notified of high levels of lead in their products.

In choosing not to do so, Walmart underscores widespread industry frustration over how much lead is safe versus how much is legal, what qualifies as a children's product and the different state, federal and international standards placed on their merchandise.

Federal standards restrict lead in children's products to 300 parts per million – or 0.03 percent lead by weight. The limit will drop to 100 ppm next year, unless the commission deems it is technologically infeasible.

The jewelry and toy industries advocate a different standard that they say more accurately reflects health risks – one that is based on the solubility of lead, or how much the human body would absorb if an item were ingested. The standard is used by the European Union and in the United States for paint and surface coating on children's products.

Center for Environmental HealthThese kids' chairs contained high levels of lead and were sold online by Target.

Earlier this month, California Watch reported that Rainbow Apparel, a national retailer with 35 stores in the state, had repeatedly sold jewelry with illegal levels of lead.

Rainbow never issued a warning on the items because, its attorney said, "there's no reason to believe that they are in any way dangerous to anybody."

Rainbow pulled jewelry for both children and adults nationwide. But it wasn't required to do so: Although California limits lead in adult jewelry, the federal government does not. So what's illegal here may be permissible in other states.

The same legal variations are at play with Walmart. The Center for Environmental Health said yesterday it had also found two necklaces and a choker in Bay Area stores that exceeded California's lead limits for adult jewelry. Removing the jewelry in California is the retailer's only legal obligation.

The children's items sold at Walmart exceeded the federal limit for lead in children's products by three to 45 times. A package of animal-shaped foam jewelry beads was labeled "kids" and designated for ages 6 and older, said Charles Margulis, a spokesman for the center.

"I can't comprehend how they can argue that," Margulis said. "The federal law is for kids 12 and under, and it includes jewelry. If they're arguing it's not a federal violation, they don't understand the basics of the law."

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission recently tried to clarify its definition of a children's product, currently one that is "designed or intended primarily for children 12 and younger." The definition leaves much room for interpretation and often upsets the industry, The New York Times reported:

Critics point to provisions in the law that they deem ludicrous. For instance, a paper clip that is included in a science kit for schoolchildren would have to be tested for lead. But a teacher can walk into any drug store and buy a box of paper clips that would not be subject to the same testing.

Similarly, a lamp that is festooned with cartoon characters would have to be tested, but a lamp without the characters would not.

The Center for Environmental Health sent yesterday's findings to the commission and hopes the federal agency will have Walmart remove the items nationwide. Scott Wolfson, a commission spokesman, said the agency "is looking into the matter."