Popular kids' trinkets loaded with toxic metal
Barred from using lead, Chinese makers using more dangerous cadmium
By JUSTIN PRITCHARD updated 2:08 p.m. CT, Sun., Jan. 10, 2010
LOS ANGELES - Barred from using lead in children's jewelry because of its toxicity, some Chinese manufacturers have been substituting the more dangerous heavy metal cadmium in sparkling charm bracelets and shiny pendants being sold throughout the United States, an Associated Press investigation shows.
The most contaminated piece analyzed in lab testing performed for the AP contained a startling 91 percent cadmium by weight. The cadmium content of other contaminated trinkets, all purchased at national and regional chains or franchises, tested at 89 percent, 86 percent and 84 percent by weight. The testing also showed that some items easily shed the heavy metal, raising additional concerns about the levels of exposure to children.
Cadmium is a known carcinogen. Like lead, it can hinder brain development in the very young, according to recent research.
Children don't have to swallow an item to be exposed - they can get persistent, low-level doses by regularly sucking or biting jewelry with a high cadmium content.
To gauge cadmium's prevalence in children's jewelry, the AP organized lab testing of 103 items bought in New York, Ohio, Texas and California. All but one were purchased in November or December.
The results: 12 percent of the pieces of jewelry contained at least 10 percent cadmium.
Troubling results for charms
Some of the most troubling test results were for bracelet charms sold at Walmart, at the jewelry chain Claire's and at a dollar store. High amounts of cadmium also were detected in "The Princess and The Frog" movie-themed pendants.
"There's nothing positive that you can say about this metal. It's a poison," said Bruce A. Fowler, a cadmium specialist and toxicologist with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. On the CDC's priority list of 275 most hazardous substances in the environment, cadmium ranks No. 7.
Jewelry industry veterans in China say cadmium has been used in domestic products there for years. Zinc, the metal most cited as a replacement for lead in imported jewelry being sold in the United States, is a much safer and nontoxic alternative. But the jewelry tests conducted for AP, along with test findings showing a growing presence of cadmium in other children's products, demonstrate that the safety threat from cadmium is being exported.
A patchwork of federal consumer protection regulations does nothing to keep these nuggets of cadmium from U.S. store shelves. If the products were painted toys, they would face a recall. If they were industrial garbage, they could qualify as hazardous waste. But since there are no cadmium restrictions on jewelry, such items are sold legally.
While the agency in charge of regulating children's products, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, has cracked down on the dangers posed by lead and products known to have killed children, such as cribs, it has never recalled an item for cadmium - even though it has received scattered complaints based on private test results for at least the past two years.
There is no definitive explanation for why children's jewelry manufacturers, virtually all from China in the items tested, are turning to cadmium. But a reasonable double whammy looms: Cadmium prices have plummeted as factories grasp for substitutes now that lead is heavily regulated under the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008.
That law set a new, stringent standard for lead in children's products: Only the very smallest amount is permissible - no more than 0.0003 percent of the total content. The statute has led manufacturers to drastically reduce lead in toys and jewelry.
The law also contained the first explicit regulation of cadmium, though the standards are significantly less strict than lead and apply only to painted toys, not jewelry.
Stomach test
To determine how much cadmium a child could be exposed to, items are bathed in a solution that mimics stomach acid to see how much of the toxin would leach out after being swallowed.
The jewelry testing for AP was conducted by chemistry professor Jeff Weidenhamer of Ashland University in Ohio, who over the past few years has provided the CPSC with results showing high lead content in products that were later recalled. His lab work for AP assessed how much cadmium was in each item. Overall, 12 of the 103 items each contained at least 10 percent cadmium. Two others contained lower amounts, while the other 89 were clean.
Ten of the items with the highest cadmium content were then run through the stomach acid test to see how much would escape. Although that test is used only in regulation of toys, AP used it to see what hazard an item could pose because unlike the regulations, a child's body doesn't distinguish between cadmium leached from jewelry and cadmium leached from a toy.
"Clearly it seems like for a metal as toxic as cadmium, somebody ought to be watching out to make sure there aren't high levels in items that could end up in the hands of kids," said Weidenhamer.
His test results include:
Three flip flop bracelet charms sold at Walmart contained between 84 and 86 percent cadmium. The charms fared the worst of any item on the stomach acid test; one shed more cadmium in 24 hours than what World Health Organization guidelines deem a safe exposure over 60 weeks for a 33-pound child.
The charms were purchased for testing in August 2008. The company that imported them, Florida-based Sulyn Industries, stopped selling the item to Wal-Mart Corp. in November 2008, the firm's president said. Wal-Mart would not comment on whether the charms are still on store shelves, or how many have been sold.
Sulyn's president, Harry Dickens, said the charms were subjected to testing standards imposed by both Wal-Mart and federal regulation - but were not tested for cadmium.
In separate written statements, Dickens and Wal-Mart said they consider safety a very high priority. "We consistently seek to sell only those products that meet safety and regulatory standards," Wal-Mart said. "Currently there is no required cadmium standard for children's jewelry."
As was the case with every importer or retailer that responded to AP's request for comment on the tests, neither Sulyn nor Wal-Mart would address whether the results concerned them or if the products should be recalled.
Four charms from two "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" bracelets sold at a Dollar N More store in Rochester, N.Y., were measured at between 82 and 91 percent cadmium. The charms also fared poorly on the stomach acid test. Two other charms from the same bracelets were subjected to a leaching test which recreates how much cadmium would be released in a landfill and ultimately contaminate groundwater. Based on those results, if the charms were waste from manufacturing, they would have had to be specially handled and disposed of under U.S. environmental law. The company that imported the Rudolph charms, Buy-Rite Designs, Inc. of Freehold, N.J., has gone out of business.
Two charms on a "Best Friends" bracelet bought at Claire's, a jewelry chain with nearly 3,000 stores in North America and Europe, consisted of 89 and 91 percent cadmium. The charms also leached alarming amounts in the simulated stomach test. Informed of the results, Claire's issued a statement pointing out that children's jewelry is not required to pass a cadmium leaching test.
"Claire's has its products tested by independent accredited third-party laboratories approved by the Consumer Product Safety Commission in compliance with the commission's standards, and has passing test results for the bracelet using these standards," the statement said. Those standards scrutinize lead content, not cadmium.
Pendants from four "The Princess and The Frog" necklaces bought at Walmart ranged between 25 and 35 percent cadmium, though none failed the stomach acid test nor the landfill leaching test. The Walt Disney Co., which produced the popular animated movie, said in a statement that test results provided by the manufacturer, Rhode Island-based FAF Inc., showed the item complied with all applicable safety standards.
An official at FAF's headquarters did not respond to multiple requests for comment when informed of Weidenhamer's results; a woman at the company's office in southern China who would not give her name said FAF products "might naturally contain some very small amounts of cadmium. We measure it in parts per million because the content is so small, for instance one part per million." However, the tests conducted for AP showed the pendants contained between 246,000 and 346,000 parts per million of cadmium.
Hazards of a heavy metal Cadmium is a soft, whitish metal that occurs naturally in soil. It's perhaps best known as one half of rechargeable nickel-cadmium batteries, but also is used in pigments, electroplating and plastic.
Lab testing organized by The Associated Press shows that it also is present in children's jewelry - sometimes at eye-popping levels exceeding 90 percent of the item's total weight.
Most people get a microscopic dose of the heavy metal just by breathing and eating. Plants, including tobacco, take up cadmium through their roots and people absorb it during digestion or inhalation. Without direct exposure, however, people usually don't experience its nasty side: cancer, kidneys that leak vital protein, bones that spontaneously snap.
Cadmium is particularly dangerous for children because growing bodies readily absorb substances, and cadmium accumulates in the kidneys for decades.
"Just small amounts of chemicals may radically alter development," said Dr. Robert O. Wright, a professor at Harvard University's medical school and school of public health. "I can't even fathom why anyone would allow for even a small amount to be accessible."
Recent research by Wright found that as cadmium exposure increased, kids were more likely to report learning disabilities.
Dr. Aimin Chen of the University of Cincinnati's medical school also has studied how cadmium affects young brains. While lead is the heavy metal most associated with harming cognitive development, Chen has concluded that cadmium lowers IQ even more than lead - though cadmium isn't harming the average American child because the typical exposure is not as large as lead.
Scientists don't know how much cadmium it takes to kill a child. The only child's death attributed to cadmium that AP found was a nearly 3-year-old boy from Toronto. According to a case study published in 1994, an autopsy showed his brain had swollen; the researchers concluded his exposure came from items around his home such as paint pigments, batteries or cadmium-electroplated utensils.
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38 secret chemicals - that's how many unlabelled ingredients we found in 17 brand-name fragrances. The fragrances with the highest number of discovered hidden chemicals were American Eagle Seventy Seven (a Canadian-purchased product) with 24, Coco Mademoiselle Chanel with 18, and Britney Spears Curious with 17. The average number of secret chemicals per product was 14.
Children come into closer contact with their environment than adults. They crawl on the floor and the ground, put their fingers in their mouth, and touch and taste things without knowing if they are harmful. They may also be more sensitive to some harmful substances because of their stage of development. 
