http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/23/AR2006032300303_pf.html
Child’s Death Prompts Recall
Excess Lead Found In Reebok Charm
By Caroline E. Mayer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 24, 2006; D01
Reebok International Ltd. yesterday announced a recall of 300,000 promotional charm bracelets after a 4-year-old died of lead poisoning within days of swallowing one of the heart-shaped charms.
Although health and safety officials said the death was highly unusual, the incident has renewed concerns about lead in children’s products, especially jewelry.
Since 2003, the Consumer Product Safety Commission has announced 13 recalls of metal jewelry, involving nearly 162 million pieces, citing the risk of lead poisoning. Three of those recalls, including Reebok’s, were announced yesterday.
More are likely as the agency continues to enforce its voluntary guidelines, issued a year ago, limiting lead in children’s jewelry to no more than 600 parts per million in any component. “This isn’t the last lead jewelry recall you will see,” said CPSC spokeswoman Julie Vallese.
Vallese said the “sheer numbers of jewelry being pulled off the market” reflect the success of the agency’s new enforcement policy. But the agency’s critics say the recalls do not go far enough, especially in light of the 4-year-old’s death.
“The CPSC needs to take more proactive steps to reduce, if not ban, children’s products that contain lead,” including toys and lunch boxes, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) wrote CPSC Chairman Hal Stratton yesterday.
Lead is toxic to humans, and children are the most vulnerable to lead poisoning, which can cause neurological damage, delayed mental and physical development, attention and learning deficiencies, and hearing problems. Because lead accumulates in the body, small amounts of lead can lead to adverse health effects, the CPSC said in its guidelines.
“Nonessential uses of lead including lunchboxes and children’s jewelry should be controlled or eliminated before children are poisoned,” said Mary Jean Brown, chief of the Centers for Disease Control’s lead poisoning prevention branch. The center has set a goal of eliminating all high-lead blood levels by 2010. “I’m not in a position to dictate what the CPSC should do, but this stuff should be eliminated. Whether it’s by the regulatory process or market forces isn’t my call.”
The Reebok incident involved Jarnell Brown of Minneapolis. According to the CDC and the Minnesota Department of Health, Brown first went to the hospital Feb. 16 with flu-like symptoms, including vomiting. He was treated and sent home. He returned two days later, still vomiting, listless and dehydrated. The next day, an X-ray revealed a metal object in his abdomen. A blood test revealed a concentration of lead three times the level considered to be a medical emergency.
Brown deteriorated rapidly. He was put on life support, declared brain dead and died Feb. 22.
“Jarnell was a great kid, always smiling, bubbling, looking forward to going to school, just an outstanding kid,” said his mother, Juanna Graham, yesterday in a telephone interview. She said she wanted to make sure others knew about the dangers of lead in children’s jewelry.
During an autopsy, a heart-shaped charm imprinted with “Reebok” was removed from Brown’s stomach. “The mother recognized the object as a charm that came with a pair of shoes belonging to another child whose home her son had visited,” the CDC said in a report issued yesterday. “The mother was not aware that her son had ingested the charm, and he had no history of ingesting nonfood substances.”
A subsequent test on the charm in Brown’s stomach showed it was 99 percent lead. CPSC’s enforcement guidelines say children’s jewelry should contain no more than 0.06 percent lead. Because gastric acids could have eaten away other metals, Minneapolis health and CDC officials both obtained new Reebok charms for testing. Some met the CPSC’s guidelines, but one was 67 percent lead.
Reebok spokeswoman Denise Kaigler said the company first learned of Brown’s death on March 10 and worked over that weekend to remove any products left in stores. The bracelets, made in China, were given away with various girls’ shoes from May 2004 through this month. “The product was still on the market, although it was very minimal,” Kaigler said.
Reebok President Paul Harrington issued a statement saying, “I will do everything in my power to ensure that no other family, no other child, suffers from a similar tragedy.”
Reebok and the CPSC said parents should immediately get rid of the bracelets.
The California nonprofit group Center for Environmental Health has been aggressively pushing for reducing the amount of lead in jewelry and vinyl lunchboxes after it conducted a number of tests and found high levels of lead in both products.
The group has sued retailers and manufacturers of both products. In January, it reached an agreement with 71 companies — most major retailers — to limit the amount of lead in children’s jewelry.
Last month, the center reached a settlement with the nation’s third-largest producer of lunchboxes and coolers, InGear, which has agreed to reduce lead levels and phase out the use of polyvinyl chloride, which often contains high lead levels.
The CPSC said its own tests show a low health risk with vinyl lunchboxes. “Based on the extremely low levels of lead found in our tests, in most cases, children would have to rub their lunch box and then lick their hands more than 600 times every day, for about 15-30 days, in order for the lunch box to present a health hazard,” the agency says on its Web site.