Feds Probe...Cadmium in Kids Jewelry - Made in China

[Mere]

Read at www.flutrackers.com this morning....source is Fox News below.

US: Feds Probe Cadmium in Kids' Jewelry From China

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,582746,00.html

Feds Probe Cadmium in Kids' Jewelry From China
Monday, January 11, 2010

LOS ANGELES — Moving swiftly, U.S. product safety authorities say they are launching an investigation into the presence of the toxic metal cadmium in children's jewelry imported from China after disclosure of lab tests showing that some pieces consisted primarily of the dangerous substance.

The promise to "take action as quickly as possible to protect the safety of children" followed by hours the release Sunday of an Associated Press investigative report that documented how some Chinese manufacturers have been substituting cadmium for lead in cheap charm bracelets and pendants being sold throughout the United States.

Meantime, the head of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, the agency that regulates children's jewelry and toys, was set to deliver a speech Tuesday to Asian manufacturers emphasizing that American regulators are still scrutinizing jewelry contents now that they've barred the use of lead.

In a taped keynote speech to a toy safety meeting in Hong Kong, organized by Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, a forum of governments in the region, CPSC Chairman Inez Tenenbaum was to laud manufacturers for effectively abandoning the use of lead in children's products. She also was to warn that "the bar will be raised in the new year" when it comes to safety, agency spokesman Scott Wolfson said.

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.

Wolfson said the agency would study the test results, attempt to buy the contaminated products and "take appropriate action."

The jewelry testing 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. Wolfson acknowledged the agency had worked closely with Weidenhamer.

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.

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.

The CPSC 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: With lead heavily regulated under the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, factories scrambled for substitutes, just as cadmium prices plummeted.

That law set a new, stringent standard for lead in children's products: Only the very smallest amount is permissible — no more than 0.03 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.

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.

Weidenhamer's 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 bracelet was purchased 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.

"It comes down to the following: Cadmium causes cancer. How much cadmium do you want your child eating?" said Michael R. Harbut, a doctor who has treated adult victims of cadmium poisoning and is director of the environmental cancer program at the Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit. "In my view, the answer should be none."

Xu Hongli, a cadmium specialist with the Beijing office of Asian Metal Ltd., a market research and consultancy firm, said test results showing high cadmium levels in some Chinese-made metal jewelry did not surprise her. Using cadmium alloys has been "a relatively common practice" among manufacturers in the eastern cities of Yiwu and Qingdao and the southern province of Sichuan, Xu said.

"Some of their products contain 90 percent cadmium or higher," she acknowledged. "Usually, though, they are more careful with export products."

She said she thought that manufacturers were becoming aware of cadmium's dangers, and are using it less, "But it will still take a while for them to completely shift away from using it."

The CPSC has received dozens of incident reports of cadmium in products over the past few years, said Gib Mullan, the agency's director of compliance and field operations. Though the CPSC has authority to go after a product deemed a public danger under the Federal Hazardous Substances Act — the law used in lead-related recalls several years ago — there have been no enforcement actions.

"We are a small agency so we can't do everything we think would be a good idea. We have to try to pick our spots," Mullan said. At most, the agency can investigate 10 percent of the tens of thousands of reports filed by the public each year, he said.

With the help of an outside firm, the CPSC has started a scientific literature review of cadmium and other heavy metals, including how the substances fare in leaching tests, according to spokesman Wolfson. "If there has a been a shift in manufacturing to the use of cadmium, CPSC will take appropriate action."

Meanwhile, the CPSC's Mullan cites "a trend upward" in cadmium reports the agency has received — and private-sector testing AP reviewed shows cadmium is showing up more frequently.

Two outfits that analyze more than a thousand children's products each year checked their data at AP's request. Both said their findings of cadmium above 300 parts per million in an item — the current federal limit for lead — increased from about 0.5 percent of tests in 2007 to about 2.2 percent of tests in 2009. Those tests were conducted using a technology called XRF, a handheld gun that bounces X-rays off an item to estimate how much lead, cadmium or other elements it contains. While the results are not as exact as lab testing, the CPSC regularly uses XRF in its product screening.

Much of the increase found by the Michigan-based HealthyStuff.org came in toys with polyvinyl chloride plastic, according to Jeff Gearhart, the group's research director. Both lead and cadmium can be used to fortify PVC against the sun's rays. Data collected by a Washington-based company called Essco Safety Check led its president, Seth Goldberg, to suspect that substitution of cadmium for lead partly explains the increase he's seen.

Rick Locker, general counsel for the Toy Industry Association of America, and Sheila A. Millar, a lawyer representing the Fashion Jewelry Trade Association, said their industries make products that are safe and insisted cadmium is not widely used.

Millar said jewelry makers often opt for zinc these days. "While FJTA can only speak to the experience of its members," Millar wrote in an e-mail, "widespread substitution of cadmium is not something they see."

[Mere]

Read at www.flutrackers.com this morning....source is Fox News below.


US: Feds Probe Cadmium in Kids' Jewelry From China

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,582746,00.html

Feds Probe Cadmium in Kids' Jewelry From China
Monday, January 11, 2010

LOS ANGELES — Moving swiftly, U.S. product safety authorities say they are launching an investigation into the presence of the toxic metal cadmium in children's jewelry imported from China after disclosure of lab tests showing that some pieces consisted primarily of the dangerous substance.

The promise to "take action as quickly as possible to protect the safety of children" followed by hours the release Sunday of an Associated Press investigative report that documented how some Chinese manufacturers have been substituting cadmium for lead in cheap charm bracelets and pendants being sold throughout the United States.

Meantime, the head of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, the agency that regulates children's jewelry and toys, was set to deliver a speech Tuesday to Asian manufacturers emphasizing that American regulators are still scrutinizing jewelry contents now that they've barred the use of lead.

In a taped keynote speech to a toy safety meeting in Hong Kong, organized by Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, a forum of governments in the region, CPSC Chairman Inez Tenenbaum was to laud manufacturers for effectively abandoning the use of lead in children's products. She also was to warn that "the bar will be raised in the new year" when it comes to safety, agency spokesman Scott Wolfson said.

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.

Wolfson said the agency would study the test results, attempt to buy the contaminated products and "take appropriate action."

The jewelry testing 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. Wolfson acknowledged the agency had worked closely with Weidenhamer.

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.

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.

The CPSC 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: With lead heavily regulated under the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, factories scrambled for substitutes, just as cadmium prices plummeted.

That law set a new, stringent standard for lead in children's products: Only the very smallest amount is permissible — no more than 0.03 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.

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.

Weidenhamer's 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 bracelet was purchased 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.

"It comes down to the following: Cadmium causes cancer. How much cadmium do you want your child eating?" said Michael R. Harbut, a doctor who has treated adult victims of cadmium poisoning and is director of the environmental cancer program at the Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit. "In my view, the answer should be none."

Xu Hongli, a cadmium specialist with the Beijing office of Asian Metal Ltd., a market research and consultancy firm, said test results showing high cadmium levels in some Chinese-made metal jewelry did not surprise her. Using cadmium alloys has been "a relatively common practice" among manufacturers in the eastern cities of Yiwu and Qingdao and the southern province of Sichuan, Xu said.

"Some of their products contain 90 percent cadmium or higher," she acknowledged. "Usually, though, they are more careful with export products."

She said she thought that manufacturers were becoming aware of cadmium's dangers, and are using it less, "But it will still take a while for them to completely shift away from using it."

The CPSC has received dozens of incident reports of cadmium in products over the past few years, said Gib Mullan, the agency's director of compliance and field operations. Though the CPSC has authority to go after a product deemed a public danger under the Federal Hazardous Substances Act — the law used in lead-related recalls several years ago — there have been no enforcement actions.

"We are a small agency so we can't do everything we think would be a good idea. We have to try to pick our spots," Mullan said. At most, the agency can investigate 10 percent of the tens of thousands of reports filed by the public each year, he said.

With the help of an outside firm, the CPSC has started a scientific literature review of cadmium and other heavy metals, including how the substances fare in leaching tests, according to spokesman Wolfson. "If there has a been a shift in manufacturing to the use of cadmium, CPSC will take appropriate action."

Meanwhile, the CPSC's Mullan cites "a trend upward" in cadmium reports the agency has received — and private-sector testing AP reviewed shows cadmium is showing up more frequently.

Two outfits that analyze more than a thousand children's products each year checked their data at AP's request. Both said their findings of cadmium above 300 parts per million in an item — the current federal limit for lead — increased from about 0.5 percent of tests in 2007 to about 2.2 percent of tests in 2009. Those tests were conducted using a technology called XRF, a handheld gun that bounces X-rays off an item to estimate how much lead, cadmium or other elements it contains. While the results are not as exact as lab testing, the CPSC regularly uses XRF in its product screening.

Much of the increase found by the Michigan-based HealthyStuff.org came in toys with polyvinyl chloride plastic, according to Jeff Gearhart, the group's research director. Both lead and cadmium can be used to fortify PVC against the sun's rays. Data collected by a Washington-based company called Essco Safety Check led its president, Seth Goldberg, to suspect that substitution of cadmium for lead partly explains the increase he's seen.

Rick Locker, general counsel for the Toy Industry Association of America, and Sheila A. Millar, a lawyer representing the Fashion Jewelry Trade Association, said their industries make products that are safe and insisted cadmium is not widely used.

Millar said jewelry makers often opt for zinc these days. "While FJTA can only speak to the experience of its members," Millar wrote in an e-mail, "widespread substitution of cadmium is not something they see."

[Mere]

New information 30 minutes ago.....

Another chain pulls cadmium-tainted kids' jewelry
By JEREMIAH MARQUEZ and JUSTIN PRITCHARD
AP
 posted: 3:34 PM 01/12/10

LOS ANGELES -A second international chain store said it is pulling from shelves jewelry that lab tests show contained high levels of the heavy metal cadmium, and Chinese regulators said they will investigate dangerous levels of the toxin in children's jewelry being exported to the United States. Also, a U.S. senator called for hearings.

The jewelry and accessories store Claire's, with nearly 3,000 locations in North America and Europe, on Tuesday joined Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in saying it would stop selling any item cited in an Associated Press investigation of the presence of cadmium in cheap bracelets and charms.

Charms on a "Best Friends" bracelet sold at Claire's contained 89 and 91 percent cadmium, according to testing organized by AP, and shed alarming amounts in a procedure that examined how much cadmium children might be exposed to.

"While we have no reason to believe that this product is unsafe, out of an abundance of caution, we are taking this action because we take our responsibility to our customers very seriously," Claire's said in a statement. Also, customers who return the item will be offered store credit.

Meanwhile, an official with China's product safety agency said it would examine the findings on cadmium contamination.

"We just heard about this, and we will investigate," Wang Xin, a director general for the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said Tuesday at a toy safety conference in Hong Kong.

Though Wang does not have the authority to order a full-bore inquiry, his comments were the government's first on the matter and show China's nervousness about potential troubles in the U.S., the biggest Chinese export market.

Also on Tuesday, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota, who sits on the Commerce Committee, urged a hearing on cadmium in imported children's jewelry. "There's no excuse — toxic jewelry and toys need to be off our shores and out of our stores," said Klobuchar, who helped engineer stricter legislation on lead in children's products that became law in 2008.

On Monday, Wal-Mart pulled products as politicians in the United States promised new legislation and inquiries. The attorney general of Connecticut promised to investigate suspect costume jewelry. A New York state legislator called for a ban on the sale of children's jewelry with cadmium in the state.

Lab tests conducted for the AP on 103 pieces of low-priced children's jewelry on sale in the U.S. found 12 items with raised levels of cadmium, which can hinder brain development in young children, according to recent research, and is known to cause cancer.

Twelve items had cadmium levels of at least 10 percent by weight. One piece had a startling 91 percent, and others contained more than 80 percent. The government has no restrictions on cadmium in jewelry.

The findings of cadmium contamination come on the heels of a string of product quality scandals in 2007 that caused Congress in 2008 to ban toys and other kids products that contain lead — another dangerous and once commonly used material. Cadmium is even more harmful.

A soft, whitish metal that occurs naturally in soil, cadmium is perhaps best known as half of rechargeable nickel-cadmium batteries, but also is used in pigments, electroplating and plastic. Low-cost jewelry makers find cadmium attractive because it is cheap and easy to work with.

Melissa Hill, a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart Stores Inc., called the AP findings "troubling." She said the company, which is the world's largest retailer, had a special responsibility "to take swift action, and we are doing so."

In taped remarks delivered at the toy safety conference in Hong Kong, the chairwoman of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission urged other countries to ensure that manufacturers do not substitute cadmium, antimony or barium in place of lead in children's products.

"All of us should be committed to keeping hazardous or toxic levels of heavy metals out of ... toys and children's products," Inez Tenenbaum said in a transcript of the remarks.

Tenenbaum singled out cadmium for special vigilance and said: "Voluntary efforts will only take us so far."

The commission immediately said it was opening an investigation into the AP's findings, promising to "take action as quickly as possible to protect the safety of children."

Children can be exposed by sucking or biting such jewelry. But without direct exposure, most people do not experience its worst effects: cancer, kidneys that leak vital protein and bones that spontaneously snap.

The worrisome results came in tests of bracelet charms sold at Walmart stores, Claire's and at a Dollar N More store. High amounts of cadmium also were detected in "The Princess and The Frog" movie-themed pendants.

U.S.-based trade groups, as well as distributors and sellers of the jewelry containing cadmium, said their products meet safety standards. Cadmium is regulated in painted toys but not in jewelry.

A cadmium specialist with the Beijing office of Asian Metal Ltd., a market research and consultancy firm, said products with cadmium are normally directed to the Chinese domestic market.

A 2008 law imposed limits on lead in children's products and sent factories rushing for substitutes. About the same time, cadmium prices dropped, in part because nickel-cadmium batteries are swiftly being replaced with newer designs.



Read entire article here......

http://www.dailyfinance.com/article//another-chain-pulls-cadmium-tainted-kids/851569?cid=12

[Mere]

OSHA LINK - Lots of information on cadmium in the workplace, health, etc.

http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/cadmium/

CADMIUM

Cadmium is an extremely toxic metal commonly found in industrial workplaces, particularly where any ore is being processed or smelted. Due to its low permissible exposure limit (PEL), overexposures may occur even in situations where trace quantities of cadmium are found in the parent ore or smelter dust. Cadmium is used extensively in electroplating, although the nature of the operation does not generally lead to overexposures. Several deaths from acute exposure have occurred among welders who have unsuspectingly welded on cadmium-containing alloys or worked with silver solders. Cadmium is also found in some industrial paints and may represent a hazard when sprayed. Operations involving removal of cadmium paints by scraping or blasting may similarly pose a significant hazard. Cadmium is also present in the manufacture of some types of batteries. Cadmium emits a characteristic brown fume (CdO) upon heating, which is relatively non-irritating, and thus does not alarm the exposed individual.