Women from USW hold parties to raise awareness about toys, other imports
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Leeann Anderson, left, a member of the United Steelworkers Women of Steel, and Mary Sparks, a local union activist trained by the USW, test a doll for lead contaminants at Ms. Anderson's home in Mt. Lebanon.
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Leeann Anderson held a home demonstration party for the modern age yesterday. Instead of selling Tupperware or cosmetics, the Mt. Lebanon mother passed out lead-testing kits and showed her guests how to check toys for the toxic substance.
• Low birth weight
• Growth retardation
• Anemia
• Stomach cramps
• Damage to cells and kidneys
• Interference with production of Vitamin D (for strong bones)
• Interruption of the making of red blood cells
• Muscle weakness
• Problems in formation of bones
• Damage to protective cover of nerves
• Irreversible brain cell damage
• Low IQ
• Seven-fold increase in failure to graduate from high school
• Adults retain 1 percent of the lead that enters their bodies; children retain 68 percent
Source: Environmental Health Center at Wayne State University
Symptoms of lead exposure
• Headaches
• Irritability
• Weight loss
• Vomiting
• Poor attention span
• Learning difficulties
• Slowed speech development
• Hyperactivity
Source: Environmental Health Education Center, University of Maryland School of Nursing
She pulled out a test swab, cracked it on both ends and shook the contents so they mixed together. Then she rubbed the tip for 30 seconds on the head of one of her daughter's dolls. The tip of the swab turned pink, indicating the presence of lead.
Ms. Anderson is assistant to Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers of America. Her "Get the Lead Out" party was one of the first in a planned nationwide blitz by USW women, prompted by the continuous stream of imported products being recalled due to lead paint and other contaminants. The list includes toys, jewelry, lipstick, toothpaste, seafood, children's lunch boxes and pet food.
Most of the 10 women present were mothers and grandmothers associated with the union; they said they were taking matters into their own hands because of the U.S. government's failure to ensure the safety of imported products.
The campaign is providing free LeadCheck testing kits (made in the United States) to the public, while supplies last, at www.protect-our-kids.org or www.stoptoxicimports.org.
"We thought we'd solved this problem 30 years ago," said Steffi Domike, a grandmother of three and coordinator for the USW associate members program.
"We got lead out of the production of paint, gasoline and all kinds of consumer products in 1978. Now it's coming back to us in the form of toxic imports. It's like reliving a nightmare from the past."
Former USW president George Becker was at the forefront of the first campaign, Ms. Anderson said, so the issue is a natural for the union today.
Before her guests arrived, the hostess tested three Thomas the Tank Engine toys, favorites of her son, Evan, 5, and daughter, Maia, 4. The toys turned the swab pink.
"My daughter is adopted from China," she said. "One outcome of coming here was that she would never have to work in a place that made these toxic products. And now she's being exposed to lead through her toys. It's very disheartening.''
Dr. Herbert Needleman, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the nation's premier researcher on the harmful effects of lead on children, said home testing is "probably necessary."
"If I had a child in that age group, I'd want to know what their blood level was," he said. "Failing that, I'd want to know what's in their toys."
Consumer Reports cautions the kits are not 100 percent reliable, and that the only foolproof tests are done at a laboratory.
The union campaign asks participants to do three things: test their own homes for lead-tainted products; take the provided list of recalled products into at least two places in their community, like kindergartens, day care centers and stores, in search of any dangerous items still in use; and send a list of what they found to the USW.
The union will log the results, report them to lawmakers and lobby them to stop the importation of unsafe products.
The last step dovetails with the union's larger agenda -- Ms. Anderson's demonstration took place in front of a large backdrop linking "corporate greed, outsourced jobs, unfair trade, unsafe products and children at risk."
Agenda aside, the list of recalled products keeps growing. Barbie, Dora the Explorer and Big Bird already are on the list, and over the past few weeks more than 500,000 toys from China were identified for recall due to lead. The campaign kicked off last month at the Women of Steel conference in Toronto.
First Published October 19, 2007 12:00 am
