Oakland, CA - A Los Angeles company identified yesterday as the producer of lead-tainted lunchboxes by the California Department of Public Health was sued by Oakland-based Center for Environmental Health (CEH) more than a year ago for high-lead levels in its lunchboxes. The company, T-A Creations, has known for nearly a year and a half about the lead problems in its lunchboxes.

While the Center has reached legal agreements to eliminate lead hazards to children with twenty other retailers and producers of children's lunchboxes, T-A Creations has refused even to participate in settlement talks with the group's legal counsel.

"Unlike nearly every other lunchbox maker, this company has refused to take action to protect children's health," said CEH Executive Director Michael Green, who yesterday testified on lead in children's products to a U.S. House Energy and Commerce subcommittee in Washington, D.C. "California children have been put needlessly at risk. Our agreements with other lunchbox producers show that the industry can make changes to eliminate lead from the lunch menu."

Independent testing commissioned by CEH in the spring of 2006 found a high lead level in a T-A Creations "Nueva Summer Challenge" camp lunchbox. The Center discovered the lunchbox at a lead-testing day the organization sponsored at a Peninsula elementary school. Testing found the lunchbox contained over 2600 parts per million of lead, more than four times the legal limit for lead in paint.

CEH notified T-A Creations about their lead-tainted lunchbox in April of last year and filed its lawsuit against the company on August 26, 2006. Just a month earlier, the Food and Drug Administration had sent a sharply worded letter to lunchbox makers, warning them about lead risks in vinyl lunchboxes. The FDA letter stated that "migration of lead to food" kept in children's vinyl lunchboxes could "reasonably be expected," and urged producers "to refrain from marketing such lead-containing lunchboxes."

Lead is a stunningly toxic metal. A long list of problems has been linked to lead exposure: lowered intelligence, behavior problems, cancer, strokes, high blood pressure, kidney problems, anemia, cavities, and delayed puberty. Recent research links low levels of lead exposure to low scores on school tests and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

According to today's Los Angeles Times, when asked about the lunchboxes, T-A Creations President said that "A lot of materials contain lead; we just don't know how [much]...."

"It is outrageous for a company that has long known about this problem to be so cavalier about exposing children to lead," said Green. "We hope that the state will take swift action to hold this company accountable for putting profits ahead of children's health."

Photos of the lunchbox and a copy of the test result are available from CEH.

For more information on lead in vinyl lunchboxes, see http://www.cehca.org/lead-in-lunchboxes/ and archived information at http://www.cehca.org/lunchboxes.htm

FDA's letter to lunchbox makers is at http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/pbltr2.html

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