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By Justin Pritchard, Associated Press Writer


      Los Angeles (AP) - The top U.S. consumer product regulator is
warning Asian manufacturers not to substitute other toxic
substances for lead in children's items, a message that follows the
launch of a government investigation into Chinese-made jewelry that
lab tests showed was laden with the heavy metal cadmium.


      Inez Tenenbaum, chairman of the Consumer Product Safety
Commission, said in taped remarks to be delivered Tuesday in Hong
Kong that her agency would be strenuously guarding against attempts
to swap one health hazard for another, now that lead is barred
under U.S. law in children's toys and jewelry.


      "I would highly encourage all of you to ensure that toy
manufacturers and children's product manufacturers in your country
are not substituting cadmium, antimony, barium, in place of lead,"
Tenenbaum tells an audience of children's products manufacturers,
exporters and regulators, according to a transcript. "All of us
should be committed to keeping hazardous or toxic levels of heavy
metals out of ... toys and children's products."


      The speech follows 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.


      In lab testing for the AP, the most contaminated piece of
children's jewelry contained 91 percent cadmium by weight. The
cadmium content of other trinkets, all purchased at national and
regional chains or franchises, tested at 89 percent, 86 percent and
84 percent by weight. Few of the items contained much lead.


      The testing also showed that some items easily shed the heavy
metal, raising additional concerns about the levels of exposure to
children.


      The CPSC reacted within hours of the AP report Sunday,
announcing an investigation while promising to "take action as
quickly as possible to protect the safety of children." CPSC
spokesman Scott Wolfson said the agency would study the test
results, attempt to buy the contaminated products and "take
appropriate action."


      Tenenbaum acknowledged media coverage of cadmium contamination
in the speech to a toy safety conference organized by Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation, a forum of governments in the region.

      She aptly predicted that heavy metals, "especially cadmium, are
going to attract attention in the United States from consumer
advocates, the media and parents." She promised the agency would
continue to post information on its Web site, Web-based interactive
training seminars to provide practical information for industry
compliance.


      Tenebaum's remarks about cadmium substitution departed from her
overall upbeat tone, which praised manufacturers for in most cases
abandoning the use of lead in their products.

      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.


      - 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."


      Associated Press writers Alexa Olesen in Beijing and Shaya
Tayefe Mohajer in Los Angeles, and Associated Press researchers Xi
Yue in Beijing and Julie Reed in Charlotte, N.C., contributed to
this report.

Gallery

Health

The top U.S. consumer product regulator is
warning Asian manufacturers not to substitute other toxic
substances for lead in children's items, a message that follows the
launch of a government investigation into Chinese-made jewelry that
lab tests showed was laden with the heavy metal cadmium.

U.S. consumer chief warns Asian firms on cadmium use

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