Lead legally permitted in toothbrushes and other “consumer” products

May 28, 2010 - PRLog -- Over 1000ppm of lead found in yellow colored bristles of a toothbrush.  This product is not in violation of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) which regulates lead in children’s products.

Do you know what a consumer product is?

Unfortunately, toothbrushes and other patented early intervention dental products which are designed or intended for children 12 years of age or younger are in fact, not “consumer products.”  Because these products are not “consumer products,” they do not fall within the definition of children’s products that require third-party testing. Thus the lead limits in the CPSIA do not apply to this product.  

This product is regulated by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) and currently there are no specifications for levels of heavy metals in dental devices.

There are many products consumers would consider a “consumer product” which are in fact not “consumer products” and not regulated as a consumer product.  Many products fall into exemptions including; toothbrushes, toothpicks, dental floss, flatware (knives, forks, spoons, baby spoons, serving utensils, etc.), ceramics (plates, cups, bowls, etc), cutting boards, bulb syringes, surgical tubing and more.  

Each of these products can be directly used by children and pregnant women, yet none have to be tested for the regulation standards of a children’s product, which means they can contain more than 300ppm of lead legally.

Essco Safety Check is an environmental technology and software integration company; utilizing X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) Analyzers (among other data collection devices) and a proprietary software platform to collect and analyze environmental data.  Essco Safety Check is now coordinating with both the CPSC & FDA on this issue.

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Environmental technology and software integration company; creating solutions which integrate hardware and software, enabling the collection and analysis of environmental data and providing a suite of highly customized reporting tools via a cloud based software platform.

This integration directly impacts businesses affected by federal and state regulations, helping them to ensure compliance while greatly reducing time and expenses.