#LeadFree: (Surprise!) 1968 Paperback Copy of "Al Jaffee Spews Out Snappy Answers To Stupid Questions"

For those new to the Lead Safe Mama website:

Tamara Rubin is a multiple-federal-award-winning independent advocate for childhood Lead poisoning prevention and consumer goods safety, and a documentary filmmaker. She is also a mother of Lead-poisoned children (two of her four sons were acutely Lead-poisoned in 2005).

Tamara owns and runs Lead Safe Mama, LLC — a unique community collaborative woman-owned small business for childhood Lead poisoning prevention and consumer goods safety.
Since July of 2022, the work of Lead Safe Mama, LLC has been responsible for five product recalls (FDA and CPSC).
All test results reported on this website are science-based, accurate, and replicable.
Please check out our press page to see some of the amazing coverage of our work so far this year!

Most vintage books have at least some amount of Lead. It was a huge surprise that this 1968 paperback printing of MAD’s “Al Jaffee Spews Out Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions” was Lead-free! We are also super excited about this because this is one of my husband’s favorite books from his childhood (he was born in 1958), and he has loved sharing this with our children!

A common question: What year did they stop using Lead in paperback books?
Answer (in this case): I haven’t tested enough vintage paperbacks to draw a conclusion across the board about a potential cut-off year for Lead in paperback books.

New books are generally Lead-free. Given my children’s disabilities, we also LOVE books-on-tape. Here’s an article with some of our favorite (very well done) books on tape! (They are great for road trips, too!)

If you appreciate Lead Safe Mama’s independent consumer goods testing and childhood Lead poisoning prevention advocacy work, please consider chipping in (here) so we can keep doing what we do! Thank you!

As always, if you have any questions, please let me know!

Tamara Rubin
#LeadSafeMama