For those new to this 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 sons were acutely Lead-poisoned in 2005). Since 2009, Tamara has been using XRF technology (a scientific method used by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission) to test consumer goods for toxicants (specifically heavy metals — including Lead, Cadmium, Mercury, Antimony, and Arsenic). Tamara’s work was featured in Consumer Reports Magazine in February 2023 (March 2023 print edition).
When tested with an XRF instrument, the FAO Schwarz Merry Christmas musical snow globe train (pictured here) had the following readings:
#1) Red paint of train:
60-seconds
- Cadmium (Cd): 19 +/- 5 ppm
- Silver (Ag): 9 +/- 4 ppm
- Palladium (Pd): 6 +/- 3 ppm
- Iron (Fe): 662 +/- 145 ppm
- Indium (In): 25 +/- 7 ppm
- Titanium (Ti): 1,441 +/- 269 ppm
#2) Black painted areas:
30-seconds
- Zinc (Zn): 172 +/- 31 ppm
- Copper (Cu): 2,687 +/- 130 ppm
- Iron (Fe): 424 +/- 150 ppm
#3) Gold painted areas:
60-seconds
- Platinum (Pt): 160 +/- 71 ppm
- Zinc (Zn): 7,636 +/- 210 ppm
- Copper (Cu): 99,900 +/- 1,900 ppm
- Iron (Fe): 424 +/- 101 ppm
#4) Silver painted areas:
60-seconds
- Cadmium (Cd): 11 +/- 5 ppm
- Copper (Cu): 152 +/- 35 ppm
- Iron (Fe): 744 +/- 140 ppm
- Indium (In): 15 +/- 7 ppm
- Titanium (Ti): 485 +/- 173 ppm
#5) White painted areas:
60-seconds
- Cadmium (Cd): 15 +/- 7 ppm
- Zinc (Zn): 136 +/- 30 ppm
- Indium (In): 24 +/- 10 ppm
- Titanium (Ti): 237,000 +/- 6,400 ppm
#6) Glass of snow globe:
60-seconds
- Lead (Pb): 53 +/- 9 ppm
- Cadmium (Cd): 10 +/- 4 ppm
- Chromium (Cr): 192 +/- 93 ppm
- Iron (Fe): 576 +/- 103 ppm
- Indium (In): 13 +/- 5 ppm
- Vanadium (V): 828 +/- 94 ppm
- Titanium (Ti): 373 +/- 82 ppm
#7) Turner for music box
60-seconds
- Antimony (Sb): 2,565 +/- 198 ppm
- Bromine (Br): 18,900 +/- 400 ppm
- Zinc (Zn): 388,000 +/- 2,500 ppm
- Copper (Cu): 479,900 +/- 2,500 ppm
- Nickel (Ni): 98,000 +/- 1,100 ppm
- Iron (Fe): 3,188 +/- 303 ppm
- Titanium (Ti): 5,759 +/- 1,072 ppm
As always, thank you for reading and sharing these results. I will likely update this piece soon with more information, however in the meantime, please check out the following links if you have questions:
- The testing methodology for every test result we report on this site.
- A video showing you how to search the website most efficiently, given there are over 2,700 articles and pages here.
- Here’s my documentary feature film, which is about childhood Lead poisoning.
Please let me know if you have any questions. With 1.165 Million unique readers in 2020 alone, I am not always able to answer each and every question personally, but I do try.
Tamara Rubin
#LeadSafeMama
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