Lansinoh emailed asking me to take down posts about our findings of Lead paint on their glass baby bottles. Here’s what they said.

Introduction (for those new to this website):

Tamara Rubin is a federal-award-winning independent advocate for consumer goods safety and a documentary filmmaker. She is also a mother of Lead-poisoned children, her sons were acutely Lead-poisoned in 2005. Since 2009 Tamara has been using XRF testing (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. All test results reported on this website are science-based, accurate, and replicable. Items are tested multiple times, to confirm the test results for each component. Tamara’s work was featured in Consumer Reports Magazine in February of 2023.

Friday – February 25, 2022
Timeline/ Summary/ Considerations/ FAQ

• On December 19, 2021, I published my findings of Lead paint on the Lansinoh glass baby bottles (link here.)
• On December 20, 2021, I published a summary post about Lead paint (in the exterior decorative markings and logo markings) found on newly-purchased baby bottles (purchased in the United States, from Amazon). This summary post was written to share with the Consumer Product Safety Commission — in the hopes of getting a recall initiated. This post included Lansinoh as one of the 7 examples of baby bottles purchased and tested in 2021 that were positive for high levels of Lead in the paint. The CPSC did not respond. Here’s that link.
• Yesterday, February 24, 2022 (Thursday) I received the following e-mail (PDF image below) from Lansinoh (the manufacturer of the baby bottles noted above) asking me to remove the reference to their bottles – specifically asking me to remove the reference to their bottles in the post that was sent to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (!).
• Last night, in response to having received this e-mail, I did a bunch of research into the company – and learned that the original founder of the company (Resheda Hagen) is from here in Portland, Oregon (the company was founded here in 1978). I also learned that Resheda’s company was bought by Pigeon (from Japan) in 2004 (and they are now based in Virginia).
• I then created the graphic (above) which I shared on social media – asserting that if Lansinoh’s founder Resheda knew that the people who took over her company and her brand were painting their glass baby bottles with Lead paint (while still using her story and her likeness as their founder to help support their wholesome image… the story of a breastfeeding mother from Portland – who founded the company in 1978) she would likely be outraged by this fact.
• #FunFact: 1978 was (coincidentally) a key year for Lead-poisoning prevention and awareness — it was the year Lead-paint was officially banned* in house paint in the United States (*”banned” in this case = restricted to a maximum allowable amount of Lead of no more than 600 ppm in paint sold for residential use.) Testing positive for Lead in the paint at levels over 3,000 ppm, the Lead paint found on the Lansinoh bottles has more than 500% the amount of Lead that was known to be unsafe — back then! (Today lead-in-paint is considered to be unsafe for kids at levels of 90 ppm and up.)
• In my graphic (above) I also said that I would try to get in touch with Resheda (as I am also a mom in Portland, so I thought there might be a real chance of connecting with her!) and get a statement from her on this issue. My thinking on this: if she knew about the Lead paint on the modern baby bottles carrying her brand (something I am sure she is not aware of) – she could, perhaps – help effect change as she still has affiliations with the company, and is mentioned on their website as their founder, along with the picture above that I included in my graphic.
• Then, after digging around on the internet some MORE – I learned that this woman (Resheda Hagen, who sounds like an incredible pioneer and advocate for women’s health) is a friend of a friend on Facebook (& of course she is … because I have so many cool activist/advocate friends!)!
• I then told my friend (our connection in common) about the issue and told her I would publish this response letter from Lansinoh (this post) here on the website so that she could share it with Resheda – and see if she would like to respond.
• Today I also learned (from a reader via Instagram) that Pigeon makes their own “Pigeon-branded” glass baby bottles (which also appear to have paint on the outside), so I purchased one of those for testing (off of Amazon, directly from the Pigeon store), and should have that soon (and will post the test results for that bottle as soon as I have them available). (Thought being: if Pigeon is using Lead paint on one brand of their glass baby bottles [Lansinoh], they may be using it on others.)
• The most asked question I get in response to these findings is: “Do the plastic Lansinoh bottles also have Lead-painted markings?”
  • My answer is normally along the following lines: “No, it is very unlikely that modern plastic baby bottles today are painted with Lead paint, this is an issue specific to glass bottles – however I have not yet tested any plastic bottles from this brand.”
  • Then I opened my mail today and in a package I received this morning a reader had sent me a plastic Lansinoh baby bottle for testing (yay! #GoTeam!) – so I will also have those test results to share shortly. (All of the work on this website is reader-directed and reader-funded! Thank you everyone for supporting this work. To learn about all of the ways you can support this work, click here.)
• The second most asked question (in response to these findings) is “What baby bottles do you recommend?”
  • My answer: You can click through to the baby bottle post on ShopLeadSafeMama.com to see all of the brands I have tested that have tested consistently negative for Lead.
  • Most of the options on that page are for glass bottles, although I did include one plastic bottle. (I always recommend glass rather than plastic — but don’t generally have Lead concerns for modern plastic bottles.)
• For more information about baby bottles I have tested (and the full test results for each brand mentioned on the site), here is the link to the “Baby Bottle” category of posts on LeadSafeMama.com.
• It’s about 2:30 p.m. on Friday, February 25th (PST – here in Portland, Oregon), and I am working on a response to this letter from Lansinoh (below) — and will publish that as soon as I have sent it (hopefully, later today). (UPDATE: Here’s the link to my full response… warning…language!)

And without further ado – here’s the e-mail I received from Lansinoh yesterday: