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November 18, 2022 – Friday

I received the first email in the thread below (about the current issue with Leaded baby bottles produced by Green Sprouts) on November 8, 2022 – 10 days ago now. As I regularly publish communications from corporations (especially corporations that contact me in response to Lead Safe Mama, LLC finding toxicants in their products) I believe (based on the careful and intentional wording and tone of Becky’s first communication this month – combined with the history of our interactions from 2017, when I first discovered a Lead-contaminated Green Sprouts product) that Becky likely suspected I might publish her communication (that perhaps it was written with the hope and intention that I would publish it.)

At that moment on November 8th (given what I understood about the issue from communications with parents in the Asheville, North Carolina community this month) – I was disinclined to give her carefully chosen words a platform on my website as I felt that (in large part) they were disingenuous, especially given the Lead-containing bottles were still available for sale on Amazon at that time (as they ARE STILL TODAY – aflink! – + see image below) AND especially given the context that this is a second (fairly major) offense by the company and she had not bothered to be in communication sooner AND had not yet made a visible public statement about the concern for Lead in her products – which should have been the first course of action taken.

That said I will share the communication thread below now, with that context (and given I already published the information about the recall – link here – including my thoughts on the insufficient nature of Green Sprouts communications with their customer base around this recall to date.) The emails below are in order as they were sent / received (continue reading below the image showing three of the recalled stainless bottles still available for sale today – 11/18 – on Amazon.)

There are a total of EIGHT emails with accompanying images below.

Email #1) November 8, 2022
Becky’s initial communication to me (you can click the image to see it full sized if it is hard to read):

Here’s the text of the above email in text form (vs. a screenshot)

Dear Tamara,

Thank you for being a voice for consumer safety and a champion for the cause in eliminating the risk of lead exposure. I sincerely appreciate your work and have respect and compassion for the place it is coming from.

We hear your concerns about our Stainless-Steel Bottles and Cups. Please note, these products did pass testing from a third-party CPSC-approved agency prior to market release. Therefore, we’ve had confidence in the safety of these products, and we were surprised to learn of the defect in these Stainless-Steel bottles and cups.

We have been taking steps to remedy this issue. In the meantime, we are asking families to discard any stainless-steel bottles or cups from Green Sprouts, whether the bottle is damaged or not. If the product was purchased, we will gladly offer a refund. If the product was received for free, we will offer a plant-plastic bottle as a replacement. For instructions on receiving a refund or replacement, we are asking consumers to please call 800-876-1574 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. EST Monday through Friday or email ContactUs@GreenSprouts.com. Consumers can keep the plant-plastic and silicone components to use with other Green Sprouts products.

Additional safety information will be available on the Green Sprouts website and the CPSC official website in the coming weeks.

We are committed to creating safe products and we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars each year on quality testing with the world’s top third-party testing companies. We have always gone above and beyond in our approach to health and safety standards, including material research. During the past 40 years we have made over 50,000 products with the safety of the end user in mind.

We work to ensure compliance with the CPSC as well as the stringent standards set by the EU and Japan. We have been at the forefront of avoiding PVC, BPA, formaldehyde, and melamine in our products and continue to research for any future concerns.

Green Sprouts has been researching and developing non-petroleum products for children, using plant-plastic, silicone, glass, and stainless steel. Finding natural materials and using safe manufacturing processes are a paramount objective of our company’s mission. These non-petroleum materials provide a safer product with no chance of ingestion of hormone disrupters or other hazardous materials.

I apologize for my part in our past breakdown in communication. Going forward, I hope we can collaborate to ensure that children and their families have healthy and safe products to use. In the future, if you find an issue with one of our products, I welcome you to contact us directly so that so we can address the issue together.

I love and care about our products and the positive benefits they can have on children’s health. It contradicts my mission and purpose for 40 years with this company if one of my products might negatively impact a child’s health.

Thank you for your support and understanding.

All my Best,

Becky Cannon

Email #2) November 8, 2022
My initial response to Becky

Email #3) November 9, 2022
Becky’s second communication to me

Email #4) November 9, 2022
My second response to Becky

Email #5) November 12, 2022
My third response to Becky

Email #6) November 13, 2022
Becky’s third communication to me

Email #7) November 16, 2022
Becky’s fourth (most recent) communication to me

Email #8) November 18, 2022
My last (& most recent) email to Becky
Since this email is VERY LONG I am going to include the text of the email instead of a bunch of screenshots.
There are also SEVERAL IMAGES after the text of the email.

Hi Becky,

I just want to be clear that I am really not happy with your evident total lack of any significant, obvious public response in this matter. I think it is absolutely unacceptable that there is no public announcement of the recall on the home page of your website. The only reason I have not yet written a follow-up article on this is because I have my hands full with a number of new initiatives for the moment.

 

Emailing me and telling me about your “$2.1 million in unexpected costs” is not endearing, either — you are talking to a woman who is $300,000 in debt (personally and professionally) as result of defending her advocacy against false attacks — from bad-faith actors ranging from science-denying companies to fraudulent “anonymous complaints” made to government agencies, intended to discredit my work  (which, incidentally, includes attacks similar to the original one from your attorneys back in 2017, following my discovery of Lead paint on your products).

 

To be 100% frank (as I always am), while I am genuinely thankful and encouraged that you took the time to watch my film (that’s certainly a really good place to start) – your lack of meaningful action thus far in response to the Lead-contaminated bottles you produced and sold — and your multiple follow-up attempts at connecting with me personally are not the appropriate and urgently-ameliorative steps needed to address the problem at this juncture!

 

Who knows… maybe… down the line… we could connect in a positive way— however, looking at your website right now today (see the two screen shots below) and not seeing a big fat banner across the front page of your site about this SECOND ROUND of Lead-contaminated baby bottles sold by your company (telling parents to stop using them immediately)… is … well… not a promising sign!

 

• Instead, on the home page of your website and on your instagram page all I sees a bunch of marketing hype / propaganda about how you “build a better bottle” (including one post from several weeks ago with a video actually featuring the recalled bottle as a key image – see image below) — and no mention whatsoever of the findings of Lead in your products!
• I also used the search bar on your site earlier tonight – and looked for “recall”, and “stainless steel”…but each query had no results – see image below. 
• I then tried searching on your website again (shortly after midnight PST) and I finally found a page pop up with the word “recall” but with no image available unless you click on the single word on the screen – which is almost not noticeable.
• Then a later search (30 minutes later) this “recall” post did not come up, so – for some reason this does not come up every time you search for “recall” on your site (and most times it does not come up at all actually – I was only able to find it with one of my many queries on your site.) 
• Your recall announcement can only be easily and quickly found if you search for “Green Sprouts Recall” outside of your site – directly using Google. How are your customers supposed to know to do this?. 

I have to say, this really makes one question your intentions.

 

That said, I thought I would follow up criticizing your lack of responsible ownership of some truly glaring public-relations missteps made thus far … by asking for your support! [I am, as always, more focused on reducing and preventing childhood Lead-exposure & Lead-poisoning – by directly informing and educating parents – than engaging in recriminations & public shaming — although I will not shy away from holding people’s feet to the fire, when necessary, in the face of a company’s continued avoidance of accountability and failure to act swiftly and effectively to protect their consumers…if no one else is willing or able to do it!]

 

I have a high-profile public relations opportunity you could help with, that will really make a difference in bringing awareness to this issue — and could possibly even help repair some of the damage done by (and to) your company and many others (by producing/selling Lead-contaminated baby bottles); It constitutes a chance to genuinely signal your intentions – to a huge audience – that you intend to boldly step up and lead the industry in a different direction…

 

I am working on a New York City Subway public service campaign about Lead in baby bottles (and other common consumer goods). [I was not planning on including your stainless bottles in the campaign as I have been working on this for months, and it is really focused on the Lead-painted bottles that are currently available by several brands similar to yours (brands ironically built on their reputations as being “green” and “ethical”).] 

 

These are ads that are going to go up in the New York Subway cars at the edge of the ceiling (seen by tens of thousands of commuters every day!). 

 

The cost will be $76,000 for the ads, plus $10,000 in admin costs — total cost $86,000 for a four-week-run with 2,000 printed panels in the New York City Subway. 

 

I am hoping to run this during the current holiday season (there will be four panel images – including one about baby bottles – see draft graphic below.)

 

Since I haven’t been able to finalize funding for this campaign yet, I thought I would give you an opportunity to “put your money where your mouth is”! IF you have an interest in funding this campaign (and helping me generate the political will for bigger change on this issue), I would be fully transparent in sharing about it – sharing that Green Sprouts is funding an awareness campaign to help get the Lead out of the baby bottle industry – to help make up for the industry’s past mistakes made in this area  (and to help inspire legislation and generate political will so that this sort of thing never happens again)… I think that could be amazing!

 

Food for thought. [continue reading below and between the images]

In case you are not familiar with the placement of these ads, here’s an image that shows placement of the longer banner ads:

In the meantime – I am now going to create a post on my website about your nearly invisible recall (so that parents actually know it is happening) – a product of the collaborative work of Lead Safe Mama readers and the Lead Safe Mama, LLC team.

 

Tamara Rubin

#LeadSafeMama

http://www.LeadSafeMama.com

TamaraRubin@mac.com

To support this advocacy work with a contribution, click here: 

https://tamararubin.com/2017/01/chip-in/