Demand EWG remove Lead-contaminated products from their site (here's a letter template you can use)!

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). 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 tested. Tamara’s work was featured in Consumer Reports Magazine in February of 2023 (March 2023 print edition).

A screenshot from EWG’s website:

Saturday — December 24, 2022

In the spirit of EWG’s policy for “Real Change” (screenshot above), I have drafted the letter below for Lead Safe Mama readers to use as a template in contacting EWG to demand that known Lead-contaminated products be removed from their website — and that, in failing that, at the very least, they not be given their “#1” rating. Please feel free to customize this letter as you like, and just use it as a departure point.

Personal stories matter — so if you do have a personal story related to this concern (for example, you regularly rely on EWG recommendations, or you are a parent of a Lead-poisoned child), please take a moment or two to personalize your letter.

I think it might be effective to post your letter on social media and tag EWG (as this will also help to share the concern with a broader audience). You may also submit your letter to EWG via this form — linked here. These letters can also be sent to any appropriate e-mail address that you find for EWG. If you do send them a letter, feel free to comment on this post with a copy of your letter, so that others may be inspired by what you have written! For social media posts, please include the hashtag #GetTheLeadOutEWG and/or #GoLeadFreeEWG!

I found the following e-mail addresses that may be appropriate to send this letter:

Letter Template

December 24, 2022

Dear EWG,

The Lead Safe Mama community respectfully requests that you remove all known Lead-contaminated products from your top-rated products list. As of 12/24/22, there are at least 21 confirmed or suspected Lead-contaminated product listings (most rated “#1”) including several products manufactured by two specific brands whose base ingredient (Bentonite Clay) has been independently tested and confirmed to contain unsafe levels of Lead.

On your site, you acknowledge that clay (including Bentonite clay) is often contaminated with heavy metals.
In your legislative initiatives aimed at protecting children from Lead exposure, you acknowledge there is no safe level of Lead exposure (because science clearly demonstrates that Lead is an extreme neurotoxicant, producing a broad variety of health impacts, which science has definitively causally linked to aggregate cumulative Lead-exposure over one’s lifetime).

It is simply incongruous that EWG has awarded multiple “#1” ratings to known Lead-contaminated products — from brands that go out of their way to greenwash the presence of Lead in their products.

With this letter, we hereby request that you remove ALL clay-based products from the brands Primal Life and Redmond from your website as the clay they use has been confirmed through independent testing to contain unsafe levels of Lead.
Separately, we request that you also remove any and all other brands of Bentonite Clay-based products from your listings, until — if possible — they can be independently confirmed to be consistently Lead-free.
Not only should these products NOT be “‘#1’-rated” on your site, but they should not be given the benefit of ANY association with EWG. No safe level MEANS no safe level.

Lastly, we would like to request that you make a public announcement when these products have been removed from your database and your website, acknowledging the fact that Bentonite Clay is often contaminated with heavy metals (including Lead, and Cadmium) and should never be used for oral or ingested applications. I am sure you understand that even if one batch of Bentonite Clay tests clean from a particular manufacturer — the very nature of mined-clay-based products results in significant variations of toxicant profiles, so clay-based products should never be ingested (or used in products where they may be accidentally ingested [i.e. toothpaste] by children or women of childbearing age).

Your Name
Concerned Parent

For those writing this letter to EWG, below are screenshots from their website today of all suspected and known Lead-contaminated Bentonite Clay-based products.