My post on Instagram tonight — my thoughts about Chip & Joanna
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!
April 26, 2023 — Wednesday
My post on Instagram tonight:
I am really furious that Chip and Joanna — people who were fined for violating the EPA RRP Rule/ for breaking the law because they put children at risk of Lead poisoning by using (and promoting on tv) unsafe renovation/related work practices in handling Lead paint in older homes being renovated, repainted, or restored (a crime which they were definitely guilty of) — are invited to an event like this.
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As a mother of acutely-Lead-poisoned children, that pisses me off.
- Learn more about Lead-poisoning here:
http://www.LeadSafeMama.com - Read some of the articles here about Chip & Joanna being fined:
- Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/06/07/fixer-upper-stars-chip-and-joanna-gaines-fined-by-epa-for-lead-paint-violations/
- Dallas Morning News: https://www.dallasnews.com/business/retail/2018/06/06/chip-and-joanna-gaines-reach-settlement-with-epa-for-alleged-lead-paint-violations-on-fixer-upper/
- New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/07/us/chip-joanna-gaines-fixer-upper-lead-paint.html
These people are truly ignorant (“willfully-ignorant”?), and dangerous — they got away with a violation fine that was a tiny fraction* of what they should have paid … a fine that should have been much larger (based on the fee structure of fines for violating this law of $35,000 per incident, per day), given the societal–impact of the very public, fully-recorded (and promoted on tv) nature of their EPA RRP violations!
They were also required to make a “PSA video” (as part of their “punishment” for these violations) — and that has the absolute lowest production values I have ever seen from anyone with any experience in the business, let alone seasoned TV personalities with their own long-running, hugely-popular show! And because it totally sucks, not surprisingly, barely anyone even knows they made it! Here’s a link to that video — the teaser is up but the full video it directs to has apparently been taken down(!), which actually may be a violation of their settlement with the EPA!:
https://www.countryliving.com/life/a22560465/chip-gaines-epa-violation-lead-paint-video/
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*The violation fine for the EPA RRP rule is officially supposed to be “$35,000 PER INCIDENT, PER DAY”; so they should have been fined millions upon millions — especially given that everything they did was so well-documented — each incident, each day! Moreover, their violations also GLORIFIED unsafe Lead-related work practices to generations of viewers! I think we should demand that every episode showing them flagrantly breaking the law be taken down – just as many other videos of crimes in progress are not easily available for other like-minded criminals to glorify and emulate (just as they have apparently taken down the video they were required to make as part of their EPA settlement!).
I don’t “hate” many people … but this definitely pushes me closer to that — it’s really hard to forgive this sort of behavior … when children’s lives/futures are genuinely at risk, and people in such a highly-visible position (like they are) don’t do a better job of publicly, aggressively “making up” for their very serious mistakes! They had an opportunity to do the right thing with their voice on this issue — but instead, they chose a different path. I have often wondered if their own children have even ever been tested for Lead-exposure …
Read the article here about Chip and Joanna tonight:
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/joanna-gaines-goes-glam-strapless-205508633.html
Here’s what I wrote as a P.S.
Chip and Joanna should have been fined AT LEAST $1,150,000 for their crimes ($35,000 x 33 homes), but that would be the fine fee only if they found just one incident on one day at each home where they found violations. I am sure this was not the case, as where one incident is found, normally many incidents are found (and most renovation jobs occur over many weeks or months, not just over the course of a single day)!
Here’s what I wrote as a P.P.S.
Hey @chipgaines @joannagaines@magnolia @magnolianetwork @visitmagnolia@magnoliarealty we should really chat. You could make up for your profoundly irresponsible behavior in a big way if you better understand the damage you caused in your community. Please come spend a day with me and my two children who have life-long disabilities, including a diagnosed brain injury from Lead-poisoning (caused by a contractor using unsafe work practices during a repainting job on our historic home), and then maybe I can support you in taking on some projects that would actually make up for your extremely dangerous, unethical behavior in dealing with active Lead hazards in your work.
Let’s chat. Text me or e-mail me: 415-609-3182 / TamaraRubin@mac.com … maybe you can convince me why I shouldn’t hate you for the disgusting things you have done in your work related to unsafe work practices in renovating Lead-painted homes. [I bet (hope?) you really had NO IDEA of the impact of Lead-poisoning on families. Please watch my documentary film on the subject — it has music donated by Tom Waits, and The Who; footage of my presentation with Bernie Sanders in Flint in 2016; and footage of my interview with Noam Chomsky. It is an exploration of the stories of families of Lead-poisoned children all over our country, most of whom were actually poisoned by unsafe work practices in renovation!]
And my P.P.P.S (to clarify the context for this)
Please also understand: while President Biden is touting his infrastructure plan to protect children from Lead-exposure, this is not good “optics” for the administration — to select these two individuals (in effect “representatives” of our country, by virtue of their inclusion) to attend a State dinner, when they have done so much harm in the exact area he is ostensibly “striving/fighting to address.”
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Best of luck, Tamara Rubin, with your invitation to Joanna Gaines and Chip Gaines. Your concerns are so well founded. I have watched many of the Gaines’ renovation tv shows and have the same kinds of concerns you have express with regard to lead effects, and what has seemed an obvious lack of preventive practices.
The fact that other renovation tv shows have left me with the same concerns does not reduce my concern about lead practices on the Gaines’ shows. Instead it makes me think about how much opportunity the Gaines have to show leadership inside the whole reno and building sector that is so popular on tv.
Few people have as much opportunity to lead the whole sector to educate the broad public about safe practices and even specifically to encourage the public on how to limit children’s exposure to lead and other heavy metals, but also to have children tested for lead exposure.
I hope Joanna and Chip Gaines do a course correction with regard to the harms of lead in anyone and particularly in children, and that the course correction includes seriously increasing their awareness of Lead harms and best, preventative practices, and to that end meeting with you.
Good for you! All reality TV is ultimately b.s. – deceptive and exploitative…. But so much of what is shown on HGTV and Magnolia is total b.s.