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).
Friday — September 29, 2023
Portland, Oregon
Hello! Happy Friday!
In the past week, THREE — very different — interviews I recently did were all published online. I will be sharing all three of these over the next couple of days.
To start, I am sharing the one published today on YouTube. I was interviewed for a very interesting, well-researched documentary short (done by a Danish/ Dutch/ German YouTube channel) about toxic McDonald’s glassware. In the video, I test several glasses for Lead. They also interview the research scientist in England whose work I often cite when wanting to convince skeptics of the very real potential harm of Lead-painted drinking glasses. Please load remote content for this e-mail and click the image at the top of the page to watch the video (it is just over 15 minutes long, embedded in the linked article on my website — or you can click through to watch it directly on YouTube).
In other news …
I am scheduled to head to Columbus, Ohio tomorrow. I am spending most of the day on Monday conducting a training (on consumer goods testing) with the City of Columbus Department of Public Health — and then at the end of the day, the city is hosting a short, free-and-open-to-the-public outreach event with FREE consumer goods testing for anyone who wants to come by with a few items for testing using XRF technology. (The link to the flyer for the open-to-the-public part of that event is below, and I hope to see some of you there!)
After Ohio, I head to Colorado for a day where I’ll be meeting up with some new friends from The Clean Label Project (they’re going to show me around their lab!). From Colorado, it’s onward to Reno, NV, then Sacramento, CA, and home again for two days before heading out to Michigan and more points East (Traverse City and Flint, then popping into Canada for Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec); then back down through Bar Harbor, ME, New York (State, & NYC), Connecticut, and we’ll be closing out Lead Poisoning Prevention Month in Boston — spending Halloween with my son A.J. (in Jamaica Plain), before heading home to Portland.
(If you are curious about the travel schedule for October, and if you might like to meet up with us on our path, please check out the calendar and map below with our timeline and route. For the Michigan-to-Boston part of our trip, I will be traveling with my two youngest sons — Avi, now 18 years old, and Charlie, 15.)
I will then be home for approximately THREE DAYS before heading off to Europe (specifically: Germany, Austria, France, England, and then Scotland for the next six [ish] months) — for some volunteer outreach work in several different countries, as well as making an earnest attempt to catch up on my writing! (Note: I hope to get fully caught up on all outstanding testing during the few days I am home in the coming month — before heading out of the country!)
The plan continues with returning to the United States in May 2024 for my son A.J.’s college graduation(!) — and I am expecting some magical things to be happening in the world of Lead Safe Mama, LLC starting next May, too! 😉
Thank You all for supporting this work by sharing and reading (and watching the videos, too); I hope to see many of you in the coming month!
Tamara
Whoa! I didn’t know you did home consults in Canada! I’m guessing you have a work visa? I would have hired you when you came to visit Bruce Lanphear. But I assumed you never visited Canada nor did any home consults before I saw your film MisLead.
This is the first time! I looked into it and learned that since I am providing a consulting service that is not provided elsewhere in Canada and am just passing through for a short period (a few days), and it is not something I do on a regular basis, I don’t need a work visa for this (yay!) I hope I understood the laws correctly – but I did a pretty deep dive last year (into the work regulations) to confirm this.