October 22, 2026 Lead Safe Mama, LLC Update: Reddit Post Today

I just posted this on Reddit, but it was automatically removed by the moderators of the thread where I posted it (I still don’t understand how Reddit works!), so wanted to make sure to share it here (so it won’t get lost!)

October 22, 2026
Thursday
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Hey all. I am spiraling a bit.
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Being the subject of one of these smear campaigns is all consuming.
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I need help to keep going. So I am posting to ask for help.
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Since this is Reddit (and trolls abound), I won’t go into all the details here, but if you are interested in helping us get through the next phase of all this (including helping to keep my business alive and keeping my family going during this time), please consider joining Lead Safe Mama on Patreon. I think that’s our only safe space at the moment (where we can easily and quickly keep out trolls, and so have no trolls there that I am aware of, at least no vocal trolls!)
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You can join Lead Safe Mama on Patreon for FREE. This is not a request for funding – but a request to increase the pool of human beings that I can ask for support and ideas to help keep us going through to the end of this. There is no paywall for anything we share on Patreon or on our website (however if you choose to, you can also join with a small monthly contribution in support of the work we do). I will put the link in the comments, although I am not certain that is allowed here, so please feel free to delete it.
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The focus of our work is to be a source of community-collaborative (community-directed, community-funded), direct-to-consumer, unbiased science with the goal of protecting kids from unnecessary exposure to heavy metals in their homes, schools and environment (again, who knew testing children’s vitamins for lead would be so f’in controversial! – see my other post for more of the details of my story & I will put the link in the comments). We currently have 6,435 members of our Patreon community (including 695 paid members who have truly provided a lifeline over the past year).
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As far as I can tell, I am the only victim of these smear campaigns without a savings account (both literally, but also used here as a bit of a metaphor). With yesterday’s article sharing that Elon Musk was also a client of TAG PR / Jed Wallace / Melissa Nathan (on top of the fact that the owners of Hiya are also very close friends with members of the British Monarchy!), this creates a whole new perspective for me (in terms of highlighting that this is truly a “David vs. Goliath” scenario).
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Being a full time environmental activist with a focus on childhood Lead poisoning prevention is not a lucrative career, however generating systemic change and growing a movement to create awareness to protect children is what I have been called to do (I will put my documentary film link in the comments too).
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Making a shit-ton of money was never the end goal – I just hoped to create a business model where I could continue to afford to help families (for free) nearly full time, yet also get paid for the consulting work I do (earning enough to subsidize my work helping families, so I could also be in a position to take care of my family).
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I am (and always have been) incredibly transparent in these matters (including the degree to which our business model relies on community support to cover most of the costs of the work we do providing direct and free support to families in crisis and families with questions). I am also the sole breadwinner for my family — my husband is 68 and has been suffering from several disabilities for many years. My business (through my related consulting) is the sole source of our income. This includes covering the costs to raise / house / feed / and educate my two adult children who each have fairly significant neurocognitive disabilities from being exposed to Lead as babies.
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Recently my consulting work has all but dried up (in response to the smear campaign) and the small amount I have continued to earn from consulting needs to go back to the business to keep it alive through this ordeal. We have been taking on loans (from friends and from Lead Safe Mama community members) to keep us going, and luckily we are fortunate enough to have a community that believes in us and in our work, which has made that possible. Most people would probably have folded by now, given up – closed their business. There is too much at stake for me to give up. The work we do is critical and there is almost no one else doing this kind of work in this way (without any ethical compromises impacting the science we share).
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I have always put everything into my business (to continue to expand the reach and impact of what we do). Our business was growing so rapidly before the teeth of this smear campaign took hold, and I had faith in the future – now things are super precarious. Before this happened the Lead Safe Mama, LLC Community Collaborative Laboratory Testing Initiative was fully covering the costs of the work the business was doing in that area (coordinating independent, third-party, heavy metals testing and reporting on community nominated consumable products) and my consulting work was generating enough that my business and my family were paying all of our bills (and on time). I had hired 7 part-time helpers for my business (Carissa, Amy, Ainslie, Serina, Sarah had been helping for the long haul – and we have had others come work with us on special projects for short periods too). Personally (in early 2024) I also knew I was earning enough to take on the cost of college for my kiddo #3 (who has a diagnosed brain injury due to lead poisoning). Now tuition is due in two weeks and I am going to have to pull a rabbit out of my ass to keep him in school (I am looking for sources of rabbits if anyone has ideas there, that’s my most critical current crisis!)
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Thank you in advance for joining us on Patreon, for helping to expand our community and our movement in spite of this smear campaign, and for helping us find ways to keep going until all of this is resolved. If I can stay the course and keep my business and family afloat until this case makes its way through the court system, I know the outcome will be better than if I try to resolve these matters quickly and with no resources (and the likelihood of my case supporting an outcome of “Justice for All” will be higher if I can stay the course too).
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Lead Safe Mama, LLC also has Instagram, a Facebook Page, and a Facebook group but I have chosen to use those less (in response to the limited reach now due to the smear campaigns). Instead I also just started a substack (which I have not yet posted on – the key image is a picture of a dragon my youngest son drew last week, as that seemed fitting). I also have a Reddit group / page but I don’t really get how Reddit works (other than as a source to spread disinformation and give trolls a bigger voice) so don’t use it much. If you want to help on Reddit you can pop over to Moderately Granola Moms and downvote all the garbage there (or make complaints to the admins for the extensive false information and trash talking there too to see if we can get those threads taken down – as several related threads remain live even though I believe they do go against their group rules).
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Thanks for reading. To the mods here, I would like to keep comments open on this thread – but feel free to delete troll comments. Thank you. I will try to answer questions as I can.
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Tamara Rubin
(also, “Mom-Here” on Reddit)
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P.S. We are publishing a new lab report for a Hiya product shortly. The test results for these children’s vitamins continue to be bad. While the levels of Lead, Cadmium, Arsenic and Mercury in these children’s supplements are technically “legal” (by all enforceable standards), these assholes need to be held accountable for their bullshit – even if we can only hold them accountable for false marketing / consumer deception (as they promote their products as clean and consumers – mostly mothers of very young children – are led to believe they are the “cleanest children’s vitamins available” and this is simply not true – not by any metric).