Updated: March 20, 2023 – Monday
About Tamara
Tamara Rubin is an internationally-recognized, multiple federal award-winning Lead-poisoning prevention advocate, documentary filmmaker, and mother of four sons (ages 26, 20, 17, and 14). She took on the cause of childhood Lead-poisoning and consumer goods safety advocacy after her own sons were acutely Lead-poisoned by the work of a painting contractor in 2005. Tamara lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and two youngest sons (who each have permanent disabilities from Lead exposure as infants.)
The Goal of Lead Safe Mama, LLC’s Work
Childhood Lead poisoning is both the single-most costly and preventable environmental illness in the world today. Through the work of Lead Safe Mama, LLC, we are committed to educating every parent about this wholly-preventable environmental illness that causes permanent brain damage in young children and yet — still today — conservatively costs the United States alone more than $50.9 billion annually! Through her public advocacy work and private consulting, Tamara has personally helped more than 10,000 families create safer homes and environments for their children and continues to personally help families every day.
Website & Social Media: LeadSafeMama.com / TamaraRubin.com
In an effort to reach parents where they “live” and spend their time (on social media), Tamara has created a strong web and social media presence for the cause of childhood Lead poisoning prevention. Over the past 12 months, the site has seen nearly 2,300,000 unique visitors from over 200 locations/countries (see the Google Analytics graphics above from 3/20/2022 to 3/19/2023). Every new visit is an effort at bringing this message to the world:
Lead poisoning was not “solved” with the 1978 “ban” on Lead in residential paint; more than one in three children worldwide today has had an unsafe level of Lead in their blood in their lifetime.
In continuing to reach as many parents as possible, it is a goal and express intention of this work that the information we provide on this website continue to be freely available (not behind a paywall). To this end, there are currently more than 3,500 freely available articles and pages with information about childhood Lead poisoning and consumer goods toxicant test results here on this website as well as a free preview link to our full documentary feature film on the subject. You can also follow the work of Lead Safe Mama, LLC “@LeadSafeMama” on all various social media channels.
The Business — Lead Safe Mama, LLC
Lead Safe Mama, LLC is a woman-owned small business for childhood Lead poisoning prevention and consumer goods safety based in Portland, Oregon. While Tamara Rubin has been doing public outreach work since 2007, the LLC was officially formed on January 5th of 2018. We celebrated our fifth year in business in January 2023.
Lead Safe Mama, LLC has a unique community collaborative business model in which the work we do (including the subjects we write about and the independent consumer goods testing we perform with XRF technology) is 100% directed and funded by the Lead Safe Mama parent advocacy community. Readers and followers of our website and social media channels let us know what they would like tested. They also often send in products for testing. These same readers help fund this work either directly through making financial contributions in support of the work, or indirectly through sharing our work with their communities. The Lead Safe Mama community also plays a key role in helping us to hold manufacturers accountable for producing toxic products by amplifying the impact of this work through grassroots and word-of-mouth efforts.
In addition to the independent consumer goods testing that we do, volunteers in the international Lead Safe Mama community also work with us to coordinate collaborative outreach events for Lead poisoning prevention around the world. These events are normally free and open to the public with community-based partners ranging from schools/universities to hospitals and clinics to local or state health departments. Tamara travels the United States for these outreach events during January, April, and October of each year, while also working directly with families and businesses who hire her in a consulting capacity along the way. In 2022 she began expanding her in-person advocacy work to include locations outside of the United States. In 2023 she is currently working on lining up some free community collaborative outreach events for families in Germany, Spain, France, and Austria.
A primary focus of our work is to increase the visibility of the issue of childhood Lead poisoning. It is invaluable that we help normalize the concept that all children are at risk for Lead exposure and any child can be impacted — not just certain segments of the population. To this end, we often work with members of the press to support any stories they may be writing about childhood Lead poisoning (in most cases our role in this is largely behind the scenes, connecting reporters with the families of Lead-poisoned children as they fit a story’s focus). For recent press mentioning our work, click this link.
You can read about our unique community-collaborative business model here, with more at this link.
Awards
Tamara has won several awards for her advocacy work, including two from the Federal government when her work was honored by a consortium of Federal agencies (EPA, CDC, USDA, HUD, and USDoE) at the National Healthy Homes Conferences in 2011 and 2014.
Notable Media Coverage
Starting with a USA Today profile article in 2007 and a Today Show interview in 2008, Tamara’s work has been covered by CBS, NBC, FOX, CNN, and ABC — in both national and local television news stories. Since her first public speaking engagement in 2007, Tamara has been interviewed and quoted in articles as well as video segments for a myriad of major outlets: The New York Times, The Dallas Morning News, The Voice of Russia, The Huffington Post, Mother Jones, Truthout, The New York Post, USA Today, Vice, Al Jazeera English, Better Homes and Gardens Australia, Cracked, Parents Magazine, NPR, Consumer Reports Magazine and many others. For press coverage (with specific links), see here.
Recent Highlights:
- In March of 2023, Tamara’s work was responsible for the Lead-contaminated Cupkin children’s cups recall
- In February of 2023, Tamara’s work was responsible for the Lead-contaminated Bindle Bottle recall.
- In February of 2023, Consumer Reports Magazine did a profile piece on Tamara’s work.
- In November of 2022, Tamara’s work was responsible for the Lead-contaminated Green Sprouts baby bottle recall.
- In August of 2022, Tamara’s work was covered in an NPR news piece about Lead exposure caused by consumer goods.
- In July of 2022, Tamara’s work was responsible for the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) recall of a Lead-painted baby NUK brand glass bottle
- In June of 2022, Tamara’s work was responsible for the CPSC recall of a Lead-painted toy manufactured by Jumping Jumperoo.
- In April of 2022, Tamara was an invited guest speaker at Stanford University.
- Also In April of 2022, Tamara’s work was featured in a piece in Cracked Magazine (in response to a viral video on TikTok!)
