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This is pretty exciting! There’s going to be a whole conference about LEAD, specific to New Zealand info, issues, methods and practices, right here in NZ! In Hamilton, next month! I’ll be speaking there, along with an entire programme of fantastic speakers. If you work in government, health, environmental health, public health, science, the building industry, or just want to geek out with me IRL about all things…

Remember our project of citizen science last year where everyone was swabbing their mugs and sending me the photos? Well, this awesomeness is taking things a step further: citizen science with XRF. A concerned grandparent who also uses XRF in their work sent me these XRF results from their grandchild’s mugs. The first mug pictured was one of those submitted last year. So what do we have here……

I just read a Lead Safe Mama post about a boy who got lead poisoning from this plate (pictured). Highly recommend reading the story, it’s very touching. But it just makes me so sad because this is exactly the kind of lead poisoning that would never get identified in NZ since we don’t have universal screening of children’s blood. In the US, babies have a little finger prick…

Remember my post about craft paints from a few weeks ago? Ha. This is my daughter at playcentre this morning. (!!) I just wanted to share this to illustrate that while it’s important to learn about all the things that have lead and other toxicants, it’s also important to balance minor exposure risks with other experiences that bring joy, learning and exploration. Would I let this happen every…

Warning: rant coming. I just read the Politico article in the post I just shared about how Big Oil used their clout to stand in the way of safer fuels so that they could protect their profits and keep leaded aviation fuel as the standard for airplanes with piston engines. Which, by the way, is used in New Zealand too. And every neighbourhood and school within a kilometer…

To follow on recent discussion of face and craft paints, I’d like to share some more of the XRF testing results from my project in December. We tested yellow, red and blue tempera paints that I collected from my home and playcentre. One set was Fivestar brand and the other was Fas. The lead levela were below detection limits but they all had measurable cadmium. The allowable cadmium…