Were You Poisoned By Christmas Lights This Year?

Written by Sarah Cain Thursday, 27 December 2007 23:00

Whenever we drive down our street, it seems that we have the only house not illuminated with Christmas lights.  Instead of feeling left out of the crowd, we feel that our lack of Christmas lights makes us the safest house on our road.  We considered dressing the house for Christmas with red and blue lights, both outside and in. They would have mixed in nicely with our neighbors' houses, but it failed to turn out that way.

We had actually visited Walmart to purchase lights, because we expected them to have quite a selection. We were correct, and half of their gardening section had been replaced with Christmas decorations.  After debating on a color scheme, we purchased several boxes of lights.  Zach and I looked forward to making the house brightly-lit.  I read the box more thoroughly when I arrived home.  Mixed in the warnings about electrical shock hazards, I found:

"Handling the coated electrical wire on this product exposes you to lead, a chemical known to the State of California to cause birth defects or other reproductive harm. Wash hands after use."

For the safety of the family, we decided against using the lights.  It was not a difficult decision.  Would you put a child at risk of lead poisoning for the sake of a pretty display?  You may remember the thousands of toys and lunch boxes which were recalled earlier this year after being found to contain lead which was above "safe levels".

The most dangerous attribute of lead is how it absorbs through the skin, and this is what made the lunch boxes story so horrifying. The lead would have absorbed through the hands of children, who then put them onto their food, and into their mouths. As if the skin reaction were not enough on its own.

The lead of Christmas lights is used to stabilize the polyvinyl chloride (PVC plastic), which coats the wires. Without lead, the PVC would crack and crumble with age. Lead is also a fire retardant for the PVC, because PVC is a material considered to be a fire hazard. Is it a good idea to wrap your (flammable) tree in this stuff, and then apply both a voltage, and potentially hot light bulbs to it; considering that it emits a heavy metal toxin at a place where children are expected to play? I profoundly believe that parents would happily manage with slightly less flexible Christmas lights in exchange for having no lead in their children's bodies, and for something that would be much less likely to burn-down their houses during Christmas.

When Walmart corporation was questioned, a representative provided the following reply:

"It is our understanding that the manufacturers' use of lead in these products is to improve the safety of the lights. We are told that the use of lead is required by Underwriters Laboratory, an organization that certifies the safety of lighting products in the United States. The amount of lead used is a tiny amount and does not exceed any applicable federal guidelines. Our holiday lights meet industry standards and are compliant with state and federal regulations governing their sale.

"However, the State of California requires a warning label on any product that contains lead in amounts that exceed California's very low threshold for warning of the presence of lead. The warning doesn't indicate that the product is illegal to sell. It only indicates that the product contains a substance, which California considers to be hazardous. At the present time, no other state requires a similar warning. To avoid separate packaging, many manufacturers place the Californian-required label on product they ship to other states."

After reading this, and searching for lead-free Christmas lights, it seemed as though there were none available. At least, there are none made in the U.S.A.. Many health conscious parents bought lights from Canada this year to avoid the American regulation by Underwriter's Laboratories requiring the infusion of a heavy metal poison for Christmas lighting products.

The idea of "safe levels" concerning accumulative toxins always seems ridiculous to me. How many times does a child have to be exposed to "safe levels" of the poison before his body has accumulated enough to be no longer safe? Due to a body's inability to flush it, lead simply accumulates throughout one's lifetime and before long, it will almost always be found to be at an unsafe level within a body. It really is part of a chemical process of dumbing-down America.

So, how safe are the so-called "safe levels" for a child? Not at all, according to a recent study by a laboratory hired to investigate by CNN. Their study proves that even safe levels can significantly lower the I.Q., and another study by Michigan State University proved that lead in the blood is a contributing factor to Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). Dr. Trasande commented:

"Even at one microgram/deciliter - the lowest level in a person's blood stream that we can detect - that level has been associated with cognitive impairment in children."

According to the double-standards set by regulators, the "safe" levels for lead in Christmas lights is conveniently higher than those which would be considered unsafe in children's toys: convenient for the industry that is. The study by an independent testing organization called Quantez Laboratories revealed that surface levels of lead on Christmas lights were far higher than the Consumer Product Safety Commission's recommended limit of 15 micrograms for children. In fact, Walmart brand lights (which were the highest in surface lead), had levels ranging from 86.6 to 132.7 micrograms.

I am glad that we chose not to use lights this year, despite how pretty they may have been.