Fashion at a Very High Price
From cheerful red handbags to festive green belts, colored accessories are often mandatory for the style-conscious during the holiday season. But what many fashionistas don’t know is that many of these products may be tainted with high levels of lead — and the brighter and shinier they are, the greater the risk.
Accessories in red, green, yellow and orange are more likely to be contaminated than those in darker or more muted colors, new tests show. Use of lead salts to create these brilliant hues — a practice that dates to the Middle Ages — is common in the manufacture of inexpensive vinyl and plastic products.
Why worry? Some experts fear the abundant lead in the colorful outer layer of these products may leave tiny, invisible particles on the hands of consumers, which may end up in food and drink. Further, people handle wallets and other accessories multiple times a day, accruing repeated exposures.
“Lead is a cumulative burden — we tend to store it very well,” said Dr. Bruce Lanphear, professor of health sciences at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver and an expert on lead contamination. Even at very low levels, it has been linked to nervous system damage, cardiovascular problems, kidney failure and many other health problems.
