Household Hazards

How Everyday Products Make Us Sick

Dr. Paul D. Blanc MD MSPH is Professor of Medicine and Endowed Chair in Occupational and Environmental Medicine at the University of California San Francisco. See full bio

August 26, 2009, Health

Getting the lead out

Legal suit calls attention to lead in artifical turf

The week following my last posting on lead hazards in artificial turf, the California State Attorney General, Jerry Brown, announced a major legal settlement with the manufacturers of AstroTurf. Under the terms of the agreement, it was reported that the company will take the lead out of its product, cover the costs of lead testing at day care centers and other public sites, and pay legal penalties (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-astroturf-lead15-2009aug15,...).

California successfully sued the company because its landmark Proposition 65 law carries strict warning requirements for hazardous chemicals - a protection lacking at the Federal level.

Ironically, a few days later AstroTurf was featured prominently again (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/opinion/19sager.html), this time in an op-ed commentary about the orchestration of opposition to health care reform. AstroTurf, used metaphorically, refers to the difference between true grassroots political efforts and corporate-generated campaigns.

The manufacturers of artificial turf still maintain that their lead-contaminated products did not pose a risk, but there seems to be little wider support for that position, either of the true grassroots or AstroTurf varieties.