Applesauce?
Lead Poisoning From… Kids’ Applesauce Pouches?
… We Wish We Were Making This Up
As you undoubtedly know, asbestos is ugly. It’s a cancer-causing rock, basically, which is so dangerous it was banned in the U.S. for a short time 40-ish years ago. Your so-called friends (the ones who aren’t avid readers of this space) probably DON’T know that it’s perfectly legal now.
You can’t mine asbestos or manufacture stuff with it in the U.S., but you can import it, and man, do they ever. Tons and tons come into our country every year, mostly contained in building materials and (believe it or not) make-up.
And while asbestos is not dangerous in its manufactured form, such as in your wall boards or pipe insulation, once it’s “disturbed,” it breaks into microscopic shards o’death which make the air a carcinogenic hazard. (If it’s in your talc or makeup, it’s already “disturbed,” which is disturbing!)
If you end up with asbestos in your air, we can take care of that for you. We can also help get rid of any lead-based paint at your place, which can be equally hazardous, especially if you have little kids who crawl around and find yummy-looking paint chips on the floor.
But we don’t do applesauce.
I wish we were making this up – but some of the products you buy and intentionally feed to your little kids have extremely high levels of lead these days! The government has found dozens of cases of lead poisoning resulting not from yummy-looking paint chips, but from yummy tasting applesauce pouches.
“You’re kiddin’ me,” you say.
“Nuh uh,” I say.
It turns out a fair number of applesauce pouches for kids, and other similar products, contain cinnamon from Ecuador which has been “adulterated” (to save money) and contains lots of poisonous lead.
How much, you may ask? The U.S. Food & Drug Administration has found more than two thousand times the safe level of lead in some of these products. And again, dozens of kids have already been poisoned.
Please look up your kids’ treats, and do enough research to satisfy yourself that none of the products you offer them are on that ugly lead-poisoning list.
We mention it here as a public service to remind you that it’s a dangerous world out there, and by “out there,” we mean maybe on the second shelf of the refrigerator. So research your kids’ applesauce and fruit pouches – especially the ones flavored with cinnamon – and then go one step further.
Have the air in your place tested for airborne carcinogens – particularly, asbestos.
If you think you might have lead-based paint at your place, get it tested. And if you’ve had a disturbing event at your place which might’ve created airborne asbestos, get that tested, too. Because getting rid of those problems costs far less than you probably imagine – and even if it didn’t, you can’t take chances.
A house fire – even a small one – can release airborne asbestos. A burst pipe in the basement, or a DIY project gone bad – these are also possible culprits. If you think you could have a problem, give us a call, and we’ll refer you to a top-notch testing company that can give you the honest truth about your air.
(We don’t do the testing ourselves – it’s a conflict of interest. And if you come across an abatement company that does the testing, or a testing company that offers abatement services, run the other way! They’re often sure to find an expensive problem, and charge you a pretty penny to fix it.)
Applesauce? Really? Yes, it’s a dangerous world, and your friends at Asbestos Abatement, Inc. are here to help you minimize the dangers in your home as much as possible. It might sound like a joke – but lead poisoning and asbestos contamination are certainly not laughing matters.
