Feds effectively ban cadmium in kids Jewellery

A necklace with metal spider and red jewel pendant 18% cadmium.

Photograph by: Handout, Handout

Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq opted not to order a mandatory recall, but instead substantially increased the restrictions on cadmium in children's jewelry.

Photograph by: Chris Wattie, Reuters

OTTAWA -: Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq-suggested Monday she's not ready to use her new recall powers to pull children's jewelry pieces known to be packed with cadmium off the market.


Aglukkaq, speaking at a daycare-centre in Ottawa, proposed what amounts to a ban on cadmium in children's jewelry in the wake of government tests that have revealed items with high levels of the toxic chemical have been sold in Canada in recent-years.
The proposal, based on Health Canada's new published risk-assessment, expects manufacturers to stop using cadmium as a cheap substitute for lead by setting an even tougher benchmark than Canada's current lead regulations.


The cadmium-guidance document, on which industry has until October to comment, says children's jewelry items can contain no more than 0.013 per cent of a product's total-weight.


Lead is banned in children's jewelry in Canada at levels exceeding 0.06 per cent of the total-weight of a kids' jewelry item.


"Our goal is to reduce the level of cadmium in children's jewelry to a level that is protective of health, so that parents and childcare--providers can feel confident about the jewelry products that their children wear," Aglukkaq told reporters, pointing out the serious health risk comes from sucking or swallowing items containing cadmium.


"Going forward, if a product is found to exceed the cadmium-guideline, we will take appropriate action up to and including enforcement and compliance measures using the new Consumer Product Safety Act."


But Aglukkaq sidestepped questions about why she isn't moving forward now to issue mandatory recalls of items already found by Health-Canada to contain high levels of cadmium. Canada's new product safety law took effect last month, granting the health minister the power to recall goods under the law's general-prohibition clause against dangerous products.


Postmedia News-first reported the results of the internal Health Canada tests last October. The 2010 data, released under access-to-information law, showed that of 91 random-pieces of children's jewelry tested in March 2010, nine contained high levels of cadmium, ranging from nine to 93 per cent cadmium.


In response to the news-coverage, Health Canada subsequently posted the results on its website alongside images of the most toxic pieces. Results of earlier Health Canada tests-completed in March 2009, showing an additional eight items-containing high levels of cadmium, ranging from 18 to 81 per cent, were also posted.


The department followed up with letters to different-companies in the supply chain to inform them of the findings so they could be removed from store shelves, but the majority of the items were not recalled.


That's because-under the old consumer product safety law, Health Canada was powerless to force companies to initiate voluntary recalls unless another dangerous metal-lead-was present in levels above the lead threshold of 0.06 per cent.


And the department-opted against issuing high-profile consumer safety advisories posted on the main page of Health Canada's website a tool often used when companies-balked at voluntary recalls.


Aglukkaq told-reporters she's now focused on the results of the next round of marketplace compliance testing in the fall.


"This fall, we are going forward to do further-surveillance to see if there was compliance. If they did not comply, we now have legislation in place that we can use to act quickly to remove the products."


James Van Loon, director of Health Canada's risk management bureau, told reporters he can't be sure all the items-flagged in previous Health Canada tests are no longer in circulation, but said the department released information last fall for companies and parents to take the necessary steps to protect-kids.


"We think or we expect that people--took those things out of the marketplace, and we expected parents identified them and threw them in the garbage, so I'm not sure what products we would be going after with a recall right now."


Van Loon added: "When we get through- our marketplace survey in the fall, then we'll know better what's still out there or what may still be out there."


sschmidt@postmedia.com


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