[sayhar]

So I went into a big rabbithole of writing up a long email to my family warning them about specific plates and so on. Then I paused -- was any of this real?

I looked up on Snopes -- they didn't seem to be too convinced that she's legit[0]. Some more googling didn't seem to show any reputable site repeating her claims.

It's hard to tell if any of this is true or not. (Especially since there's a difference between a _cracked_ or chipped plate vs a normal one)

[0] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/vintage-pyrex-contains-uns...

[nate_meurer]

That snopes article is one of the worst ones I've ever read. Snopes does some good work, but they also do some really terrible work, and this is a good example. The writer, Kim LaCapria, is clearly way out of her depth on technical topics.

Notice that the article doesn't provide one single piece of evidence of its own. Kim offers only a contorted narrative about FDA regulations and manufacturer denials, and complains about being unable to find "alternative sources". But the widespread use of lead pigments in ceramic glazes and paints is so well known, and so easily verified, that this is a bit like complaining about alternative sources for the color of the sky.

Tamara's XRF results can be easily verified by anyone with access to an XRF machine. You can take your dishes to any county health department and have them tested by XRF, and you'll see similar numbers. This is what I did with my old Lenox dishes, and the XRF revealed over 5000 ppm lead in the surface glaze. I've had dozens of pieces tested this way, including pyrex, corningware, radom kids cups, etc, and the numbers I get match Tamara's. And of course they do. It would be stupid for anyone to fabrinate this data, because it's so easy to verify.

Anyone can buy a LeadCheck swab for a buck or two and test for mobile lead at the surface. This is mostly how I test the stuff in my house, and it's how I know that my contaminated dishes were an actual poisoning hazard. If the lead comes off on a swab, then it will come off on your hands, in your food, and in your baby's mouth.

It's a similar story with cords and brass plumbing fittings. The facts of lead-based heat stabilizers used in PVC cable jackets, and the high lead content of traditional water works brass, are as incontrovertable as the sky is blue.

Kim LaCapria at Snopes doesn't seem to understand any of this. There's no indication that she even knows what XRF is, or how widely available these devices are.

[fighterpilot]

If I want to test things in my household should I even bother with XRF testing or do you think LeadCheck is sufficient?

[nate_meurer]

I rely almost entirely on the swabs for testing things around the house, because they're what I have, and they tell you whether lead is actually transferable from a surface, versus being merely present in the material.

But if I had an XRF tester I would use it all the time. The swabs are relatively slow, especially the way I use them, and they don't work at all for some things. For example, a swab won't tell you if there's lead paint under a layer of safe paint. This is important because that lead paint is just as much of a hazard when it chips or when you do any remodelling. You can scrape away paint a layer at a time to swab it, but you'll never get a whole house tested this way, whereas an XRF could do it in an hour or two.

Every so often I gather up some particular things and take them to the tri-county health department here in south Denver for XRF testing. The last batch I took included some old red-painted hand tools, a chip of red paint from a yard decoration, a set of chinese-made pastel crayons that my kids got for christmas, and a bag of dust I collected from the HVAC in our house. These things aren't testable with swabs; the dust isn't swabable, and the red tools and pastels colored the swab regardless of lead content.

The people there are friendly and eager to help. I made an appointment, and the lady actually drove in for it from a different department. She tested all my stuff in about 15 minutes, and everything came back negative except for one of the red tools. Even the chinese-made pastels were completely clean, which surprised me.

Fun bonus: she told me a story about how the county health department updated their standard household lead testing protocol twelve years ago after some guy brought in a bunch of dishes that tested shockingly high. Guess who that guy was? :)

[iaw]

Was his first name Nate?

[nate_meurer]

Yes! It was actually the lady's former supervisor who tested my dishes back then. She's since moved on, but the new lady told me that neither her boss nor anyone else in the health department had thought to look at dishes. I remember her being shocked and somewhat confused when she saw the XRF reading, and when the swab turned bright red she said, "oh my".

I felt like I was going to throw up, knowing that I'd been feeding my kids off those dishes for years. I've had to really work at putting that burden down and moving on. I never had my kids blood tested, and they seem fine, but I've love it if my experience helps someone else avoid the danger.

[fighterpilot]

Looks like we either need some new regulations or some better enforcement because that's just disgusting. Glassware for everything it is, I guess.

[colpabar]

If you're worried about misinformation online, snopes should absolutely not be the first place you look.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28169681

[giantg2]

Don't forget to warn them about the uranium plates

[raxxorrax]

I would prefer uranium plates to lead plates. Long term I would use the good stuff like plastics though.