Stanley Cup Maker Sued Over Lead Concerns: How to Protect Yourself From Lead Poisoning ✨ Ep. 56

If you don't have a Stanley cup, you've definitely seen them online. They're all the rage for everyone from pre-teens to housewives. But the brand recently came under fire in a heated debate over lead exposure. Not only has Stanley been caught in a social media outrage, it's also attracted a class action lawsuit out of California.

I recently made a reel addressing my thoughts on the subject and quickly took it down because the response was so contentious. Look, lead poisoning is no joke. But in my opinion, the outrage is misplaced.  I'm laying out the facts of the case against Stanley cups and why I'm keeping my Stanley cup.

While I understand people's concern, I really urge people to do their own research and come to their own conclusions when they see online outrage. I'm breaking down the case and why this blew up online. But more importantly, we're going to explore the biggest factors that increase your risk of lead exposure.  And I promise you, it has more to do with the water itself than the container you put the water in. 

We're celebrating the strides made since the 70s, when lead exposure ran rampant. But it's still an ongoing battle, so let's arm ourselves with the tools needed to avoid this persistent toxin. I'll share why no amount of lead is considered safe, the cognitive consequences of exposure and with practical tips on water filtration and high risk foods, you'll know how to limit your lead exposure.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to the Detox Telling the Podcast, where toxin-free living meets real life. I'm your host, wendy, an environmental toxins lawyer turn clean living coach, and today I'm going to explain what has social media in an absolute frenzy and even sparked a class action lawsuit being filed in California last week. Yes, I'm talking about the uber-popular and super controversial Stanley Mugs. You either really love them or you really hate them, and this issue revolves around the use of lead solder in Stanley Mugs and whether you should be concerned and whether or not you should throw out your Stanley Mugs. So in this episode I'm going to walk you through what the issue actually is just the facts, and what my personal take is on this issue as a whole, as well as my thoughts on the class action lawsuit. And if you're a mom or pregnant or you just are concerned about the impacts of lead poisoning or lead exposure, I'm going to walk you through some important facts and share the best ways to avoid lead exposure in your everyday life. Ready, let's dig in. So if you've spent any amount of time on social media recently, you I'm sure have seen Stanley Mugs and this idea of lead being inside the solder. So the thing is, yes, stanley has said. They came out and said we do use some lead solder. It's a little tiny pellet on the inside of the insulation and it's used to seal the insulation and then on top of that pellet is a stainless steel. It's like a cap that goes on it. It's the round piece of the bottom. Actually, I have a Stanley Mug right in front of me right now and I'm looking at it. It's the small piece on the bottom of your Stanley that has the little like Pegasus looking animal lion thing. I don't know. Anyway, if you were to find a way to remove that cap or that cap were to fall off, there's a tiny disc on the inside, a tiny little pellet that does have a small amount of lead solder in it.

Speaker 1: 1:59

Now for a little bit of perspective. This is exactly how all of the stainless steel industry has made stainless steel bottles for decades. This is how they were made. Looking around 2016, hydroflask figured out, using their HydroShield technology, how to make that seal without lead, and I've actually heard the owner of Hydroflask talk about this. He said you know, we went through so many failed attempts. It took five years for them to patent this technology and millions upon millions, upon millions of dollars trying to figure out how do we do this without solder that has a little bit of lead in it, because they were using solder that had no lead this lead free solder and it wasn't working. It was just falling apart, the insulation wasn't holding, and so it was with huge effort that Hydroflask figured it out. So if you were somebody who and then clean canteen was next, they figured it out next. But that was only five years ago. So prior to five years ago, every single stainless steel bottle on the market. This is how it was made. This is the industry standard. Thankfully, with Hydroflask and clean canteen, you know leading the way. I've heard Stanley talk that they're very close in technology to figuring out a way also to move forward without using lead and that their hope is in the next couple of years to phase it out completely. But I think it's important context to know, like Yeti does this the big stainless steel. If you go walk into Target and you pick up a stainless steel bottle, if it's not a Hydroflask or a clean canteen, it's made with lead solder, it just is.

Speaker 1: 3:35

All of this came about in hit social media because led safe mama, who is somebody who has kids who had lead poisoning and she has taken it up as her personal passion to expose Products, products that are out there for consumers that are using, especially children, that have lead in them but are not being identified as things that have led. So she actually owns a XRF analyzer which actually can you can identify Lead in multiple layers of paint and other things using it. So she uses this technology and she tests products and then she puts it out on her blog. She's very popular and she has a mission and I completely respect a woman who is passionate and I think that this is an important issue and I'm grateful that she does the work that she does. She's also very science-minded. You know I have read the report she did on Stanley mugs and I think it was very reasonable. She explains where it is. It's on the inside and if that bottom tab falls off, that's when you can be exposed. Stanley has a lifetime warranty. If it comes off, you're supposed to let them know they're gonna send you a new one.

Speaker 1: 4:41

Unfortunately, what happened was people took that report and kind of. You know this is social media. This happens all the time. It's a very dramatic, polarizing conversation, which is unfortunate because it should just be a reasonable, informational and educational conversation. There really shouldn't have been any sides taken on this. It really should have just been a good opportunity to talk about stainless steel water bottles.

Speaker 1: 5:06

And Instead what it became was oh my gosh, stanley's are so dangerous. Everyone went and bought those Swabs which, by the way, is not a good way to determine whether or not there is lead, so we'll talk about that in a second but everyone started posting and saying oh my god, there's, you know, lead and Stanley, we're all being poisoned. And so my feed started getting flooded With people saying you know, throw away your Stanley, cancel Stanley. How dare you Stanley? It became very emotional very quickly and the piece that was missing from all of it was the point that the lead is on the inside bottom of the mug and if that Lead, that stainless steel lid on the bottom, is intact, there is no lead exposure. There's zero, your exposure is zero I. And so I actually did a reel. It was kind of tongue-in-cheek and I was like listen, don't take a sledgehammer to the bottom of your Stanley. And if you noticed the little thing fell off like throw it away, like this is not a reason to be terrified and to cancel Stanley. And if you don't like Stanley because of this whole Neil mom, stanley rush status, whatever. Whatever, that's fine, that has nothing to do with this lead issue. But I think that actually had a lot to do with why this blew up the way it did. Where was Yeti? How come? Yeti is not? Everyone's not mad at Yeti, you know, it's only Stanley, and so I do think a lot of it has to do with the current hype. I mean how quickly Stanleys have grown in popularity.

Speaker 1: 6:39

I will disclose I own a Stanley. I drink in glass, glass mason jars when I'm at home. But I actually really love my Stanley, which was gifted to me by Young Living. I did not buy it. I went on a trip to Hawaii and it was gifted to me and I use it Like if I'm in the car. It's really great to fill up with water. My little stainless steel tab on the bottom is completely intact. I'm not worried about it. I'll keep mine for as long as it keeps that little tab on it and if that tab ever falls off then I'll throw it away.

Speaker 1: 7:09

But the emotions got so high that anybody who tried to talk about this issue got attacked. I had messages in my inbox telling me things like you're making fun of kids who have lead poisoning, which I obviously would never do. I literally teach about avoiding toxins for a living. I had people telling me that I hoped my kids got lead poisoning and how dare I make light of this issue when it's such an important issue? And so ultimately, I ended up taking down my reel just because I didn't feel like it was very productive. It's also not very fun to be on the other side of harassment. Online bullying is definitely alive and well from grown-ass adults, which is very sad but, I think, common, and I do have a following, and so to a certain extent, I think I have put myself out there and it's gonna happen. But I went ahead and took the reel down and I got a lot of messages from people saying can you do a podcast about this? Like, can you walk through this issue? What should we be concerned about? What do we not be needing to be concerned about? So that's what I'm gonna do. So that's the issue with Stanley, and last Thursday there was a class action lawsuit filed in the state of California. So if you are a citizen in California and you purchased a Stanley, if this lawsuit moves forward, it's something you could potentially be a part of and get the cost of your Stanley back to you.

Speaker 1: 8:31

What these women are alleging is basically false advertising. They're saying that Stanley put themselves out there and marketed themselves as being a rugged company that has these bottles that last for a really long time, but that they've admitted that even with regular use, that little tab on the bottom potentially even though they say it's rare it could potentially come off. They also market themselves as being BPA free and as a healthier alternative to plastic water bottles. And they did that without ever volunteering right. I don't think they ever hid the fact that there was lead and in fact if you go on Yeti's website, they actually have like a Q and A. I wish Stanley had had like a little Q and A Yeti's you could find right on their websites and then they actually had to come out and say, yes, this is how we make it, this is how everyone makes it, it's how we've always made it, we're working on it. But basically what they're saying is they hid it, and they hid it on purpose because they didn't want these millennial moms who love their Stanley's to stop buying them, and so they basically said they committed marketing. It's fraud.

Speaker 1: 9:41

I will follow the lawsuit closely. My feeling is we always say in our small little legal community you never know. In California, you know the lawsuit was filed in California and that is a crap shoot. You never know what California is gonna do. I think if this were filed in any other state it would probably be a non-starter, especially because Stanley can say this is industry standard, with very few exception. Most people make it this way and we're working on it and we never hid it on purpose and it's inside. You're not exposed. I think it's a long shot, but you know I've been wrong before. We'll see what happened.

Speaker 1: 10:17

So let's talk about lead for a second, so you can have a clear understanding and perspective about your risk to lead poisoning. And I think everybody's probably aware that pregnant women and children are definitely much more at risk for lead exposure. I'm gonna start with the good news because I think it's always good. If anyone ever asks me do you want the good or the bad, I always say you know, tell me the good first, it'll set the tone. So let's start with what's good. So the way that lead poisoning is assessed is by measuring blood levels, and the blood levels are measured in micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood. That's just the standard measurement of lead in blood. So in the 1970s, the average blood lead level of US children ages one to five was 15 micrograms per deciliter. Okay, so 15. The most recent reported measure that I could find covered the years between 2011 and 2016, and the average went from 15 micrograms down to 0.83 micrograms. So let's celebrate that significant decrease and, as you probably can guess, that decrease is attributed to laws that have been passed that banned lead in paints and lead in gasoline, as well as other prevention efforts.

Speaker 1: 12:37

Lead exposure can be a problem anywhere, but research shows that it's a larger problem in poor communities and is concentrated in cities that are older, like in the northeast. In the Midwest, where everyone has older housing Any home that was built and not remodeled prior to 1978, there's a much higher likelihood that there are lead pipes in the drinking water system and lead paint. Those are the number two most common exposures that lead to lead poisoning in children, and not by a little bit like by a lot of it. Those are the two big ones. Anytime there's a child that presents with high levels of lead, you're always going to focus on where is it coming from? And in the US still to this day. It's these older homes, it's in the drinking water, it's in the pipes and it's in the paint.

Speaker 1: 13:24

So while these lead levels have been dropping significantly among American children, the government's also been lowering the standard, the level that determines whether or not a child has lead exposure and lead poisoning. The reason for that is because our science is getting better. Back in 1991, the standard was 10. 10 micrograms per deciliter. So if a child presented with 10 micrograms per deciliter or more, that was enough to say there's a source somewhere that is poisoning this child. Then, in 2012, that was actually reduced to five micrograms. If a child presented with five, they said this is a problem, there's a lead problem somewhere. Now, as of 2021, the standard is 3.5 micrograms.

Speaker 1: 14:10

We have so much data, so much data, and I think the common things that people know is the IQ issue. So if you're a kid who is exposed to lead at high levels, it can cause intellectual, behavioral, motor-functioned deficits, as well as hand-in-eye coordination and reaction times a lot of things. But something that has come up time and time again in the literature is even low-level doses, and what I saw in all the meta-analysis were things like above five above five micrograms, but maybe a little bit less than that, also can lead to ADHD. So our government is starting to the FDA and the CDC. They're starting to look at what about these low-level between 3.5 and five micrograms. Maybe we need to take a look at those kids also and see what we can do.

Speaker 1: 14:59

And the thing about lead is the higher level that's in your blood, the higher the severity of the symptoms. But remember what I said at the very beginning the average American child has 0.83 micrograms. So while below that 3.5, and while no amount of lead is quote-unquote safe, I will say there's a reality here. And it's a reality I tried to portray on social media when I talked about this is to have a little bit of perspective that you cannot avoid all exposure to lead. There's lead in our soil, there's lead in dust. If you live in a city around an airport, there's lead everywhere, small amounts, but it gets in the soil and it gets in the air and it gets in the dust and it gets in your house. It's one of the reasons why people say don't wear your shoes in your house is because you can track heavy metals into your home and now it's part of the dust particulate that is floating around in your house.

Speaker 1: 15:56

If you're somebody who was like, okay, wendy, just tell me all the ways to avoid lead. What are the top ways that people are exposed that are not water pipes? So obviously I'm going to tell you Go get a really good quality, nsf certified water filter. Everybody needs a drinking water filter. There is lead in your water period. I don't care where you live, there's lead in your water. So you can go over to my Toxin Free Shopping Guide. I have an entire water filter section that is full of all of my top favorite water filters that will remove all of that lead as well as all the other things that are bad for you in your drinking water. And if you don't have lead paint, you don't live in an older house. These are the top sources of exposure.

Speaker 1: 16:37

So the first is high lead foods. There are a group of foods that are more likely to have heavy metals, not just lead, other heavy metals as well, but we're just talking about lead today, and those are, unfortunately, dark chocolates, which has been in the news. I'm sure that's not a surprise. Dark chocolate, plant-based protein powders is a really big one. Spices like turmeric, cinnamon, cassava flour, cassava root flour, balsamic vinegar. These are foods that have higher incidence of heavy metal in them, including lead, and so I would say for those particular set of products if you're somebody who loves dark chocolate, you use plant-based protein powders, you love spices like cinnamon and turmeric, go with a company that does third-party heavy metal testing. That's really the only way that you're going to know that you can avoid it in those things that you're consuming. I'm going to give an example.

Speaker 1: 17:37

There were applesauce pouches multiple different brands of cinnamon-flavored applesauce pouches and there were hundreds of people poisoned children poisoned by these packets of applesauce, and the FDA has been investigating. I actually just read this morning, before I started recording this, that they've identified where they think the contaminated applesauce came from, and it came from Sri Lanka. It came from cinnamon sticks that came from Sri Lanka and then Sri Lanka shipped them to Ecuador and then Ecuador processed them into ground cinnamon and then they put that ground cinnamon into these applesauce which they sold to multiple companies, which is why multiple brands had them, and then they sold them in the US. And I can tell you that these applesauce pouches aren't the only ones.

Speaker 1: 18:24

There is a lot of food contamination in this country a lot. There's arsenic in your rice. When it comes to food, there are just things we can't control because we live in an international community. There's not a lot of standards overseas and, frankly, not here as well, so you can either totally freak out about the fact that you may have some of this in your food or maybe this is the one place that you say you know what. I can't really control it, but if you're buying those highly likely foods like the dark chocolate or the plant-based protein powder, you're going to go with a company that does a third party certification.

Speaker 1: 18:57

The other place that you are exposed are lead-glazed ceramicware and pottery, and that is because lead is used to make ceramic glazes. So things like your crock pot or ceramic cookware that you may have, or ceramic or glazed plates and bowls. Coffee mugs is a big one, you know. In China they ship over a lot of those. People love those coffee mugs. I have those cute little sayings that they can like grab at Target. I'm not saying the ones in Target, but there's a lot of them out there, those cheap coffee mugs that everyone thinks are so cute. So many of them are full of lead. The glaze on them has lead on them. So stick to lead-free. I actually just bought a whole new set of dishes because mine were super, super old. I had them for a really long time. I'm at Mora. There's a company, mora, that I love. They make beautiful ceramic dishes that are completely lead-free and they're tested. I am looking into getting a new crock pot and I already have handmade coffee mugs. And so you know, if you're buying cheaply made overseas things like that, you might want to consider switching to a higher quality, us-made and somebody who says, hey, we are lead-free, so I'm going to ask for it, and here's the proof.

Speaker 1: 20:15

And then, lastly, cosmetics. You knew I was gonna say that, avoiding synthetic petroleum dyes, and there are some colored minerals that can be contaminated with heavy metals also. So when it comes to cosmetics and what you put on your face, make sure you're purchasing from a company in a brand that is making colored makeup that is free of heavy metals. My entire cosmetics section on my Toxin Free Shopping Guide are brands that have no heavy metals. They actually check for them. They are no synthetic dyes, which are petroleum made dyes. You can find those by seeing companies who say like oh, we have yellow, five, red, six. If those are in your makeup. You wanna avoid those. So those are the main sources your paint if you have lead paint in an older home, in your drinking water, especially if you have lead piping in an older home known high lead foods, like we talked about, all the dark chocolate, protein powders, et cetera. Lead glaze, ceramic and pottery. And your cosmetics your colored cosmetics.

Speaker 1: 21:24

If you are somebody that's concerned, I highly recommend you get a blood test. Take your child to a pediatrician. It's a super easy test. You can just go get it done and it can give you a lot of peace of mind. And a lot of people ask me hey, I think my kid might have lead poisoning or heavy metal poisoning. There's all these products on the market like TRS and should I do a heavy metal detox and I? Maybe? This is controversial and against what the holistic community out there is saying. I absolutely do not support or recommend at home heavy metal detoxes ever.

Speaker 1: 21:59

There are some very serious complications that can come from it. If you have a child who does have very high amounts of lead, their doctor may work with you into what they call chelation therapy, but it's done under the supervision of a doctor when you're detoxing heavy metals and you're pulling them out of your body. There are very serious detox symptoms that can happen. It can cause anemia, hypotension, hypoglycemia, heart failure, kidney failure and, yes, even death. So this is not medical advice. This is just Wendy advice. Never do a heavy metal detox on your own using products that are being sold as binders or from people on the internet. Make sure you're working with a practitioner. It doesn't have to be a doctor, it can be a practitioner anybody who has the background and the experience to actually do it and supervise it.

Speaker 1: 22:52

And I'll wrap this up with some full disclosure. My family and I lived in Naples, italy, for five years, and it's an area of Italy that is highly contaminated because of the mafia that is a thing over there. There was a lot of hazardous waste dumping, there are a lot of heavy metals, the water supply there is not fantastic, there's dumping sites, there's PCE, there's all kinds of issues, and we were there for five years. My children went to Italian school. I worked on an Italian facility and I knew we probably had some exposure to heavy metals. I went ahead and did hair follicle testing for all of us. We did have elevated levels. They weren't high enough for me to go to a doctor and say, hey, I want to talk about whether or not chelation therapy could be helpful, but what I chose to do and again, this is not medical advice, this is just me sharing what Wendy did we started doing cilantro and chlorella.

Speaker 1: 23:51

So those two things together from a whole food source, adding cilantro and chlorella. It's really important that you do them together. Those help your body detox heavy metals, it helps unbind them and it helps get rid of them. Some of the other things that are proven to help somebody who's been exposed to lead high amounts of vitamin C, calcium and iron. Those are three powerhouse nutrients that can help your body eliminate lead and stop it from being absorbed and getting into your bones and accumulating in your body. So getting in vitamin C, calcium and iron is just a really. I mean, it's something that really everybody should be doing.

Speaker 1: 24:33

Anyway, from food sources. I'm a big fan of getting things from food sources. Okay, that wraps it up. This is actually one of the longer episodes, but I do feel like it was important to cover all of these issues. I wanted to be really comprehensive. I wanted you to end this episode and be like got it, now I know everything. Thank you, wendy, for explaining that so well. Hopefully I explained it well. I just didn't wanna leave any lingering questions. So thanks for hanging with me today. That is all I have for you. I hope your life is getting just a little bit less toxic. Then I'll see you next week.