Think Reading to Your Kids is Good for Them? CPSC Warns Ink in Older Copies of Children’s Favorites May Contain Toxic Lead

Tens of millions of older copies of popular children’s books like Dr. Seuss’ “The Cat in the Hat” and “Madeline” may be printed with ink that contains dangerously high levels of lead, product safety officials warn.

While many families take pride in passing down dog-eared copies of their favorite children’s stories that have been read to generations, that practice may not be the best idea.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission says it is considering urging public and school libraries to pull children’s books printed before 1986 off the shelves while the federal agency investigates whether the ink in the books contains unsafe levels of lead. However, some experts are calling the CPSC announcement “alarmist” and saying that the danger from lead in the print of children’s books is so slight that no such action is needed.

At a minimum, the planned request that millions of books in libraries across the United States be pulled due to concerns about lead in ink appears to be akin to using a sledgehammer to kill an ant.

Lead Poisoning from Reading?

Lead poisoning can cause devastating, permanent brain damage and other behavioral problems, particularly in young developing children. Lead paint in homes and on toys has long been a focus of officials seeking to limit children’s exposure.

However, the new warning from the CPSC appears to be the first time older books, possibly printed with ink containing lead, may be a risk. The agency is interpreting a newly passed federal law which bans anything more than minute levels of lead in products aimed at children age 12 and younger to apply to children’s books. Some legal experts said books are not included in the law.

More than 116,000 public and school libraries across the United States “should take steps to ensure that the children aren’t accessing those books,” according to the CPSC. The agency said library officials could choose to put books printed before 1986 in storage until testing has been done to determine the risk of lead exposure from such books. Some library officials have said few children’s books of that age are likely still in circulation.

CPSC testing of the books is scheduled to be done sometime in 2010, officials said.

Is This Overkill?

Jay Dempsey, a health communications specialist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said lead-based ink in children’s books poses little danger. He said even though many young children chew on books or suck on the pages and covers, seemingly increasing the risk of lead exposure from the ink, Dempsey said on a scale of one to 10, “this is like a 0.5 level of concern.”

We agree. Even in those cases where older books are passed down through families from parents or children or grandparents to grandchildren, the risk of harmful levels of lead being ingested by children seems remote at best. Removing tens of millions of books from libraries all over the United States for at least a year until federal product safety officials conduct additional testing seems like an unnecessarily broad reaction to a perceived threat.

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