Product Liability Law Blog

With Halloween just a few days away, the Food and Drug Administration is warning parents to be on the lookout for face paint that may contain lead, mercury, and other dangerous toxins. It turns out that using face paint, once thought a safer alternative to wearing a mask (which sometimes makes it hard for a child to see out of and can increase the chances of injury during a fall accident or a pedestrian accident), isn’t necessarily a good idea.

The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics says it tested 10 of the more popular face paints out there and found that all of them contained lead. Six of them had skin allergens, including cobalt, nickel, and chromium, at levels higher than what the industry recommends. Also, the group discovered some labeling discrepancies. Some of the products say they are hypoallergenic when in fact they are not. One product’s label noted that the face paint was hypoallergenic and nontoxic when it actually contains high levels of lead, nickel, and cobalt.

The levels of lead that the study detected in the face paints varied from .05 to .065 parts per million. Although this is lower than the federal government’s limit for toys at 300 ppm, the medical community believes that any exposure to lead can be dangerous for kids.

For children, lead poisoning can lead to aggressive behavior, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, impaired neurological development, learning disabilities, hearing problems, muscle and joint pain, slowed growth, and brain damage.

It can't be good for a child to wear lead paint on the face. He or she might even end up licking and swallowing the paint. Our child injury lawyers represent the families of children who suffer from serious health issues or have serious injuries caused by a defective or a dangerous product.

If you decide to paint your child’s face this Halloween, the FDA is recommending a number of safety precautions, including:

• Make sure that the paint you select is intended for use on human skin.
• If the paint smells bad, throw it out.
• Conduct a patch test first. Test it on a small area of the body to make sure an allergic reaction doesn’t develop.
• Check ingredients on the product.
• Don’t use face paint that is fluorescent or luminescent near the eye area.
• Wash off completely after use.

Happy Halloween!

Trick-or-treaters beware: Lead and other toxins in face paint could be scariest part of Halloween, NY Daily News, October 28, 2009

Warning: Halloween Face Paint Can Be Scary, The Daily Green, October 19, 2009

Related Web Resources:
Campaign for Safe Cosmetics

Food and Drug Administration

Childhood Lead Poisoning, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention

Continue reading "Dangerous Kids' Products: Lead in Paint Can Put a Scary Face on Halloween " »

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Posted In: Injuries to Children & Minors , Lead Poisoning

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Despite the massive product recalls in the past few years due to high levels of lead in certain consumer products, as well as the fact that the toxic ingredient has been banned from household paint for over 30 years, lead poisoning continues to be a health hazard—especially for young children. Lead is more dangerous for young kids, who absorb lead more easily into their bodies. Because their brains are more sensitive to lead than the adult brain, young children are more at risk of sustaining some of the serious injuries that can result from lead poisoning.

Just last week, a Mississippi family was awarded $7 million on behalf of a teenager that continues to experience developmental difficulties following exposure to toxic lead-based paint. Trellvion Gaines’s family claims that he inhaled lead paint dust and chips while staying at his grandmother’s home.

The residence was painted in the early 1970’s using Sherwin-Williams paint. After the lead paint was banned, Gaines’s family claims that they followed the directions provided by the paint maker to remove the old paint and replace it with safer paint. They contend, however, that the toxic paint chips and dust was created when they sanded and scraped the old paint (per the paint manufacturer’s directions).

Gaines, who is in his late teens, now has learning disabilities and his reading abilities are equivialent to that of a second grader. Ingesting paint has been known to increase lead blood levels and cause lead poisoning, which has been linked to cognitive and developmental problems in kids, as well as other catastrophic complications, such as traumatic brain injuries, injuries to the nervous system, mental retardation, growth retardation, coma, and death.

Also this month, another family agreed to settle their New York lead poisoning lawsuit for $1.6 million. The Utica family claimed that four siblings were injured after they were exposed to lead paint chips in two different homes.

Rankeem Gilmore, 17, Tashawn Gilmore, 18, Delqwon Gilmore, 20, and Shaquanda Gilmore, 21, will divide the settlement that two landlords will pay them. Although lead paint can no longer be used to paint homes and other buildings, the toxic paint is still be found in many older homes in the US.

Products Liability Lawsuits
Product manufacturers are supposed to make sure that their toys, paint, and other products do not contain levels of lead that are dangerous enough to cause serious injury to people. Unfortunately, this is not always the case.

Examples of products that may contain toxic levels of lead:

• Paint
• Drinking water
• Painted furniture
• Painted toys

Utica family awarded more than $1 million for lead exposure, UticaOD.com, June 13, 2009

Mississippi jury rules against Sherwin-Williams in lead paint contamination lawsuit, Newsday, June 30, 2009

Related Web Resources:
Lead Poisoning, Mayo Clinic

Toys and Lead, CDC

Consumer Products Safety Commission

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Posted In: Catastrophic Injuries , Injuries to Children & Minors , Lead Poisoning , Mississippi , New York , States , Traumatic Brain Injuries

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