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Michael Green Glen Rice Jersey , Executive Director (MG): The mission of The Center for Environmental Health (CEH) is protecting communities and families from toxic chemicals. We were looking for things children come into contact with that might have lead. Lead is a serious neurotoxin that can cause learning disabilities, behavioral problems and brain damage. In 2004 we discovered tested lead in jewelry and found it was extensive.

FJ: Once you found the problem, what happened then?

MG: We filed a suit against 100 large companies in 2004. I think a couple months after that we filed our first legal notices, 150 million pieces of lead-contaminated cheap jewelry was pulled from gumball machines around the country.

I assume that the lead jewelry came mainly from China, since that has been in the news.

MG: The gum ball jewelry was made in India. Lead is used as a raw material because it is cheap and easy to use in metal. In PVC plastic it's used as a pigment and a stabilizer to hold other chemicals together.

FJ: Did these companies knowingly sold lead children's jewelry?

MG: Hell yes. You can quote me. The buyers from Wal-Mart and Disney definitely knew about the lead issue. All the manufacturers knew. They refer to different metals by the percentage of lead that they have in it. Their basic attitude was Gerald Green Jersey , "Well, there's not much lead in it, who cares because everyone else is doing it."

After the initial suit, you continued to push the issue when even recently is in the news.

Yes. We went to California legislature and made the settlement law. California is 10% of the market in the country. You are not going to have two lines-one in CA and one nationally so the legislation should create a new national standard that may force the small companies to comply as well

Having said this-who is testing for this jewelry now? Only companies party to the settlement. The Feds don't have resources or the will-not with Bush in office, so there's inadequate enforcement. Is crazy Dwyane Wade Jersey , but it is a small nonprofit in CA that was joined by the Attorney General of CA. Recently Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a lead protection for children bill into law.