Latest posts by Kristen King, Mommy-in-Training (see all)
- Product Review: Lysol Touch of Foam Antibacterial Hand Wash - April 26, 2013
- Losing My Sanity to the Tune of Disney Classics - April 25, 2013
- …And Then He Crammed a Shoe in My Bra - April 24, 2013
I received this email from Baby Bullet approximately 10 minutes ago. Please note that I will be posting Kristin’s test results and the communication she has shared with me to and from Baby Bullet in a separate article, as I noted in yesterday’s article Independent Testing Confirms Presence of Lead in Part on Baby Bullet. I informed Baby Bullet that I would publish this message and any others they may wish to send. Added: See Baby Bullet Lead Test Results. -Kristen
Dear Ms. King:
Baby Bullet, LLC read with interest your February 6, 2013 Blog that appeared on “Amateur Parenting just admit it: you have no idea what you’re doing either” (http://amateurparenting.com/
2013/02/independent-testing- confirms-presence-of-lead-in- part-on-baby-bullet/#more-1075 ). We assume that you prepared your piece in good faith, with the information available to you. Regrettably, relying upon partial information generally results in partial truth, misinformation, and potential confusion. Though not acknowledged in your blog, Baby Bullet, LLC has been in communication with your “midwestern mom, Kristin” (aka “Kristin De Anne” on Facebook and “Disappointed by BB” on Amazon.com) by personal e-mail and telephone. Respectful of her personal privacy and legitimate concern as a parent, we will simply refer to the individual as “Kristin” in this message.
Baby Bullet was first contacted by Kristin by telephone on January 21, 2013. During that recorded call (WAV copy attached for your information), Kristin explained that her son was very sick and had been diagnosed with high levels of lead in his blood. Kristin related that she and her husband had been trying to solve a “medical mystery”: the source of their child’s lead poisoning. She advised that they had used a “home hardware test” to look for lead around their home. She reported that the nut used to fasten the blade to the green plastic base tested positive for lead. Kristin then noted that her husband “took apart” the milling blade and used the kit to test an unidentified part, which she said also tested positive for lead. Kristin said that the Baby Bullet was the only item in their home that tested positive for lead.
Kristin (writing as “Kristin De Anne”) posted a picture on Facebook of the bottom side of a Baby Bullet blade assembly and wrote:
“The center nut tested positive for lead using a test strip from Pro Lab. Can someone tell me what it is made of? A space between the blades and green plastic on the other side showed pink for positive, too, but I am not sure if anything could have leached…”
That same day, Kristin posted a review of the Baby Bullet on Amazon.com, writing as “DisappointedbyBB”. In her Amazon.com review Kristin related, in pertinent part:
“My son was diagnosed with lead poisoning, and a risk assessor was unable to determine a source in our home. Our water was tested, and we determined that to be a primary source.”
Kristin’s husband presumably used the Pro-Lab “Lead Surface Test Kit” to perform his in home tests. Home lead test kits, like that produced by Pro-Lab, are useful for detecting the presence of lead on the surface of household items that may be mouthed or handled by children. The test is fairly simple for an ordinary consumer to perform (http://www.prolabinc.com/
instructions/leadsurface.html ©Pro-Lab, Inc.) and can detect the presence of lead on the swabbed surface if properly performed. The user is instructed to moisten the test pad with approximately four drops of water and to promptly wipe the pad over the test surface for two minutes. When Kristin called Baby Bullet on January 21, she did not know that the water in her home was the “primary source” her child’s lead poisoning. It is unknown whether Kristin’s husband used drops of their possibly lead contaminated tap water to moisten the Pro-Lab test pad before performing his test. Moreover, it is unknown whether the components were washed in their tap water prior to the test. The Pro-Lab test will reportedly detect lead in concentrations “as low as five (5) parts per million”, which is well below recognized safe limits. To place this figure into perspective, the Consumer Product Safety Commission now prohibits children’s toys from contain more than 90 parts per million of lead.Prior to its commercial introduction, the Baby Bullet was thoroughly evaluated and certified under all applicable standards and regulations for its intended use as a food preparing device. Amongst the test protocols followed was the International Electro technical Commission (IEC) Standard 62321:2008: “Electro technical products – Determination of levels of six regulated substances (lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyls, polybrominated diphenyl ethers)”. The IEC standard provides precise, repeatable protocols to test for the presence and level of each regulated substance. Exacting procedures are detailed in the IEC standard to assure that test samples are free from external contaminants (e.g., tap water residue) to assure accurate and reliable test results. SGS labs certified the Baby Bullet under the IEC standard and found it to be fully compliant (safe) for its use in food preparation. No food contact surface in the Baby Bullet is constructed with any hazardous substance and all external components (non-food contact surfaces like the nut) are within safe regulatory limits.
In your blog you report that Kristin believes that the “the presence of lead in the Baby Bullet… may have been a contributing factor to [her child’s] extraordinarily high levels [of lead]”. Respectfully, this is pure conjecture without any factual basis. Your blog reports that in addition to the “center nut”, the “section between the blades themselves and green plastic” also tested positive for lead. This comment suggests that this area was somehow tested in situ. To the contrary, Kristin’s husband actually disassembled their Baby Bullet’s milling blade assembly to perform the Pro-Lab test on an otherwise unexposed and inaccessible portion of a blade assembly.
The title to your blog reads “Independent Testing Confirms the Presence of Lead in Part of baby Bullet”, which evidently refers to the “nut on the underside of the blades”. Your blog further reports that HealthyStuff.org “tested the components in question for the presence of lead”, and states that it found levels “substantially higher than the federal limit of 600 PPM…”. We do not know what “federal limit” is referred to in this context. The Baby Bullet is not a children’s product subject to the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s 90 PPM lead threshold. Your blog reported that Kristin contacted the CPSC, which correctly referred her inquiry to the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates food contact surfaces. The aluminum alloy nut at issue is not a food contact surface, and is compliant with all applicable regulations and standards. Respectfully, the nut and blade assembly will never be handled or mouthed by a child or come in contact with food, so it is questionable how it could be a “contributing factor” to the lead poisoning of Kristin’s child.
We regret that Kristin did not provide a complete record for you to evaluate before posting your blog on the Baby Bullet. Borrowing from the great Paul Harvey: “and now you know the rest of the story.” We hope that in the spirit of balanced reporting, that you share this information with the readers of Amateur Parenting.
Respectfully,
Regards,
Diane Pogroszewski
Director of Customer Service
Baby Bullet, LLC.
O: (877) 514-6922 | F: (818) 995-0051 | babybullet.com
Latest posts by Kristen King, Mommy-in-Training (see all)
- Product Review: Lysol Touch of Foam Antibacterial Hand Wash - April 26, 2013
- Losing My Sanity to the Tune of Disney Classics - April 25, 2013
- …And Then He Crammed a Shoe in My Bra - April 24, 2013
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
excuse my language, but what the hell is wrong with these people, so basically, since the child does not handle the product it’s still safe. I guess babies that live around lead paint are safe as well because you know they didn’t paint the walls. ARE YOU F*CKING KIDDING ME
I don’t think that’s what they’re saying at all. What they are saying is that any part that touches the food meets food grade standards, and those that don’t touch food meet the standards for non-food grade products and materials.
Just by the “tone” they took in their response, I will never purchase an item from this company. Their only concern in their reputation and their profit, not the well-being of my son, your daughter or anybody else’s child. Some company.
Wow, I am so glad I never bought one of these! What a dishonest company. They must have forgotten the statement they made saying there was NO lead in their product. I will be spreading this news to all of my friends.
What a slanted group of replies. The companysent quite a nice reply considering the blog is slanderous.
Ijust used a $200,000 laser spectrometry gun and no food contact surface has any lead in it. The nut did not test positive on my unit, either. I did not tear it apart to get to the insides.
The lab results are never posted, a true sign that there is no factual basis and that this is a slanderous campaign against BB. You’re lucky this letter was so nice and not a cease and desist or even worse, an injunction and libel lawsuit. I’d have your site taken down in 24 hours and your home taken away within 6 months.
Thanks for your comment, Mike. I tried to touch base with you via e-mail to ask some follow-up questions, but messages sent to the address you provided in your comment form came back undeliverable because “The email account that you tried to reach does not exist.” So, if you happen to read this, please shoot me an e-mail using the contact form on the site.
FYI, the lab results were posted on February 8. I’m sorry you weren’t able to find them on the site, despite the fact that they were published the day before you left your comment. For future reference and in case anyone else struggled as Mike appears to have, they are at http://amateurparenting.com/2013/02/additional-baby-bullet-test-results-from-healthystuff-org/. I also posted a link Baby Bullet’s SGS testing results before that post went up at this link: http://amateurparenting.com/2013/02/baby-bullet-posts-2011-sgs-product-testing-results/
I think the reason Baby Bullet reached out in the way they did is that it’s just as important to them as it is to concerned parents that they keep open the lines of communication between the company and its current, former, and prospective customers. Going after small-potatoes mommybloggers for simply compiling information — and posting both sides of the story — isn’t exactly going to warm the hearts of their customer base. I told Baby Bullet in my reply to their e-mail and will reiterate here that I am happy to publish any additional clarifying information Baby Bullet wishes to send me, and I will stand by that promise. There is no “slanderous campaign” here.
For what it’s worth, the cause of action for a defamation suit, whether spoken (slander) or written (libel), according to the Defamation section of Laws.com is:
That third criterion is key (hence my italics). I have stated nothing that I know is false, and nothing I have heard so far tells me that I should have known something published here was false. If I’d known something was untrue, I wouldn’t have published it. Which is why I didn’t say a word about this issue until I saw test results confirming the presence of lead in the product in question. I hope that relieves any concerns you have! If not, you’re welcome to comment again. Please do double check your e-mail address, though, in case I have follow-up questions to THAT comment. Thanks for reading!
What they are saying is that all surfaces that come into contact with food are within the legal limits if it contains any lead at all, and that the test method used by the consumer was inappropriate. The water contaminated the test. In regard to HealthyStuff.org XRF results, the report was more confusing than anything else because they did not have any statement regarding the instrumentation and methodology used in testing, calibration technique, or conclusions. Looking at ALL of the results, the part in question (the nut) that tested positive for lead clearly shows Copper K alpha and K beta peaks and nothing else. The lead L peaks – which would be most prominent – would be between 10 and 12 keV, and as you can see, THERE ARE NONE, not even a hint of a peak. In fact, NONE of the pieces tested yielded lead peaks. I also noticed lots of background noise in several of the results. Given that I have no idea who carried out the test, if the lab is accredited, or what instruments/methods were used, it’s impossible to draw a conclusion from the results, but I definitely do not see lead in the spectra provided (as a metallurgist with 10+ years experience in materials testing & characterization) though once again, it’s impossible to draw conclusions since I have no baseline.The FDA guidelines are .226 ppm for food surfaces, .1 ppm for drinkware, and anything over 3 ug/mL is banned for food purposes. If it doesn’t come into contact with food, it is not required to follow the FDA lead standards.
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